Yeah, I don't know. It may be possible to manufacture it here at a cost comparable to Taiwan. Just looking at Caselabs, for example, their S3 is a fair bit bigger than the M1, but made in the US out of aluminum and only $15 more. So it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. I don't know if they own their own manufacturing facilities though, which can make a significant difference.
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The next NCASE project: a Steam Machine-style case (indeterminate)
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PlayfulPhoenix
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To qualify this a tad, I've just been wondering what the cost structure would look like if we did decide to offshore everything to Taiwan (leave no stone unturned, as they say). In part, I wonder this because the strengthening USD (against the euro in particular) has made US products much more expensive for other countries to import - which could be counteracted by leveraging that buying power in countries that also have weakened currency compared to the dollar... such as Taiwan (USD to yuan has been more stable).
(In addition, Lian Li has a few other positives - they can do certain things manufacturing-wise that are uncertain elsewhere, their quality is a known commodity, and we know they can work with smaller-scale manufacturing runs. Though as Necere points out, that option doesn't come without costs and hurdles of its own)
Still, steel fabricators are a dime a dozen in the US (particularly on the east coast), which makes their services fairly cheap, relatively speaking. And since most units would presumably stay in North America, logistics could be simplified considerably if everything was made stateside.
...But, really, all of this remains little more than conjecture - we just don't have any concrete numbers yet, inside the US or out. At this point, the most economical option for making Nova eludes us.
Needless to say, we agree, but if quality or price suffers wholly as a consequence of choosing one country over another, that's probably not something we'd end up doing
Your comments are informative and well presented - thanks for sharing, and best of luck in your own exploration of manufacturing options/alternatives (and whatever new design you have going)
Aibohphobia
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They have their own manufacturing facility: http://www.pureoverclock.com/Review-detail/caselabs-interview/3/
Don't follow water cooling much though so I have no idea what production volume they're doing.
PlayfulPhoenix
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CaseLabs does their manufacturing in house, see this Q+A by Tom's:
Heh, the economist-slash-business student inside of me thinks all of the SFF case projects on HF should form a collective and coordinate manufacturing runs to lower costs. Or, you know, buy equipment or something
esplin2966
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CaseLabs does their manufacturing in house, see this Q+A by Tom's:
Heh, the economist-slash-business student inside of me thinks all of the SFF case projects on HF should form a collective and coordinate manufacturing runs to lower costs. Or, you know, buy equipment or something
Forming a collective and coordinating manufacturing may not be that crazy/bad of an idea actually. The truth of the matter is, none of us alone has the numbers to really get good deals on manufacturing. However, if we get 4-5 different designs together, we might have the numbers. We would have to coordinate the designs in order to lower tooling costs, but ultimately everybody gets the benefits of the lowered costs.
Good info, thanks.
That's definitely an interesting and novel idea. Hm.Heh, the economist-slash-business student inside of me thinks all of the SFF case projects on HF should form a collective and coordinate manufacturing runs to lower costs. Or, you know, buy equipment or something
vipz
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Has anyone looked into contract manufacturing with CaseLabs?
Phuncz
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Sad to hear the project is on hold indefinitely but I expected this to be the case when you gave these signals earlier. Even though I don't need a Steambox case, I would have still bought one just to give support.
I tend to focus on buying and promoting products being made outside of China, even though I don't have anything against the continent. I think it's unhealthy when almost everything that's made seems to come out of one country and people seem to ignore the quality difference, craftmanship and research that is needed for a good product. We'll some day learn that it was a mistake but I want to start now, not after.
I too like this. After Apple announcing moving assembly of the Mac Pro to the US, I was glad a huge brand like Apple was going to great lengths to bring back work to the US. Too many countries keep importing from China which isn't good in the long term.
I tend to focus on buying and promoting products being made outside of China, even though I don't have anything against the continent. I think it's unhealthy when almost everything that's made seems to come out of one country and people seem to ignore the quality difference, craftmanship and research that is needed for a good product. We'll some day learn that it was a mistake but I want to start now, not after.
Only recently became aware of this project, were as the M1 had more community word-of-mouth that fed back to [H]ardforum.
Going smaller is definitely appealing, as the shoebox style case versatility is wasted on me. As I personally just need mid-range graphics card support, capable/quiet CPU air cooler, and one SSD.
Having the ability to place monitor on case (if strong enough to support up to 24"), or having case vertical is more appealing than current style options that are trying to appeal to widest market.
I suppose the future RVZ02 release might be a concern due to price difference for perceived size reduction and materials, but don't under estimate the interest in this case based on this forum thread alone.
