I accidently outsourced myself

I have been making all my own parts for the past few years and recently I have had some shops ask to quote some of my parts. I was hesitant at first but pretty soon I was hooked. Within a year I had outsourced all of my parts. I realized a few days ago that I didnt have anything to do and was getting real lazy. I missed making parts and I started running my own parts again on my manual mills and lathes, I have to block out how long it takes me to make stuff and just focus on what I enjoy doing. I have 15 hours in a 100 pieces and the cnc shop would knock those out in less than 3. I am only going to do the stuff that I want to do the sucky parts are going to stay outsourced. My main reason for even considering outsourcing some of my parts was in case I got sick or too busy to do them, I would have a back up plan.

Recon how much 15 hours of marketing could have made you.
Your a tough guy KPotter, you do stay at it.

Welcome to the world of being independently wealthy and semiretired.

Tom

kpotter said:

I have been making all my own parts for the past few years and recently I have had some shops ask to quote some of my parts. I was hesitant at first but pretty soon I was hooked. Within a year I had outsourced all of my parts. I realized a few days ago that I didnt have anything to do and was getting real lazy...

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I think this is what our whole country did, we outsourced all our work to China, and then realized we didn't have anything left to do.

If you can sell all that you outsource, you'll be in pretty good shape. Learn to develop new stuff for your fun work, then outsource that too.

Stuff was selling pretty well but summer is always slow, everyone is either broke or going on vacation. I am glad I didnt hire people, by out sourcing I have been able to keep the whole business to just me and about 10 other guys who I out source my work to. When things are slow I can do the work and stock up for the busy season. Unless this is the beginning of the next financial implosion, like they say only the paranoid survive self employment.

Kpotter, you've mentioned before how much cheaper you were getting your stuff by subbing to people with a bit more automation than you.

If I were you (and I'm not), I wouldn't "waste" my time putting more parts on the shelf. "Waste" your time productively. Make a new widget
to outsource, make a few and try to sell them, if it works, outsource it, if it doesn't, at least you have a new widget to play with, then make
another widget and try again.

Downtime is play time, and play time is making stuff I want or need, and there are 7 billion people on this rock we call Earth, If I want it, there
are at least a few other people on this planet that want it too, and I can sell it to them.

No,no,no.......

You're supposed to have all that manual collectors iron arranged neatly in a toolroom/ R&D fashion and spend all those extra free hours doing research and new product development......

Gordon B. Clarke said:

Wow, you are one optimistic individual

The USA is (still) the wealthiest country in the world. Why should any other country not have the same ambition? All "empires" rise and fall.

Gordon

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the wealthiest country is all relative. If Europe or the EU is considered just one country it probably would be considered the wealthiest even if right now some parts of it are close to bankruptcy.
.
always interesting to hear a country is not doing too well and then hearing about all the early retirements and others collecting government money. Countries usually have big problems when too many voters are voting themselves early retirements and not enough left that are actually still working and still paying taxes

Phew...I would sure love to know where you guys are finding these shops that do good work and are cheap...oh and get stuff done in a reasonable time frame too!

Oh well, who needs sleep anyway?

It is a sad thing to see a man run out of projects to do. You need to review your direction in life and try to find that list of things you always wanted to do. Mine keeps getting longer. Regards, Clark

Gordon B. Clarke said:

Wow, you are one optimistic individual

The USA is (still) the wealthiest country in the world. Why should any other country not have the same ambition? All "empires" rise and fall.

