on 9/1/02 12:06 PM, Aaron Blohowiak at ellipsis@HOME.COM wrote:

> What are the NRE of "tooling up" to produce cases? How much is it on a
> per-case basis (like it is a 500 dollar flat fee with $1.50 per case, with
> accomidations for complex cases?) It the real expense in the tooling and
> production or the palstic?

Aaron,

There is no easy answer to this. There are many, many factors - including
the size of your design, complexity, number of 'slides' required.

We only use top quality tool makers, and finest quality Japanese tool steel
- the breakdown is about 50% steel 50% labour (approximate, 'rule of thumb'
only). You can add a zero to your guess for the tool (as a starting point)
and the actual boxes could quite possibly be cheaper.

Don't forget though, that we have to get them to you and it is not often
ecconomical to ship empty plastic boxes of air around the world.

The tools can be made out of aluminium for short runs. We have looked at it,
and it is not viable (see labour/material breakdown above) - at least not in
Taiwan anyway.

But with all this info, let's say you had a project that needed that
'finished' look and you wanted to make 500 of them and we did an accurate
quote on the tool and it came up say $4500 and each item was $1 each. You'd
be up for $10 each + freight and you would still own the tool.

Maybe the project would justify it maybe not.

The trick is coming up with a generic case that you can use over and over
again. And the thing is, you can put as many 'holes' - round, square - you
name it - as you like during the initial design and we simply 'block' out
the unwanted ones during the moulding process.

Regards,

Sean

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