[TowerTalk] Tashjian Tower Orders

[Charles Gallo]

On 9/22/2008 Michael Tope wrote:

> A company that services just the ham radio market like Elecraft will by
> definition remain small (the ham radio market is not a big market). <snip>

The thing is, there are a LOT of job shops out there.  It's been a LOT of years since I was in the field, but as a for instance - let's say you need 1000 piece lot of K3s made.  It's NOT all that hard to buy your parts "on the reel" (in fact probably easier than buying loose).  The pick and place machines have to be programmed (one time setup fee) - you deliver the reals (or have the job shop order them), you deliver the boards, and the machines pick and place all the components, and you send the boards off to be reflow soldered.  These "Job shops" specialize in 2 things - doing small runs for companies like the one my friend works for, where making 200 of something is a LOT, and filling out your "pulses" in production

When I was working in electronics, during out peak periods, we'd bring in "Job Shoppers" - they were basically self employed "hired guns" - in fact, we usually kept some around all the time because they often were more skilled than our regular employees.  We had one tech (not production, but test) who we only hired every 3-4 years.  He was THE expert in this one product we built.  When we got the (rare) order for one, or an order to overhaul one of these units, he got hired (at HUGE $$/hour) to make that unit work, and when he was done, he'd go off to another company.  As we usually had 10-12 months lead from "pre-order" to the time the unit was ready to test, this wasn't a problem (The unit went in an aircraft carrier - 2 per carrier, and the only time you needed a new one was when a new carrier got built.  The existing units got overhauled when a carrier got SLEPed)




--  
73 de KG2V

For the Children - RKBA!

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms,
 and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..." 
-- Richard Henry Lee, 1787