Going smaller is definitely appealing, as the shoebox style case versatility is wasted on me. As I personally just need mid-range graphics card support, capable/quiet CPU air cooler, and one SSD.
Having the ability to place monitor on case (if strong enough to support up to 24"), or having case vertical is more appealing than current style options that are trying to appeal to widest market.
I suppose the future RVZ02 release might be a concern due to price difference for perceived size reduction and materials, but don't under estimate the interest in this case based on this forum thread alone.
I am not really surprised that it is on hold indefinitely, and I understand why.. but I am still a tad on the sad side, as it is the only steam-machine style case I've seen this far that I'd consider putting in my living room. anyway, looking forward to the next concept..
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wahaha360
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Heh, the economist-slash-business student inside of me thinks all of the SFF case projects on HF should form a collective and coordinate manufacturing runs to lower costs. Or, you know, buy equipment or something
Not a bad idea indeed.
I really wonder, as a collective, can we get enough sales/volume/resources to make stuff in the US.
It would be pretty awesome to create jobs and make cases. Just think about it, strangers meet on an internet forum starts a collective, create jobs and products.
What an exciting experience/journey that would be, we would have so many neat stories to tell, even if we fail.
PlayfulPhoenix
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I'd be lying if I said I haven't wondered about this long before I ended up working on Nova with Aiboh.
But there's a difference between the idealized benefits of such an idea, and the practical (and often-times harsh) reality of actually doing it. Still, as wahaha mentions, it would sure as heck be an interesting pursuit.
iFreilicht
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I absolutely love that idea, but I agree that it could easily fail big-time We should talk about that on sffforum
We should talk about that on sffforum
wahaha360
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I absolutely love that idea, but I agree that it could easily fail big-time
We will try and coordinate with other ppl's projects once manufacturing is closer.
Have you seen mine? Come to the dark side - we have cookies
The main problem of the M1 was it's price and also that, I assume, it didn't turn too much profit for Ncase team leaving most of it to the manufacturer.I absolutely love that idea, but I agree that it could easily fail big-time
If you want to do this you'd need to design the case the way you will at least assemble it by yourself and outsource the parts production somewhere cheap but where they won't simply steal your designs/know-how. So in general no outsourcing abroad since international lawsuit is worst thing that can happen around this because developing countries will most likely protect their own.
So either all of complex and creative stuff is made locally or you make sure that each outsourcing company does one thing and don't get complete documentation. The latter one becomes expensive by simply growing the logistics and decreasing the discount on serial manufacturing because of its fragmentation.
Finally you end up with laser cutting, bending, assembling and painting done in the US. Congratulations - you can manufacture a product but its final price is 400$ per unit thanks to expensive workforce in the US.
Your profit is 50$ a piece before tax. Is it worth it?
We think we can manage this somehow in Poland because the workforce is cheaper almost adequately to the USD to PLN value ratio which is usually around 3,65. That means we have 3.65 times cheaper cost of locally outsourcing the laser cutting, bending, assembling and painting excluding material cost.
The only thing that might somehow work in your favour as US citizen is the lower oil prices but I'm not sure how it would impact the manufacturing price except for slightly cheaper material and lower electricity bills.
Sorry for being too pessimistic but sadly that's how this works.
What do you mean by that?
theGryphon
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Everything else you said makes sense except this. Exchange rates do not translate 1:1 to ratio of cost of goods/services.
Purchase Power Parity (PPP) tries to capture that but it is calculated over a set of goods, which may not represent the intended good/service: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator...api_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=asc
wahaha360
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We are going to try and combine orders with other projects *when the time comes.
So you're going to wait for other projects manufactured by LianLi to pop out and then order it?
What's the difference here than making it alone? I mean the tooling will be different for each of the projects so if you go for 5x200 units each project it won't mean you'll get the price like for 1000 units of same case.
What's the difference here than making it alone? I mean the tooling will be different for each of the projects so if you go for 5x200 units each project it won't mean you'll get the price like for 1000 units of same case.
wahaha360
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I mean things like USB ports, power cable and risers, which can be shared.
If I understand it correctly, he's not talking about exchange rates per se. He's saying that cost of production in the US is significantly higher than in Poland. For example if you bring your materials to a laser cutter in the US, and he would charge you $100, that a similar laser cutting company in Poland might charge around 100 zloty / 3.65 = $27.40 for the same work.
theGryphon
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See, that implies a good/service worth $100 in the US is valued at 100 zloty in Poland, which is a huge assumption which is most likely not true for vast majority of goods and services.
