olof
Osprey
The cost of producing any part.
To make a prototype of an arm, would probably take 40 hrs, and the cost of materials would be a couple hundred. My shop rate is about $125/hr.
Set up to run a small beta testing batch, 25 units. 25hrs.
Put it all together and ship to to testers. Get feedback and redesign a few changes. $2-3K.
OK so now you have a product. How many do you have made or make yourself? You have probably just spent $5-8K at this point.
To market, I don't think you can sell just by writing about it on a few boards, you will have to advertise in magazines etc., and become a sponsor on a bunch of boards. Create and maintain a website and an ordering system, find distributers. This will run in $10K units (like many 10x10 or $100,000.00) at least unless you already have this set up.
OK so lets say all this is done for $60,000.00 now you have to pay for the first batch lets say 100,000 arms. Even at a cost of $12.00 each w/o packaging and shipping, that is 1.2 million. Smaller batches will cost a lot more. So you can see why this is not something you can just jump into.
I can beat Chinese manufactures for short run production but I can't beat them for mass production. Short run high quality parts that are relatively expensive and I know the market and I may only sell a hundred of I do well at. But I don't have the kind of budget needed for a large run of parts that may not sell and people want to pay $10.00 for, it just does not work economically.
This is my take on it anyway. The cost of production is only a very small part of the cost of a final product. Did I mention product liability insurance.
To make a prototype of an arm, would probably take 40 hrs, and the cost of materials would be a couple hundred. My shop rate is about $125/hr.
Set up to run a small beta testing batch, 25 units. 25hrs.
Put it all together and ship to to testers. Get feedback and redesign a few changes. $2-3K.
OK so now you have a product. How many do you have made or make yourself? You have probably just spent $5-8K at this point.
To market, I don't think you can sell just by writing about it on a few boards, you will have to advertise in magazines etc., and become a sponsor on a bunch of boards. Create and maintain a website and an ordering system, find distributers. This will run in $10K units (like many 10x10 or $100,000.00) at least unless you already have this set up.
OK so lets say all this is done for $60,000.00 now you have to pay for the first batch lets say 100,000 arms. Even at a cost of $12.00 each w/o packaging and shipping, that is 1.2 million. Smaller batches will cost a lot more. So you can see why this is not something you can just jump into.
I can beat Chinese manufactures for short run production but I can't beat them for mass production. Short run high quality parts that are relatively expensive and I know the market and I may only sell a hundred of I do well at. But I don't have the kind of budget needed for a large run of parts that may not sell and people want to pay $10.00 for, it just does not work economically.
This is my take on it anyway. The cost of production is only a very small part of the cost of a final product. Did I mention product liability insurance.
