Walther's distribution/supply of buildings.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand Walther's policy with discontinuing some buildings. Just recently I tried to order the Cornerstone two stall engine house. On the computer under Expected it said "retired." Also two really cool buildings/kits I put on my first layout are no longer available. They still have most of the goofy European models (a $100 cathedral) and many of the early American prototype kits that are of poor quality when it comes to realism. I have a hard time believing that thy sell more of those cathedrals than the two stall engine house or the reaaly cool crane kit that used to be available or the nice out building/repair shed that is no longer listed. Anyone know what is up with Walther's N scale building discontinuations?

[Anonymous]

I personally don't have a clue but assume things work this way: For structures (or any kits) in the Walthers name they pay a firm to have so many kits made - hundreds or thousands. They are stuck with all of the kits whether they sell or not. If it takes several years to sell out a kit I imagine they will figure there is not much interest and will not bother to have a minimum run of the kits made again. Unsold inventory on their shelves costs them money. And that is the bottom line, not the desires, wishes or needs of hobbyists.

As for the European structures, they are made by someone else and Walthers probably only has a a few of each in their inventory. This does not cost them the same as having to order throusands of kits on their own.

Just my take on the business, but I could be wrong! [:D]

Bob Boudreau

[davekelly]

Bob,

I agree with your assessment of the situation. I am frustrated as heck when certain models are discountinued. I do wonder, however, what becomes of the dies related to the "retired" models. I assume they are still around somewhere. I don't know that much about injected plastic manufacturing, but it doesn't seem to me (although I could be wrong) that it would cost all that much to move from one set of dies to another if the dies are already available. Perhaps instead of having to order 1000, say Walthers tugboats, perhaps they could contract for 100 a year over 10 years with the option to order more on any given year? That would reduce the inventory cost.

Hopefully someone here has a background in this industry (this forum is a wealth of information both model wise and world wise) and can fill us in.

Dave

P.S. Sure would like another tugboat!

[Anonymous]

I don't believe that it is economical for a firm to produce a small number of kits, say 100 as suggested. Not only does the firm making them have to allot time on their very expensive molding machines, but boxes, instructions, packaging, shipping boxes, etc. all have to be ready for the kit.

The reason kits aren't more expensive than they already are is mass production - spread the cost of everything over 10,000 kits and they will cost a lot less than spreading the costs over 100 kits. Would you want to pay $200-300 for the tug boat kit?

I've read elsewhere that molds for a plastic kit can cost upwards of $250,000. to make. This is before any plastic is even melted. The economies of scale is the only reason we see many models out there - volume!

Bob Boudreau

[Anonymous]

Well I believe the new Hobby economics is at hand:

1- Order your copy a year ahead of time by deadline or lose out

2- Have your money ready to get it the first month it's released.

3- Hurry up with that purchase, it may be gone forever.

4- See it and buy it on eBay for several times retail one year later fighting off 20 people with alot of money.

The recent article in the MR regarding waterfronts did not help. Walthers will experience a demand for the Barge, Tug and Apron all of which is out of production.

Dies and tooling is a one time cost of production. There is always a certain amount of widgets needed to pay for the tooling and dies. You can always make more widgets and eventually a profit but it takes time.

Making 100,000 widgets and then retiring those widgets really deprives a company of a income stream. They need to keep making that widget for say.. 5-10 years.

[jsoderq]

Once again the esteemed Mr Boudreau has an excellent post. Now a couple quick points - I ran tooling for both Concor and MDC for years. Tooling is definitely not a one time cost. Every time you run tooling, it has to be cleaned, assembled, set up in the machine and adjusted to run useable parts. We always had at least one full time tool and die maker and I assure you they do not work for $7.00/hr. Building kits are actually somewhat more expensive to run - the parts are generally not useable in more than one kit (i.e. 40' boxcars may all use the same floor, trucks, roofwalk etc) There may be many more molds to run for a particular building depending on how the toolmaker laid out the parts, buildings are often molded in multiple colors for one kit , there is a much higher chance of some small part sticking in a cavity resulting in a pile of scrap, and it is much easier for some small part to get ripped off the sprue in handling/packing.
With rolling stock, you may get more than one car out of a setup in the molding process. ( i.e., changing the car sides when running passenger cars or boxcars). Thus you can get more than one car by changing some component of the die set which is pretty much untrue with buildings. This is why some of the building companies have "modular" kits and why Walthers is moving in that direction.
There is always the chance of damage to the die set and if it is a low volume item, it may not be worthwhile to fix it versus tooling up a new item. Remember, there are only so many hours in a week and choices have to be made where to place your focus. Also there are instances of tooling not being made to the highest standards (steel quality, heat treating, tolerances etc. Some building tools are probably cut in aluminum or other materials with the intent they will not last for a long period/ high volume.

[chutton01]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jsoderq
Building kits are actually somewhat more expensive to run - the parts are generally not useable in more than one kit ... This is why some of the building companies have "modular" kits and why Walthers is moving in that direction.

I remember that many of the building kits (many still available) from the 1960s and 1970s shared common building walls and roofs - such as Aunt Millie's House/W.E. Snatchum Undertaker/General Store, or Life-Like Downtown Bank/Police Station/Fire House, or Bachmann New Car Showroom/Hamburger Stand, or the Revell Station/School or Weekly Herald/Summer Stock/Engine House... you get the idea. I think there was a growth in single-use building kits starting in the 1980s (with individual homes and small stores - even so, manufactures reused certain parts as in the Victorian Homes (modelled off those often-pictured San Francisco homes).
Pikestuff, DPM and Smalltown etc. certainly reuse many wall sections and parts (indeed, IMO they help popularize the modular wall concept).
I guess that leaves the large industrial type facilities (the steel mills, refineries, dock warehouses, travelling cranes, float bridges) as the most common one-off unique kits...

[davekelly]

Bob and Jsoderq,

Thanks. Makes sense to me. Still, it's a bummer that the waterfront kits probably won't come back.