If you look at the PPP chart I linked, you'll see that a US $100 good in the US is worth US $60 in Poland "on the average". So, his assumption that a $100 good/service in the US being worth $27.40 in Poland would most likely not hold.
Yeah, I know that it doesn't, but checking out different payrolls Poland vs UK/US i'd say that is really close approximation.
I don't really get how precisely this PPP ratio works but note that Poland and China has the same ratio in this list and I'm sure that china has at least 2 times cheaper workforce than Poland.
Yeah, in approximation that's it.
theGryphon
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I think I ninja'd you, so read my previous post
Yeah, I did see it. The thing is it's an average of everything on the market including transport - price/tax connected goods which are expensive because of the gas/oil prices being a lot higher than in US and taxes on them being seriously too big.
http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/
http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/
theGryphon
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Yeah man, that's what I'm saying.
You on the other hand went and assumed a $100 good would be worth $27.40, which is completely baseless and given the average PPP, most likely wrong.
Weird thing is you're still arguing
PlayfulPhoenix
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Don't forget currency fluctuations, either:
That's how much in euros a dollar is worth, and the "cost" of dollars has increased substantially, making US exports to the eurozone 33% more expensive than they were a year ago. To say nothing of tariffs, import duties, VATs, and so forth.
Dollars-to-yuan has been far more stable...
...while yuan to euros has seen a similar swing in value to the euros-to-dollars comparison, at a 32% change:
Basically, any sales to the eurozone (that originate from the US or China, at least) are going to suffer since they're much more expensive in euro-terms, compared to a short while ago.
That's how much in euros a dollar is worth, and the "cost" of dollars has increased substantially, making US exports to the eurozone 33% more expensive than they were a year ago. To say nothing of tariffs, import duties, VATs, and so forth.
Dollars-to-yuan has been far more stable...
...while yuan to euros has seen a similar swing in value to the euros-to-dollars comparison, at a 32% change:
Basically, any sales to the eurozone (that originate from the US or China, at least) are going to suffer since they're much more expensive in euro-terms, compared to a short while ago.
wahaha360
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Yeah man, that's what I'm saying.
You on the other hand went and assumed a $100 good would be worth $27.40, which is completely baseless and given the average PPP, most likely wrong.
Weird thing is you're still arguing
No, you're still assuming we're talking about the goods which might be imported, transported and taxed not the workforce itself as I stated initially.
The thing is significant part of the averaged PPP might be products that are gas and tax dependant but the sole service of manual labour isn't and that's what looks like the biggest part of the production cost.
Also knowing that by PPP stuff in Poland is cheaper by this ratio (0.6) doesn't mean that "same" person working same job in US and Poland can afford the amount of goods respectively to this ratio.
Compare the average salaries for example and you'll get $50K annual ($4K per month) in US vs 4K PLN per month in Poland in 2014. And that's tax included US PL
(BTW: it wasn't completely baseless)
Another example: Every electronic stuff: PC's, consoles (original ones) etc. lets say costs the same in China - does it mean china has the same cost of workforce? Same with materials prices. He doesn't NEED to have them so he doesn't need to afford them like we do with our payrolls.
All in all what I'm saying is - goods price != workforce cost and that's especially when you're talking about making something custom.
theGryphon
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I never said "goods price = workforce cost"
Check back to see that I said PPP "tries" to capture that. "That" being the comparative cost of goods and services in different countries.
You, on the other hand, said (and did not retract) that the something that's $100 worth in the US would be worth $27.40 in Poland since the exchange rate is as such.
With same argument, a US dollar is worth 21,442.50 Vietnamese Dongs right now, so things should be that much cheaper in Vietnam, is that it??
I mean, come on man, just accept that you mixed things up here and move on
PlayfulPhoenix
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EDIT: Dollar-backed buying power in China hasn't really changed much yet. In Taiwan, though, it's shifted 7% across a 12-month window (minimum to today):
That's within the realm of the sorts of currency swings that some companies will just absorb, however.
That's within the realm of the sorts of currency swings that some companies will just absorb, however.
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vipz
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Doesn't a falling Euro mean production in the Euro zone becomes cheaper relatively speaking? You could then sell to Europeans without them having to pay import duty, and people in the US get to take advantage of the Dollar's higher purchasing power.
PlayfulPhoenix
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A stronger dollar relative to the euro (particularly with a swing as strong as we've been seeing) means two things:
- Entities in the US will find that goods and services from Europe are now less expensive, relative to those found elsewhere; and
- Entities in the eurozone will find that goods and services in the US are now much more expensive, relative to those found elsewhere.
