Bachmann 2016 Announcements

[Ozexpatriate]

Here is the link to the original thread discussing Bachmann's justification and plan:

From tomorrow through to 1st May 2019 there are wage increases dictated by government which will come into effect roughly at an increase of 20% per annum for those five years meaning that wages will effectively double from around £3/hr to £6/hr. It will probably cost employers another £1/hr to cover the mandatory free medical insurance and pension rights their employees will now have.

I remember saying on that thread, it is only fair the Chinese are paid a fair wage for a good quality of life. And seeing if these models were produced in the UK, they would cost double they do now....well....Bachmann would not produce in the UK as it is a Chinese company...

 

It is admirable that Bachmann have announced this year they hope to minimise price rises to 2-4%, though I cannot see this on items I want, which are around 8-11% on rrp.

Thanks for finding the link and quoting that.

 

At 20% per annum for 2014, 2015 and now 2016, prices should now be in the range of a 73% increase over 2013 pricing. Forewarned is forearmed and none of the price increases should come as a surprise.

[YesTor]

It certainly complicates the part number process. A new part number has to be assigned for the new running number / livery alternative.

 

...which must take all of two minutes creating a new product number on a database. 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

...which must take all of two minutes creating a new product number on a database. 

That's a bit glib.

 

Someone needs to pick a new number/livery combination and research it to make sure it actually ran with the same set of manufactured details as the base model. Collateral has to be established, double-checked and listed on-line and in the catalogue etc. It has to be approved in the decoration sample stage the same way the base version does etc.  We've all laughed at messed copy/paste jobs in Hornby's collateral from a couple of years ago.

 

Above all it's a 'different' operational approach and that means existing processes will inevitably break somewhere - even for the simplest things.

 

Clearly it's not impossible - the US manufacturers do it extensively, but I don't think the additional effort should be trivialized either.  Personally I think it's a good idea.

[YesTor]

One word shocked!

 

Just checked on Hattons to see if the photos/prices have been uploaded onto the pages for the new models announced in yesterdays announcement.

 

Considering that last year Bachmann announced Freightliner Powerhaul 66416 and DRS Revised 66434 as two new standard models which are both due in May/June this year and they are priced at £118.96 which is already an increase of between £20-£30 compared to previous 66s which have been produced before, Bachmann have 66065 in EWS livery with DB stickers applied at £140.21! So yet another increase in price for the 66s. That's now two years in a row! So in two years the standard Bachmann Class 66 models (not Limited Editions) have gone up by between £40-£50 per model.

 

I wouldn't mind paying the increased prices for a Class 66 if it were produced to today's detail standards, but the Bachmann offering is looking increasingly tired and woefully 'Railroad' in appearance; especially when you compare to the detail level of for example, the forthcoming Dapol Class 68, which at £118 is looking like a bargain compared to a Bachmann shed, which to my wallet is telling me no longer represents good value for money...

[Mike Storey]

Slightly OTT, but if there is blog or whatever covering your Sheppy layout, I would love to see it.

 

If only!! There is a thread on here (called Queenborough, rather than Sheppey) on my plans for it, and I have changed them a bit since, which I will post soon. But the building, that it will be built in, the top floor of a barn, is a long way from being fully refurbished as yet. Too many other things to fix first, and more to do elsewhere than I originally thought. But please post your thoughts on that thread for now!

[Mike Storey]

Thanks for finding the link and quoting that.

 

At 20% per annum for 2014, 2015 and now 2016, prices should now be in the range of a 73% increase over 2013 pricing. Forewarned is forearmed and none of the price increases should come as a surprise.

 Not so fast!! I recall elsewhere that the labour element is only around half, give or take, of the costs of producing a model overall, so you may attribute maybe 10% pa compounded.

[Dunsignalling]

I wouldn't mind paying the increased prices for a Class 66 if it were produced to today's detail standards, but the Bachmann offering is looking increasingly tired and woefully 'Railroad' in appearance; especially when you compare to the detail level of for example, the forthcoming Dapol Class 68, which at £118 is looking like a bargain compared to a Bachmann shed, which to my wallet is telling me no longer represents good value for money...

So keep your cash in your wallet. If the current product continues to sell despite any shortcomings, the manufacturer will conclude that (enough of) their customers find it satisfactory and there will be no incentive to upgrade it.  

 

The same goes for all prices. If you consider a product too expensive, don't buy it; if you buy it anyway, then it's not really "too expensive", is it?  

 

John

[Butler Henderson]

I wouldn't mind paying the increased prices for a Class 66 if it were produced to today's detail standards, but the Bachmann offering is looking increasingly tired and woefully 'Railroad' in appearance; especially when you compare to the detail level of for example, the forthcoming Dapol Class 68, which at £118 is looking like a bargain compared to a Bachmann shed, which to my wallet is telling me no longer represents good value for money...

Other than on the basis of the 73 you are likely to find the colours right on the Bachmann model and that it will be in one piece, run properly and have the dcc socket correctly wired. Could it be that Dapol are using the cheapest supplier and hence can quote less but the overall quality is poorer.

[Clearwater]

That's a bit glib.

 

Someone needs to pick a new number/livery combination and research it to make sure it actually ran with the same set of manufactured details as the base model. Collateral has to be established, double-checked and listed on-line and in the catalogue etc. It has to be approved in the decoration sample stage the same way the base version does etc. We've all laughed at messed copy/paste jobs in Hornby's collateral from a couple of years ago.