Gordon

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All right bud. I know all empires rise and fall, but only a fool would hasten that process. What kpotter is doing is on a small scale compared to the big guys, but the principle still applies. He's only doing what it takes to survive, and I don't begrudge him that. Plus, it sounds like he's "outsourcing" to other shops in the country, not sending the job overseas. I know you do a lot of business with China, but some of us a still in competition with them. I say let them compete, as long as they let us. It will all work out in the wash, but a lot will fall in that process. There is a lot to be said for doing what one can to help his own country succeed, even if the big boys only listen to the bottom line and the bean counters. How we could entice those same big boys to make the commitment to keep that work in our own country would be a very complicated problem, but I don't see any advantage to just saying it's time for the empire to decline and letting it all crash. There are lots of empires to crash if that's the attitude.
I hope your tongue was firmly in cheek when you made that comment.
I don't begrudge any country it's success. But they should do the brainwork themselves, develop the work themselves, and compete on even footing. Paying their people pennies on the dollar is already starting to backfire, and will eventually sort itself out. This is born out by the fact that even today, work that was in China is starting to filter out to other countries where the pressure for higher wages isn't on a par with the pressure on China. Same thing that drove the work to China, or Taiwan, or Mexico (or take your pick) will eventually drive it to the bottom of the well. Eventually I see the well filling up the world over. This will see quality issues arise and be dealt with, the same as it has been here. It will see piracy issues be dealt with in the same time span. But I don't see any benefit in our just rolling over and saying its inevitable, it's our time to decline.
Not PO'd, but that comment about all empires rise and fall hit a nerve, dude.

So its CEO Kpotter eh?

Outsource production. Internalize R&D. What makes your product successful? The fact that you can whittle one out of steel, or the problem it solves for your customer? Did making the chips create that solution, or was it your creativity?

Spend your (now) free time by solving more problems with new widgets so you have more parts to outsource.

Are you in the business of selling a product or of selling capacity to make chips? They're two different things and a lot of business owners don't seem to understand that.

I better clarify, the outsourcing is to local shops not china. The main reason my stuff is cheap to have made is I designed it to be made on my old manual machines. When a guy with modern cnc makes my parts, they can haul ass because they are simple and have no tolerance requirements. I have been using the time to make new stuff, the main problem with that is that it means more inventory and more money out of pocket to get them produced. I dont want to give the impression that I am building some grand empire it is still just me and a bunch of old iron. The market that I sell to is small and not profitable enough for big companies I think that is why I am still here. The shop that does some of my lathe work asked when they can expect to do another run of this one part and I told them that I think they just made 2 years worth. He laughed and said that it only took 7 hours to run all the stuff. I had been asking them about buying my own lathe and he said what the hell are you going to do with it the rest of the year if we knocked out all the work in less than a day. I think there are lots of small niche products out there that guys can make that dont go head to head with major manufacturers. I recently made a saw and it is real pretty but sales are terrible not because it doesnt work well but because there are lots of choices and lots of cheaper ones out there. I am just one small voice screaming hey check out my insanely expensive made in the USA saw. The compitition sells theirs for around 10 bucks and mine is 60 so some thought has to go into ones purchase.

Gordon B. Clarke said:

Not much I can disagree with. I'm not quite sure how or why I hit a nerve but the two "countries" that immediately come to mind when I hear "Empire" are The Roman Empire and The British Empire. Probably most others have been called Dynasties. They still all come and go

Gordon

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Yea, I let the "empire" part slide, but I ain't ready to let the downfall part happen. You're just voicing your opinion, same as me. Opinions are like bellybuttons, everybody has got one, and quite a few of them are full of lint. As for my nerves and people hitting them, don't feel privileged or anything, they've been hit before, I live over it.

Gordon B. Clarke said:

Nope, not everybody. Adam didn't have one

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I just knew you were old enough to know him....

OK then - I seen Eve at the Allied booth a few yrs ago, but I don't recall checking to see if she had one?

I would expect maybe a witness mark around a rib somewhere, but ....


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Sweatin' to the Oldies!
Ox

K,

Don't listen to all these workaholics telling you to develop new products, do marketing, etc!

More to life than a machine shop. Spend more time doing something you like...like fishing.

Ox said:

OK then - I seen Eve at the Allied booth a few yrs ago, but I don't recall checking to see if she had one?

I would expect maybe a witness mark around a rib somewhere, but ....




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Sweatin' to the Oldies!
Ox

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What were you checking out on her instead??