[TenTec] New Orions

[Bill Tippett]

 >It seems there is no warehousing of new Orions, they
are "made fresh" to order.

         This is simply good modern business practice.
Since Ten-Tec does not have to deal with stocking distributors
(in USA anyway), they minimize inventory by "build to order".
This is the same approach Dell has used with PC's, and
is a much lower cost business model.  I'm suspect Ten-Tec
is building other products on the same production line,
reconfiguring it for different products.  Most likely
they build Orions only every few weeks.  I understand the
delays around January were caused by some sort of military
contract which probably disrupted their normal schedule.

         The product design appears to be very simple
inside and I suspect it only takes a few hours to assemble,
probably something similar to test.  Of course they then
go through a 24-hour burn-in to find any infant failures.
I guess total cycle time might be <2 days from start to
finish, but remember they begin with fully assembled and
most likely pre-tested SMD boards.

                                         73,  Bill  W4ZV