Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!dcl-cs!bath63!pes
From: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Atari's Marketing Approach
Message-ID: <2032@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Date: 17 Dec 87 11:19:09 GMT
References: <8711301706.AA18559@cory.Berkeley.EDU> <899@atari.UUCP> <909@cod.NOSC.MIL> <957@sask.UUCP> <926@cod.NOSC.MIL>
Reply-To: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee)
Organization: AUCC c/o University of Bath
Lines: 35

In article <926@cod.NOSC.MIL> rupp@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (William L. Rupp) writes:
>"..next time"?  This is what I don't understand.  Correct me if I am
>wrong, but I thought products such as microcomputers were turned out
>on assembly lines that can be kept running, even at a low production
>rate, on a more or less continuous basis.  The "..next time" concept
>makes sense if you are talking about a press run of books.  ...

Well, I've got two theories.  In my more cynical moods, I envision ST's being
churned out not by an Atari plant, but by a general purpose Taiwanese
'electronics construction plant'  (there are such, don't know if Atari use
them).  So, this week they crank out N thousand ST's; next week, N thousand
Amiga's; the week after than, N thousand IBM PC's, or a million pop-up
toasters, or ...

More realistically (from my days of working for a company which actually
made things you could see and touch), the electronics industry is not as
'unitized' as, for example, the auto industry (sheets of steel in one end,
cars out the other).  Even if you make the product in your own plants, you
buy in a *lot* of the components, which (of course) you buy in batches because
it's a *lot* cheaper.  So, you've got to get a new batch of PC boards from
your PC fabricator (almost certainly, while you design the boards in house,
you have them made from your artwork outside); you've got to buy a new
batch of cases from the plastic injection molding company; you've got to buy
a new batch of custom chips from your silicon fabricator; you've got to buy
in a new lot of monitors with your badge from your monitor supplier; and
so on...  There is the conflict between wanting to get large lots (lower
unit cost); and wanting to keep the lots small (so you don't end up with
10000 Rev A ST boards when you suddenly discover you've got to make a mod to
Rev B -- or worse, when the product stops selling).

This all forces you into a 'batch mode' style of operation, even if your
final assembly plant is nominally 'continuous stream'.  You can't just say,
on the spur of the moment, 'gosh, think I'll put on a second shift and make
twice as many'.  You've also got to crank up all your suppliers.  And you've
got to be SURE you can use what you've ordered from them.