Talks From A Assembly Company.

[r00tw00t]

Add a nice tatoo with your internet connection speed and they'll lick the dirt off your shoes

Or the Pandora logo! And the girls gonna ask what it is, and that's when I tell them about the heartbreaking story of me waiting and waiting for the console. And they will feel sorry for me and take me into their arms and hold me and ... success!

 

[svs-57]

Errmm... you DID tell him that neither the board nor the case production is done by people in the SPARE time but by companies who do that for a living?

Yep, the DESIGN of the case and board as well as software has mostly been done in the spare time - but that's over now.

And assembly will not take place in spare time either, we gather a team which will work fulltime on assembling the stuff.

So... let me see, we got approx. 200 days left until 2011 (already substracted a few days because of holidays, etc.)
If we have 4000 Pandoras to build, that would mean that we shouldn't build more then 20 units a day. Since we are working something between 10 - 12 hours on assembling (maybe even more), that would mean no more than 2 units per hour.
MichaelW made a video tutorial showing us how to assemble a Pandora. He does it really slow and repeats steps quite a few times to really show you how to do it.
That does take 17 minutes.

So if one person is working REALLY slow to build a Pandora, it takes 17 minutes - which would be a bit more than 3 units per hour.
That's already too fast.

We have at least 8 people assembling Pandoras - so how slow should they work?

It's depends WHEN you'll start assembling.
Long time we considered that everything ready for assembling but you know that we have now.

 

[JayFoxRox]

Not to mention they actually have stations - or in other words: something like an assembly line.

http://divisionoflabour.com/archives/000006.php


This will speed up things A LOT. Besides that it was known that the team will work fulltime on assembly as they are going to be in the UK.
The fact that the team is working on it means that at least 3 people work on it fulltime (as they are not at home, not able to work in their normal jobs): ED, Craig, MWeston. Most likely mfk will also join them and they already asked for volunteers who have expierence (work at support for notebooks etc.).
[Besides that the Pandora was designed to be easily assembled and disassembled. Unlike the PSP for example which has multiple smaller boards, lots of tiny parts etc.]

//Edit: Stop with the stupid "We don't know when it starts" - it was about time required to put the Pandoras together. That person spaceballs now probably didn't consider the fact that assembly would only start in... lets say 2 month. He probably added 4 weeks or so to get all the parts - but thats it. But those 4 weeks can be safely ignored if you consider the fact that he still thinks the team would only finish 4000 Pandoras in more than half a year (which is extremly slow - you wouldn't get many Pandoras in 4 weeks therefore and thats why you can ignore that additional value he MIGHT have added).

 

[mali]

Or the Pandora logo! And the girls gonna ask what it is, and that's when I tell them about the heartbreaking story of me waiting and waiting for the console. And they will feel sorry for me and take me into their arms and hold me and ... success!

^ Sounds like a plan

Ok now, enough of this off topic, I'm gonna put my undead corpse into the sun now and chop some wood. The babes like it when the sweat runs down my steeled hairy body

 

[JayFoxRox]

Forgive me for thinking like that, but censorship would do this forum a favour...
F*CK! Assembly is getting near, but people keep bugging every second, when this, where that, how this, what who when where, If I, If only, If, If, If... damn, guys, this WON'T make your pandora ship faster! Go speculate in hell! Why don't we try to discuss useful subjects, not ED's schedule or Craig's fanclub...
you can delete my post or ban me, i don't care.

Which forum would ban someone for this post? Besides that you even noted the lack of administration here..

Oh and besides that: how did you get the idea that every 1st batch Pandora is going to be signed? (I'm quite sure that you implied that in another topic)
That was a consideration at one time but I think it got dropped. and personally I probably wouldn't want my one signed. I'm fine with a card with autographs, but hell.. its nothing too special neither (especially if you consider that they would sign 4000 which would take hours + it would be stupid as the signature doesn't have any personal message behind it anymore) nor are these any sort of superhumans..

 

[WizardStan]

I feel he better qualified to gauge lead times better than anyone here, since he does it for a living.

I'm sure he's one of the best in the business. Based on the information you gave him, he came up with a number. I bet that, based on the information you supplied, the timeline he pictured is pretty accurate. Since his timeline doesn't seem realistic based on what ED has said about shipping times, we can conclude that you fed him incorrect information. Unintentionally, of course, but you've already admitted that you didn't know one thing and just made up a figure, how much more did you not know and just guess at? This is why ED (and I, and I'm sure a lot of others) hate speculation; we don't know all the information, it would be impractical if not impossible for us to know all the information, yet people are coming to conclusions based on the speculated data. Garbage in, garbage out, as the saying goes.
Did you also tell bossman that the parts for the second batch were ordered months ago? They had planned to have a few months break between batches, but thanks to the delays with the first batch, the second batch is going to be hot on the heels of the first. At this time, "lead time" is practically non-existent.

