Jasper Jones
Observer
Wow, I should have went back and read your first post again, you did it on a waterjet! Excellent!
Would the seats be behind one another
Have you considered using CNC mandrel bent tubing for the seat base & seat back? That would cut down on the waterjet cut parts & welding quite a bit.
I've thought of a number of ways to make this cheaper and with less work involved and, in volume, tube frames with a minimum of laser'd bracketry and gusseting would probably be the best approach to the design. The problem isn't coming up with a more economical approach to manufacturing, the problem is finding the demand for the volume needed to support a more automated approach. I've spent the last 12 years working in either manufacturing engineering or mechanical engineering roles and have a business specializing in product development and manufacturing consulting...my mind is always thinking in terms of efficiency and cost just out of habit. With that said, there are sometimes huge differences in the design/manufacturing strategy depending on volumes. For this project, I took the route that I did for the first prototypes to minimize the need for custom fixturing. The "slot and tab" waterjet design was really easy to fit together with basically nothing more than a flat welding table and some right angle blocks/clamps. If the idea took off, I was fully prepared to adjust the design for a higher volume approach, likely with dedicated tooling. The idea hasn't taken off though. This thread has nearly 3000 views at the moment and less than a handlful people have contacted me for more information. I've also shown the design to a number of customization shops and gotten pretty tepid responses. So based on the data I have in front of me, there isn't enough "buzz" to warrant spending another XX hours on the design and tooling up for a production run. I'm not bitter about it at all, that's just the reality of the situation. I enjoyed the challenge of the project. It turned out really awesome and I'm proud of what I accomplished...I'm just pulling the plug on the project because it isn't worth my time any more. There are bigger and better and higher margin opportunities to pursue.
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I have a pretty big arsenal of technologies available to me through the connections I have in the fabrication business. You name a cutting-edge manufacturing technology and I have probably used it in one of the projects I've done. The trouble is, most of those projects were for Fortune 500 companies who could absorb the costs of using those technologies. CNC tube forming can be a cheap manufacturing method but in low volume it doesn't pencil out, especially for the DIY automotive enthusiast crowd. No offense meant to anyone on the forum but I doubt any of you are going to pay $500-1000 for a one-off CNC bent tube (which is often what it takes to make custom parts unless you have a buddy with the equipment and he owes you a favor). You need to be making at least 10 of something for it to start really making sense to go that route. And even then, a lot of the companies around here won't even bid the job if its under a certain amount. I don't blame them either. You tie up a machine with a bunch of low margin parts, you're losing the opportunity to crank out a lot of high margin parts. So sometimes you have to make parts another way...
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Right now I'm in the middle of quoting out the parts for the Sienna seat mounts. 10 units seems to be the magic number for CNC forming vs. "slot and tab" parts with welding. I can eliminate SOOOOOOO much work just by forming the parts. Anything under 10 parts though and the cost per unit goes up so much that it doesn't make sense to pay for that. Labor and sanding disks are cheap compared to a $125/hr press brake.
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Do you see the other problem here though? Do I wait for 10 people to express enough interest in the transformer seats before I order parts or do I order parts and hope that someone buys them? The "high volume" design for the transformer seat would probably have a BOM cost (bill of materials) somewhere in the neighborhood of $750 (the prototype was much more than that btw). So to make 10 of them, I have to front $7500 and all the labor. I'm into them $1200-1500 each or so? I'm going to hang $12k-$15k out in the wind on the off chance that someone might buy a set? Not with the lack of interest I've gotten, no way. Again, that's just the reality.
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I have another product that I've been trying to generate some buzz about and it is a prime example of simplicity of design, low-cost and high-volume manufacturing methods (USA made too). I fronted the money to make the first 100 (many thousands of dollars) and I have multiple vendors all lined up to crank up production anywhere from 1000-10,000 units per month.....IF the demand ever comes around. It hasn't yet despite the effort I've made to get it in front of large retailers and online stores. That's the problem, without demand, what's the point in making more? And if the retailers want to beat you up so bad on the wholesale price and you're margin is only a couple bucks a unit, is it really worth the effort? In volumes of 100's of thousands or millions, it may be. But a couple bucks a piece on a few hundred units to manage vendors, shipping logistics, returns, customer questions, etc...? What would you do? I can think of a number of easier ways to make a few hundred bucks....
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I could talk for days about this kinda stuff. There are so many ideas floating around in my head for products but without a sales channel, its tough to get any farther than CAD models and functional prototypes. I've got the design and manufacturing covered. I just need to find the marketing/sales person to partner up with.![]()