But that's really simplistic, since you're ignoring the aforementioned taxes and fees involved with any sales or trade, let alone fulfillment and other costs.
It is an interesting proposition, though, to take advantage of a strong dollar by manufacturing Europe-bound cases in Europe, and everywhere-else-bound (?) cases wherever you originally intended.
wahaha360
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vipz
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Wow. Good luck on your next ventures, whatever they might be. You've come a loooong way since the original "aluminum SG05" post.
You keep saying I said that, but I didn't. WiSK used that numbers on correct example of laser cutting(and assumed other metal works) in simillar conditions.
You on the other hand stated my approximation (about the workforce) is completely baseless and kept going on about it with the PPP.
I used my approximation based on average payroll comparison.
With same argument, a US dollar is worth 21,442.50 Vietnamese Dongs right now, so things should be that much cheaper in Vietnam, is that it??
I mean, come on man, just accept that you mixed things up here and move on
Dude c'mon, I never stated that it's how it works for every currency but that this is a close approximation for my country's vs USD. With this logic you could say that you can own Zimbabwe with their zillion dollar bills
Also again simply notice that this PPP ratio is the same for Poland and China but somehow you don't outsource mass production to my country. I think PPP is not a good rating for this problem.
Let's stop it here because its simply a waste of time.
But those parts are in minority of overall production cost. The most of the cost is the metal works and assembling maybe unless that is outsourced to China.
Yeah, but its about winning the race here with your new product. While you're making your campaign some of the companies that got your offer on manufacturing the metal parts might already figure out what it is and go around you IF you were to sent them the blueprints for pricing offer.
Maybe owning a share in small factory in China, Taiwan or India is really a good way to go at this.
It's fascinating someone is so determined to be right that they continue to misrepresent the other person's position to fit the issue they want to disagree with. Despite explanations to help understanding that he's talking about price of labour, you keep telling him he's talking about product value. It's a classic straw man, only I don't think you are doing it deliberately.
Here is the statement you originally disagreed with:
SaperPL is not talking about "$100 worth" nor "$100 total cost to produce" nor any general purchasing power index. He's talking specifically about what a company would charge for custom metal work in the States versus Poland. In the original post he was talking about how it doesn't make sense to have a "SFF collective" manufacturing in the US because of the high labour costs. Poland would be a better option. This is before W360 explained that the idea would be to buy a share in a Chinese factory, which would be even cheaper.
This figure of 3.65, it's neither unlikely nor surprising. Perhaps even on the low side. He linked you two articles about average salary. Here another showing average gross salary in the manufacturing sector.
http://www.worldsalaries.org/manufacturing.shtml
US gross monthly income 2,928 dollars / 40.8 hours per week
Poland gross monthly income 2,112 zlotys (=$540.80) / 41.2 hours per week
What we miss from the calculation is usage of the machinery and other per-hour components of the production cost. I'm not sure PPP can help you here either since laser-cutting equipment is not so ubiquitous as the normal items in the market basket such as cola and big macs.
+1 to this.
I've also worked both in UK and PL and I get the general idea of differences between developed and developing countries salaries.
Also about the cost of metal works - laser cutting is not the most expensive thing in the process because start-up companies get subsidies for machinery to create new jobs and that the fast laser cutter is something that can quickly turn profit even with low prices but huge amount of orders.
The bending and assembling is the most expensive part of the process. But that's of course for the custom made product and not the mass produced moulded metal parts.
I've also worked both in UK and PL and I get the general idea of differences between developed and developing countries salaries.
Also about the cost of metal works - laser cutting is not the most expensive thing in the process because start-up companies get subsidies for machinery to create new jobs and that the fast laser cutter is something that can quickly turn profit even with low prices but huge amount of orders.
The bending and assembling is the most expensive part of the process. But that's of course for the custom made product and not the mass produced moulded metal parts.
theGryphon
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Now that's outright offensive. I'm not misrepresenting anything. Doing business at another country will include other items than just cost of labor. Most likely some material costs will have to be there too. What I argued against is directly using the exchange rate to guestimate the cost of any service / doing business at another country. The dissect it, "something" in my statement stands of "anything" goods or services.
You know what, I'm done here, you guys keep using exchange rates to do such calculations / estimations. All I can say is good luck in your business endeavors, seems like you'll need it.
I don't know, maybe just take a deep breath and in a couple of days go back and read what he actually wrote, instead of what you want to believe that he wrote.