Thu, Oct 14 2010
What’s happened over the last 3 weeks (and then some!)
It took us a while to find some good factories for Switch. When we first began our search over the summer, we fell in love with one manufacturer. The work they had done in the past impressed us, and we began moving forward working with them. Unfortunately, the longer we stayed with them, the more difficult they became… and the more they tried to put off our project. We had to move on.
There are a lot of generic pocket knife manufacturers out there, but after a long search, our staff in China found two factories that do quality work for us to choose from. When we requested quotes on pricing and timeline from both, they came back far too high for us to keep Switch priced under $80. Over the past three weeks, we’ve been editing and revising to drive the unit price down.
The first change we had to make was dropping the USB memory stick as one of the tools. The price for that one tool was about 25% of the entire unit cost. It was a tough choice to make, but after we asked Switch ideator Jim Robinson, and he gave us his approval, we did what had to be done.
Another change we’ve made is simplifying the box. The original intent was to have a blow-molded box with a sliding lock. Last week we revised it to one injection molded piece that will use a living hinge along its spine and on its clasps. This change takes three parts down to one, and uses a simpler (and cheaper) production method.
Now the two factories are requoting based on those changes as well as a few slight material changes. Where some pieces are expensive to machine out of metal, they are much cheaper to inject with a rigid plastic (like glass-filled nylon, or polyester). Obviously we would never sacrifice the functionality of Switch, or its beauty with these changes, so don’t worry. We should have the quotes back any day, and we’ll be picking a factory next week.
What we expect over the next 3 weeks
We’ve sent the Switch prototype over to China, and next week when we choose a factory, the Q-Asia sourcing and engineering teams will bring it to the factory to discuss it with them. Both factories originally wanted to prototype Switch before kicking off production to see if it actually worked, but since we already have a prototype that works, they’ll be able to skip that process. We know that Switch production has been a long process (too long) but next week we’ll be finalizing a purchase order with a factory, and since we’ve already got the working prototype finished, we’re hoping to kick off production within the next two weeks.
Switch is available in the Quirky store for $79.
