Custom Processing Unlimite said:
Covering each point made in my direction...:
actually, I DID mean exponential... for it to be a 1:1 increase, what you would see is more people making whole pandora's themselves... what I mentioned was exponential because with more workers (as has been pointed out by a post either by Craig or ED, can't remember which at the moment, but leaning toward Craig) they could switch from individual workers making individual pandoras to an assembly line model where each person does smaller portions of work and, overall, produce more pandoras. Which is why 3 workers produced ~70 units while (in the example given in that post) 5 people would produce 150 units. That is not linear... 3^70 is less production than 5^150... a rough example if the numbers continued to increase would be 7^260, 9^400, 11^572... that is figured by only by the fact that production increase is about 7 units per worker going from 3 to 5. technically, we are both correct, as there would be a straight line if those predictions were graphed, but they are exponential because the two lines representing both figures (the workers and the units) would make a wedge vs parallel lines. And chances are, the more workers that are added, the higher the number of units per worker would increase due to less work needing to be done by each worker... why? less work means more productivity, simply due to easier tasks (or less tasks) speeding up each worker's efforts. Should be self-explanitory, but if you need me to explain, I'm long-winded enough to do the job.
Sorry, but no. The mere nature of it being an increasing straight line makes it *linear* and not exponential. Some smart-ass is going to try to point out that a constant is also a straight line, and my response is going to be "sure, with a coefficient of zero". Exponentials aren't "wedges" (not sure where that's coming from), they're curves. See my earlier link.
You want to talk some math? Sure. Using your own data and excel I get the following as the suggested formula: units = 62.7 * people - 148.5. This came from a linear regression, but it had the best R^2 value of the various regressions I tried. That's a *linear* equation, because it's of the form y = a*x + b, e.g. it had a coefficient in front of x, and no powers of x greater than 1. If there were other powers of x, it might have been quadratic, or some other polynomial. But you don't get to exponential until you have x *in* the exponent, e.g. a^x. That would look something like: 2 workers - 70 Pandoras, 5 workers - 150 pandoras, 7 workers - 320 Pandoras, 9 workers - 690 Pandoras. (I'm using 22.316*e^0.3811x here, which was an exponential fit for those first two data points).
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
Wrong... profits, of some type, are necessary for a business to survive. Show me a non-profit that grows, thrives and is worth a damn that has a break-even budget (or a negative budget) in donations and other sources of funding. When a non-profit has a bake sale, they make profits off the food so they can put it back into the organization. If increasing your money by doing things is NOT profit, then what is? Your idea is too generalized to back up on this one, friend. Money is necessary for Business... maybe a simpler fact than the one I pointed out before, but your efforts do earn a "nice try". (and that's not being sarcastic or offensive to you directly, it's just being honest.
Heard of the
red cross? They're a non-profit that provides a lot of aid all over the world. How do they get money? Donations, fund raisers, blood drives, volunteers, you name it. Do they use a lot of money? Sure; they have a budget of about 9 billion USD. But that's not profit, because no one takes home a dime - their expenses are exactly equal to their costs. Compare that, say, to Microsoft, where they consistently make more money than they use. Sure, they funnel a lot of it back into R&D, but it's not the same, because at the end of the day, their goal is to make money. At the end of the day, the Red Cross is trying to help others, and doesn't keep a dime.
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
You misread what I said. Pay by the unit is more efficient and less costly than pay by the hour... if for no other reason than the significant drop in the likelihood that workers would slack off or get lazy. Hourly is the worst of the two. And the time off wouldn't matter unless you were being lazy and elongating the work just to keep the flow of money going. You are NOW ripping off your boss and raising the cost of the product to fill your own pockets. Congrats... the customers will love you for that. With my overall example (where productivity would be the same hourly as it would be by the unit) You make the same amount of money in 5 days as you would/could in 2 - 3... how is that bad for ANYBODY? Would you rather make $300 in 5 days or 3? Do the math, 5 days = $60/day, 3 days = $100/day. still $300 a week either way. Where's the down side???