 

[atomicthumbs]

I asked Bob down at the store and he said something about Arabs and 2012, so we might be waiting a while.

 

[Bosbeetle]

I asked Bob down at the store and he said something about Arabs and 2012, so we might be waiting a while.

bob

 

[kuru]

Is it possible to see this pandora assembly video online anywhere?

+1, I would like to see it as well. Admittedly nothing really new there, but you should know our craving by now^^

 

[mindlord]

I thought the same thing... painstaking Panbdora assembly video = Geek Pr0n.

 

[CCmachined]

I do agree the second batch will be a while from now (and more $$)...all the more reason to get in on the first batch.

Grr, I'm tired with hearing this mentality. Many of us weren't happy with our money in the project for so long. "The first batch is soon, we're so close now" is a null argument, it has been for a year.

Please don't remind us money-back-going-to-order-later people how far away or expensive the second batch will be, thanks. ^^'

 

[Creature XL]

Well, according to the companies, everything will ship at the end of this week. If this is true, assembly begins next week.

ED, you know I like you and I have faith in YOU, but we heard those statements 10 times.
Esp. the Chinese are the risk factor. If you/we get a tracking number from the transporter then I believe in any dates you (or Craig) give us.

Again, don't take it personal! Its just I don't believe NOTHING from the Chinese any more.
I would go that far that I only believe they shipped the cases when Craig shows us a photo of them with his local newspaper on it

 

[ashdjones]

It's all about man hours, if they got them (then their set,) but my question would be is where/who is the man hours coming from?

Volunteers were mentioned and local students were mentioned.

I've read post about volunteers, I worry about volunteers staying power. I could see them doing a maybe 1-2 days, but not for days on end, but hopefully it will work out.

I offered up to two weeks, but my Easter Holiday is over soon.

 

[Sphinxter]

Errmm... you DID tell him that neither the board nor the case production is done by people in the SPARE time but by companies who do that for a living?

Yep, the DESIGN of the case and board as well as software has mostly been done in the spare time - but that's over now.

And assembly will not take place in spare time either, we gather a team which will work fulltime on assembling the stuff.

So... let me see, we got approx. 200 days left until 2011 (already substracted a few days because of holidays, etc.)
If we have 4000 Pandoras to build, that would mean that we shouldn't build more then 20 units a day. Since we are working something between 10 - 12 hours on assembling (maybe even more), that would mean no more than 2 units per hour.
MichaelW made a video tutorial showing us how to assemble a Pandora. He does it really slow and repeats steps quite a few times to really show you how to do it.
That does take 17 minutes.

So if one person is working REALLY slow to build a Pandora, it takes 17 minutes - which would be a bit more than 3 units per hour.
That's already too fast.

We have at least 8 people assembling Pandoras - so how slow should they work?

Sounds like a pretty fair estimate, add stuff it in a box and slap a label on it plus you're acutally going to test those right? Wink wink nudge nudge

 

[Exophase]

Hiring 8 people for 10-12 hours a day (for 200 days) going to get really pricey

Why are you still calling it at 200 days?? The whole point is that with this number of people working this number of hours per day nothing like 200 days is going to be necessary. Everything he said should have spelled it out pretty clearly, but since you need the final numbers here they are:

Assembly time = 17 minutes per unit
Total assembly time = 68000 minutes = 1133 hours
8 people at 10 hours a day = 80 man hours a day
Total time for assembly = 14.167 days

Not 200. This is absolute worst case; the actual assembly time is probably under half that, and the actual average hours per day will be more than 10 per person. Unless something huge is missing or something else major goes wrong then there's no reason why this should take more than 3 weeks.

Sorry, but ED has spelled out what needs to be done, while your contact hasn't given any information behind his estimate. I don't blame him though, it's probably you who gave him misleading information.

And I don't know who they're hiring exactly, but I do know that internal team members are amongst the team and they obviously don't have to pay themselves.

 

[QBJECT]

While I want to be clear that I'm not impugning the expertise of spaceballs3000's friend, I'd like to offer another thing to consider.

I've worked in manufacturing for my whole career of 8 years now. It's a relatively short time by some measures, but the experience has been enormously rich. I've had the privelage of working for three small companies whose reputations for quality all lead their respective fields. I wouldn't say I have the expertise to judge anything, but I'd still like to say something about my experience and my perception of the OP team.

