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Subject: 
Re: MADE IN CHINA?!?!!?!?! that's IT Lego Re: Lego changes CEO...
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.lego, lugnet.general
Date: 
Fri, 22 Oct 2004 15:47:28 GMT
Viewed: 
6393 times
  
In lugnet.lego, James Powell wrote:
   Meaning that the total on the floor people in a plant is like 8-10 at a time, plus service people. (Probably another 8-10 people). Given a 1 min mold cycle, and 8 pieces a mold, that gives you:

Supposedly, it’s around 7 seconds to cool and eject a new element from the mold (obviously differs according to piece size, etc). So if you count injection time, it’s probably around 10 seconds or so? And I believe the number of elements produced per year is supposedly about 20 billion? Hmm. How many parts get squeezed off in a single mold? I know I’ve seen 2x4 molds that have 8 parts, let’s go with that for starters.

That’d be 6,944,444 hours per machine per year meaning roughly 800 molding machines going non-stop, not including time to switch molds and to switch color batches. So assuming 2 people per 30 machines (adding 1 to help fudge the mold/color switching) that’s about 27 people (let’s say 30) at any given time at the plant. Assuming 4 shifts of full-time people, that’s a total crew of 120, probably more, plus other staff for the facility itself (executive, security, janitorial, etc).

So, maybe a ~200 person operation all told? That sound reasonable? No clue what wages are in Denmark vs. China-- but at a guess we’re probably talking about $5 to $15 million in Denmark, and maybe half that in China? But that’s just a pulled-out-of-my-ABS kind of guess.

   Lego is a capital intensive operation, rather than a labour intensive one. Maximizes advantages of working in 1st world, minimizes advantages of 3rd world.

From what I’ve heard, Lego sounds sort of top-heavy. Probably part of why MegaBloks can compete so well-- a top-heavy company has lots of executive chains and processes to go through to get a final product. And Lego’s attention to detail and struggle to be “the best” only make it slower. MegaBloks by comparison probably has a MUCH faster turnaround time for new products, and less attention to quality, which is (I’d guess) where the REAL savings are.

DaveE



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: MADE IN CHINA?!?!!?!?! that's IT Lego Re: Lego changes CEO...
 
(...) 2x4 bricks are in 8-part molds, yes. I'd venture a guess that 1x1 molds produce more parts per shot, and that some really large parts might even be single-part shots. Now that's all because you want to use the full volume capacity of the (...) (20 years ago, 22-Oct-04, to lugnet.lego, lugnet.general, FTX)
  Re: MADE IN CHINA?!?!!?!?! that's IT Lego Re: Lego changes CEO...
 
In lugnet.lego, David Eaton wrote: SNIP (...) surprise-overpaid upper mananagement cutting labor to save costs. we can still have the best product without keeping the perception that more management is better. Jeff (20 years ago, 23-Oct-04, to lugnet.lego, lugnet.general, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: MADE IN CHINA?!?!!?!?! that's IT Lego Re: Lego changes CEO...
 
(...) Actually, I don't think it will save them much at all. Sea transport will now be across the atlantic, they have built the factories in Hungary, have the ones in Bulland (sp), ect. Cost to run the actual factories is relatively low in terms of (...) (20 years ago, 22-Oct-04, to lugnet.lego, lugnet.general, FTX)  

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