Talks From A Assembly Company.

[verm71]

Ah, well I wasn't aware of this line below

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

I thought it was just spare time people, and not full time, this will change things.

Curious are you going to get full-time to do assembly? are these volunteers?

By asking these questions, you are also illustrating your lack of knowledge with the progress of the project, information which is openly discussed in these forums. This possibly also invalidates some of the premises you may have stated to your lunch contact. And based on these possibly incorrect statements, he drew a conclusion. Modus ponens. My magic 8 ball says his conclusion is based on incorrect facts, seeing clearly, by your own questions, that your knowledge of this project is also limited.

Yes I gave a run down of what happened to date, in a nutshell told him all parts were available for assembly (and case parts) I gave him a number of 5-7 people (part time, 2-3 days a week) to do assembly (i.e. volunteers), etc.. he did some mental calculations (remember he does this for a living so he's good, or else he looses money if he's off) and gave me that answer.

That could not possibly have been 100% accurate, therefore neither is his conclusion that the Pandora will be released only next year.

Edit:

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

Seems I have suffered from premature objection.

 

[mali]

 

[EmuGuy]

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. ^^'

Whoops...sorry! Won't happen again. B) Sometimes I type before I think...

 

[bodhee]

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.

Wait just one second. We are talking about Europe approaching Summer time here no? Ten hours a day? Don't you guys work like twenty hours a week, ten when the weather gets nice, and not incluidng monthly strikes? In addition, you lack the Mexicans that are willing to work 10-16 hours a day at below minimum wage.
Move the assembly here and you will be done in a week!

 

[quadomatic]

Wait just one second. We are talking about Europe approaching Summer time here no? Ten hours a day? Don't you guys work like twenty hours a week, ten when the weather gets nice, and not incluidng monthly strikes? In addition, you lack the Mexicans that are willing to work 10-16 hours a day at below minimum wage.
Move the assembly here and you will be done in a week!

Did that really have to be that offensive?

 

[closetwam]

Wait just one second. We are talking about Europe approaching Summer time here no? Ten hours a day? Don't you guys work like twenty hours a week, ten when the weather gets nice, and not incluidng monthly strikes? In addition, you lack the Mexicans that are willing to work 10-16 hours a day at below minimum wage.
Move the assembly here and you will be done in a week!

Did that really have to be that offensive?

I don't find it offensive at all; highly exaggerated though. The EU mandates a 48 hour max work week. France and Germany mandate 35 hours. Undocumented South American immigrants will work for a wage that is below the federal and state mandated minimum. Documented and undocumented South American immigrants seem to have a more inspired work ethic than U.S. born citizens. I think that U.S. born citizens are more likely to feel "entitled" than immigrants from any country.

 

[VRAndy]

Has Mexico suddenly shifted onto the South American continent?

 

[twobit]

It's mentioned in this thread that they can assemble approx 3 devices per hour (3.5 if you go by the 17 minutes comment). 8 people volunteering their time for 10 to 12 hours a day.

With that said, per day, one person can assemble a minimum of 30 devices and a maximum of 36. With 8 people doing assembly, that's a minimum of 240 and a maximum of 288 devices.... per day! Impressive.

So...

4000 devices / 240 devices assembled per day = 16 days
or
4000 devices / 288 devices assembled per day = 13 days

It'll take between 13 and 16 days to assemble a batch of four thousand units if they work 10 to 12 hours a day, and the whole group of 8 are doing it simultaneously. Even if they only make two each per hour, it'll only take between 20 and 25 days to make 4000 units! That's still mighty impressive.

I don't expect them to work a full 12 hrs a day, let alone expect them to concentrate hard for 12 hours a day trying hard to put together 3 devices per hour. That's asking a lot of someone who doesn't work a sweatshop on a daily basis. We shouldn't expect them to work days back to back. Not healthy.

I don't want them to race through production. Mistakes will happen if they do. I want a solid device when it arrives at my door. I don't want to have to tighten screws, straighten chassis, peel off spare bits of component wrapping, or anything like that. I want my device to arrive well constructed and carefully put together with love and a smile.

Yes, we're all chomping at the bit to get our hands on these things. We're mighty close now. Just out of reach really. But consider what the OP team has achieved in such a - relatively speaking - short amount of time.

The poster said 2011 is what a professional would expect a team like this to manage to release a device by, given the roadblocks and what they're trying to do. We'll have these by May/June (that's when I personally judge we'll get them), which is a far cry sooner than 2011. And far better than a professional service can do it. If we're to believe the thread poster.