What I have seen is that, no matter how management tries, true quality and improvement cannot be systematized to the point where those doing the work don't have to think about it. This frequently mystifies small business owners when they get to the point of having employees with whom they don't work every day. Prior to that moment they tended to attract people with whom they could share their vision of quality and nobody in that environment would have imagined doing less than the maximum. After that point, they end up hiring people whose highest priority is the paycheck, and convincing those folks to go the extra mile to work both better and faster is very tricky.

THE FLIPSIDE to this (and the part I think is relevant to the OP team) is that when a small operation is getting its feet under it, the core personnel are frequently highly motivated and emotionally (as well as financially) invested in the success of the effort. These are the people who can make amazing things happen at the expense of sleep and sanity, and their ability to be revolutionary can't be measured by someone who has been in reliable business for 2 decades, even if that reliability was built on quality.

(I'd also like to point out that I never got the feeling that the 8 people at the Village Hall were going to be ringers hired on for just this assembly project. Craigix, MWeston, ED, Fatih, for starters. Don't at least Craigix and MWeston have significant others who will be involved? And doesn't Craig also have some existing employees at GBAX.com?)

I don't know what's going to happen at OP over the next few months. I've worked R&D a little, too, and it's terrifying the sorts of landmines and roadblocks you can run into, even after production goes into full swing. I'm more patient than some because I only put my pre-order in last December. I guess I just want to caution against getting in a twist over the prognostications of someone unconnected with this particular project. There are too many variables at work here to put ourselves through that kind of pain.

(To be fair, I do think that Fatih's Mandarin-speaking friend should get some solid info out of the injection molding plant and the OP team should make a statement about the status of the housings which does NOT include the word "hopefully". That might go a long way to calming nerves.)

 

[skeezix]

The quick summary is .. everything else asside, as spaceballs wasn't aware of the fact folks are lfying to the UK (and other details), that his assumptions are all invalid, and thus his conclusion; it doesn't have to be insult ort anger towards him. No one can make big valid guesses etc, but we can say his conclusion is clearly incorrect.

(But yeah, it sounds more like 2 weeks to me, too. And if you work it out, 4000 units times 10 minutes works out to a nice demonic number

jeff

 

[benji_stein]

In all fairness, you have to subtract from 200 the number of days until assembly actually begins. When assembly begins is a little uncertain. All we know is that it's been "soon" or "really close" for many months now...so, with that in mind, it isn't *too* outrageous to be looking at the latter half of 2010 for when the last first batch Pandora arrives. I'm just saying, it's hard to differentiate the confidence behind a "soon" right now and a "soon" we heard at the beginning of the year, and so on back in time to when pre-orders began.

Well, according to the companies, everything will ship at the end of this week. If this is true, assembly begins next week.

Sort of, but not quite precise enough. Assembly of the first 500-1000 (I think I heard 700?) will begin, assuming everything ships and is delivered quickly. So to build that chunk, based on the estimates around, will take a few days. A week at the most. That's all well and good, and while I agree with the "15 days or so" of total assembly time, it doesn't take into account the production of the remainder.

The board factory can build/test 500 a week (they claim), which is another 6 weeks, plus delays.
The case factory claims they can do the cases quickly, but they've failed so far on every single one of their time estimates. *IF* they can produce the final 3000 cases early enough in those six weeks, then the OP team can build and ship as the boards come in. If not, then it's an additional two weeks of build time on top of whenever the remainder of the boards/cases (whichever takes long) arrive.

So the best-case (using these numbers) is on the order of 6 weeks for the last first-batch Pandora to ship. Worst case ranges from two months and up, depending on how long it takes manufacturers to get their act together. That's not so encouraging, as delays of any apprecable size push delivery back past the middle of the year. If we run into significant delays (the case moulds were supposed to take 30 days, and it's now been, what, 5 months?) the end of the year doesn't seem so far away, anymore.

Sure, there's a lot of variety, and yes, we don't know. I'm not going to give up just yet, but I'm also not going to hold my breath for mine - I'm not sure where in the queue I am.

 

[BaDToaD]

Or the Pandora logo! And the girls gonna ask what it is, and that's when I tell them about the heartbreaking story of me waiting and waiting for the console. And they will feel sorry for me and take me into their arms and hold me and ... success!

And then it'll be w00tr00t eh?

I'll get my coat...

 

[benji_stein]

Whoops - I'd meant to post this in the speed thread. Please ignore, or delete.