Sounds great. So then where's the increased cost for OPT on hiring more? Let's say they pay $15 (it divides nicely) per completed Pandora. 3 workers get $5 each, and can produce so many Pandoras a day. At 5 workers, they get $3 each, but will produce more. In the end, you're still paying $15 each for 4000 Pandoras. Sure, there's no down side - and the upside is faster. We don't disagree at all. But I *am* saying that if the cost is the same, then there are no *additional* expenses needed to hire the extra two workers, like Craig had originally
claimed.
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
Again, you misunderstand... I said you'd pay more up-front, not more overall... if paying by the hour - a month's salary will be made in a month, if paying by the unit - a month's salary can be made in 2 or 3 weeks... given that model, with a constant in-flow of products to be worked on, the mfg could end up spending close to 2 times as much money in a month's time for production and end up with more than twice the product as the hourly option. Bottom line is instead of spending $1000 in labor for the month of Feb, they spent $2000... but they most likely get twice the number of finished units, if not more. I'm having a hard time simplifying this any more than I am... especially since most of what I said repeats itself slightly different each time to give a different perspective on the same concepts (as this response is proving)... you completely miscomprehended because I never said it would cost more per unit, as you seem to think I did.
*IF* you have an unlimited supply of orders, then yes you can spend twice as much money on production if you have twice as many workers, and so produce twice as many Pandoras.
On the other hand, if they have a fixed number of units to make and sell, then you can spend half as long with twice as many workers, and so pay the same amount (1/2 * 2 = 1). Or, to use your dates, instead of taking two months to building with 2 workers, $1000 in Feb and $1000 in March, you get all of it built in one month (Feb) with 4 workers, at the same cost of $2000.
I think perhaps we're talking at cross purposes. I don't think *you're* saying it will cost more per unit. We agree there. But *Craig* said he needed more money to hire additional workers, and I'm claiming that additional workers would mean *everyone* works for less time, and so costs are the same. So why the need for the extra cashflow? Clearly it's an excuse to hide something else.
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
Lastly, did you date the times when ED said they were almost out of units to build and when he said they were stockpiling? I am under the impression that you did not. I am also under the impression that the "almost out" statement came BEFORE the "stockpiling" statement. I could be wrong, and you can verify this if you'd like, as I enjoy being proven wrong when I am wrong. But to note contradictory statements without taking into account the time between them is obsurd. My apologies if this all seemed like a personal attack. My efforts here were moreso to defend my direct and simple statements... that most people seemed to have comprehended (or not been willing to speak up that they disagreed)... both which are assumptions on my behalf.
and I am more than honest enough to admit that.
Yes, I did. Both of them were mentioned. On Jan 26th, he'd said they had run out previously - he was referring to the shipment sent on ~ Jan 20th - and we hadn't been told of any additional shipments other than the upcoming one. Then, on Feb 1st, ED says they've been stockpiling. Which mystery shipped boards had they been stockpiling? Again, it doesn't add up.
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
In the end, the only real bottleneck that could be there is production of the components... because whenever OPT gets a stockpile of parts, they can do the "instant pandora" marketing scheme all over again and hire more workers (or hire back those previous workers) to build the units. Its all about getting you what you bought and expect to receive, FASTER! I wonder if anyone factored in the fact that raising the price of the units was creating jobs for people (regardles of how long the term was, jobs are jobs) in a supposedly dying global economy... Wonder if anyone factored in the B2B relations they may be making with local Temp agencies... hmmm... I do wonder...
Except the jobs are already there - it's just whether you spread them out or do them all at once.
And, as I keep saying, you're only guaranteed to get the units faster if the instant pandoras are limited in quantity (still haven't ever gotten that confirmed), and if there isn't a bottleneck in component production. Which I would also find completely flabbergasting, given CC's past performance.
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
(disclaimer: this was NOT a personal attack. If I chose to personally attack anybody here I'd quite literally use a people search service, get on a plane [bus or train, depending on how far away from me you are] and Kung-Fu the crap out of you and whoever tried to save you from me at your front door [quite literally, as I know Kung Fu]... doing it over the internet is useless and a waste of EVERYBODY'S time. Mine for typing it, and everyone else's for reading it... disclaimer over!
)
None taken. I enjoy
proving you wrong the debate, too.