Cheers,
Twobit

 

[bodhee]

Wait just one second. We are talking about Europe approaching Summer time here no? Ten hours a day? Don't you guys work like twenty hours a week, ten when the weather gets nice, and not incluidng monthly strikes? In addition, you lack the Mexicans that are willing to work 10-16 hours a day at below minimum wage.
Move the assembly here and you will be done in a week!

Did that really have to be that offensive?

I don't find it offensive at all; highly exaggerated though. The EU mandates a 48 hour max work week. France and Germany mandate 35 hours. Undocumented South American immigrants will work for a wage that is below the federal and state mandated minimum. Documented and undocumented South American immigrants seem to have a more inspired work ethic than U.S. born citizens. I think that U.S. born citizens are more likely to feel "entitled" than immigrants from any country.

no worries.. a few more years with our current president and we will be working at the same pace.. BTW.. I was half joking (ok.. only 1/4 joking).

 

[rabidpoobear]

I wouldn't imagine it taking any longer than 5 weeks to get it all sorted - probably shorter, ...

I'll mark my calendar in 5 weeks, even from the new information given by ED, I believe there is no way 4k units it's going to be done in that time-frame with the resources mentioned.

EDIT: btw, tell us who this 'expert' is so we can all avoid his services in the future ..

Since you were so nice, I'll omit the expert name, though they did 20 million in Annual sales, and have 150 full time employees.

20 million in sales is not that high for 150 employees, is it?
say they pay 20% taxes (probably they pay more than that), and have $2 mill or so for overhead - building rent, etc. (random estimate)
even if they make 20 million in PROFIT that's ~$93K per person,
but 20 million in sales is probably more like 8-10 million in profit depending on their margins / cost of manufacture.
That would only work out to ~35k per person after taxes / overhead.
And that's before you pay their benefits, and before they pay taxes, and.... etc.

All's I'm sayin' is that 20 million in sales does not a booming business make. now if their overhead is really low and their margins are high, that's probably pretty decent. you just gotta remember all the crap that is involved in such things, is all.

 

[fusion_power]

I'm sure, they will only need 2-5 Minutes to assemble a complete Pandora (if 8-10 people are in one line). This thing has maybe around 20 parts. Should be a easy task, except from the LCD ribbon maybe.
Imagine, the Pandora will be a huge success, and 100,000s of Units are ordered. Then the assembling should be A LOT faster than 3 units per hour. :lol:

 

[verm71]

Has Mexico suddenly shifted onto the South American continent?

[satire]I'm from Canada and we get a clear and complete picture of how all US people are through the tiny aperture of society referred to as a device called "Television". Whenever I hear a US citizen say the expression "America", in my head this translates to the "United States" of said "America". Because when they say "North America" they mean "Canada" (meaning "North" of "America"). Therefore when they say "South America", they mean everything "South" of "America".[/satire]

We love our neighbors to the South and can take a joke just as well as the next guy.

Blame Canada

I bet when this scene from the South Park Movie played in Canadian theaters, it got more laughs up here than it did in US theaters.

 

[spaceballs3000]

I've also worked for an electronics assembly firm, and I can tell you that none of the problems the Pandora people have encountered are particularly strange, weird, unique, or different - sure there has been some degree of management responsibility for the errors and screwups, but based on existing work - over 2 years worth - the Pandora is 95% done. The last bit of work, the last 5%, is what will get the product in our hands, and I wouldn't imagine it taking any longer than 5 weeks to get it all sorted - probably shorter, but based on my personal experience - and not hearsay - this is a conservative estimate to completion of the first 4000.

So, basically, you can take your hearsay and shove it. Pandora is going to be in our hands soon enough, and its been a lot of work to get here already, which simply should not be discounted by some gossip with so-called 'experts' who have no interest in making a positive appraisal of the scene .. ...

Well it's been 5 weeks now, is the conservative estimate of completion of the first 4000 done?

 

[Monk]

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

Surprisingly, this did not happen.

 

[Exophase]

That 6 week delay from when the cases were sure to be here passed by like nothing, eh? >_>

 

[Monk]

If you blinked, you could have missed it. Assembly could start... next week?

 

[WizardStan]

If you blinked, you could have missed it. Assembly could start... next week?

Technically it already has. Didn't Craig say he put one together? Can we call it official? Please?

 

[Monk]

If you blinked, you could have missed it. Assembly could start... next week?

Technically it already has. Didn't Craig say he put one together? Can we call it official? Please?

Ah - but was it? Did that board have the WiFi fix, what with MWeston still in Canada?

 

[Gerix]

I thought that was a special edition, with permanent flight mode...

 

[WizardStan]

Ah - but was it? Did that board have the WiFi fix, what with MWeston still in Canada?

Stop spoiling my fantasies with your well reasoned arguments.