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I've built many BOM/costing tools for one of my clients who is in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and it is absolutely the most complicated part of an
by chime 14y ago
I've built many BOM/costing tools for one of my clients who is in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and it is absolutely the most complicated part of any new product development. The BOM is an all encompassing contract that should cover not only the parts, specs, and design process but also the routings, requisition/sourcing schedule, equipment/change-parts, and internal lead-times. If you have something that is built over three phases, you have to schedule the material, equipment, and labor precisely to avoid delays or over-stocking. On top of this, you have to factor in multiple levels of internal/outsourced testing, warehousing, shipping/distribution, cost of capital, and account for overhead.
Every time I see a hardware Kickstarter campaign, I wonder if the designers are familiar with the typical supply-chain-order process. Putting logos on t-shirts and coffee mugs is very different from contract manufacturing custom hardware, even if you are outsourcing 100% of the manufacturing and distribution process.
- nickpinkston 14y agoYea, there are more failed / really-late Kickstarters than you see. It's a shame, but manufacturing is still super difficult on some budget w/ no time (and often little experience).
- nikcub 14y agoA lot of the ODM's have engineering and consulting shops attached to them who would do all of this for you. There is also a huge market of people experienced in the industry looking to help people who have never previously been involved in manufacturing. So unsurprisingly the solution in this scenario is to just outsource it, again.