 

Above all it's a 'different' operational approach and that means existing processes will inevitably break somewhere - even for the simplest things.

 

Clearly it's not impossible - the US manufacturers do it extensively, but I don't think the additional effort should be trivialized either. Personally I think it's a good idea.

Plus the extra set up time for the paint shop and the inevitable waste when they make a mistake... But all of that time you set out adds to the fixed cost to be amortised over the production run. Let's say you add an extra 10h to the process in the uk alone, at gbp20 per hour (a low estimate bearing in mind need for employers NI, desk, computer etc), that adds gbp200 to the overall cost. Even without adding a margin, on 300 units that adds 66p to the cost. Doesn't sound much but on a manufacturer cost price is a material percentage. Bear in mind how many of these they have to sell each year to get to a 10m turnover!

 

David

[Andy Hayter]

 

 

Darkjunglemung wrote:

 

...which must take all of two minutes creating a new product number on a database.

 

 

Clearly written by someone who has never had to do such a thing in a real system.

 

I remember that in our business a change/addition that was urgent (defined as impacting on todays business) would take up to 24hours to implement.

Introducing a new product (the same as a new part number) would take a week or longer,

 

Such actions are far more than someone just ticking a couple of computer fields and pressing enter. 

 

Edited to clarify just why something so simple just isn't simple: 

 

To justify this, and leaving aside Ozexpats excellent points about research, let us assume that instead of a blood and custard Mk1 we want to produce a crimson lake one.  We won't even change the running number - which will certainly get up a few modellers' noses.

 

So you just create the new sales number?

 

No.  the new model does not need cream and crimson paint.  It does however need crimson.  This is important to define because otherwise how is the purchasing department going to know to order some crimson lake paint?  So you need to define which paint needs to be purchased and probably who would be the likely suppliers.

 

So now all done aren't we?

No

 

Production need to look through the parts list and establish that they are exactly the same - let's assume they are, but the check still has to be made.

 

All done?

No

 

Next to the paint shop.

So assuming we gat the supplies of crimson lake, you do realise that to overpaint the light grey plastic will need three coats.  If it were moulded in dark grey we could do it in one.

 

Back to production

Can we do the mouldings in dark grey?

Yes but we will need a whole new set of part numbers for every item that has to be moulded in dark grey and the injection moulding conditions will need to be adjusted slightly to take account of the different material.  So changes to the system - otherwise when we come to produce we will find that no one ordered the dark grey plastic.

 

Back to the paint shop.

Happy now?

Yes, but you need to note that we can only produce the crimson lake coaches after a blood and custard run, otherwise if it is the green ones or the chocolate and cream we will need a full clean down of the paint heads and this will mean 1 hour production down time.

 

More data to be added to the system so that crimson follows blood and custard whenever possible and had a cost disincentive when it doesn't.

 

So eventually we order all the raw materials, do the test runs and send the samples up to R&D and Marketing.

 

Where's the lining?

 

Lining? No one mentioned lining.

 

 

And that is a simple livery change.

[Combe Martin]

 Not so fast!! I recall elsewhere that the labour element is only around half, give or take, of the costs of producing a model overall, so you may attribute maybe 10% pa compounded.

 

Don't forget though that Kader also have suppliers whose costs and labour costs have also gone up.  Yes the direct labour cost of producing a Kader model may only be 50% of it's final cost, but there are many other labour costs in the factory right down to the tea girl and the loo cleaner.  Their wages will have gone up by the same percentage too and have to be recovered from somewhere.  The tea girl in the suppliers factory will also have had a rise. That's in there somewhere.  There's labour costs in the electricity bill !.  Virtually everything in the end is a labour cost somewhere.

[PaulRhB]

The production cost is rising and their parent company wanted to know why similar detailed models sold for more in Germany so prices have increased. You have to look at the profit margins as those above Bachmann UK aren't enthusiasts. Just look what fun Hornby are having when money becomes everything and just making a profit isn't enough. Shareholders demand maximum return and if they don't get it then they demand improvement or drop the range and concentrate on more profitable lines. If you can show the line is consistent with other parts of the market then they accept it but as we are in a global market comparisons with European prices, especially as Bachmann sell in both, are inevitable.

None of us want to pay more than we've been used to but I was looking at a HO EWS liveried 66 at the weekend at just under £200, the stripe was too yellow rather than golden and the maroon too dark to my eyes, I'd buy the Bachmann one over that any day. Someone produced that for the European market so it establishes a value relative to the OO one that the accountants will pick up and say how does the model compare in complexity to our own production? They don't worry about the radio antenna being in the wrong place unless there's a precedent as to why a model didn't sell. As John said all you can do is vote with your feet but then they might deem it was the livery rather than detail problem that sold poorly so you need to feed that back to the company politely not just post on forums. If enough did that then they would get the message but I suspect enough fall into the, 'it looks right to me category', to not bother complaining direct.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I remember saying on that thread, it is only fair the Chinese are paid a fair wage for a good quality of life...

 

While we may not like the price rises consequent on Chinese government pay policy, it is ultimately good news for the world. Having built up a modern industrialised base with global export capability, they are now focussed on putting money in the workers pockets. That will develop the internal economy of China, which is the recipe for greater economic stability in the long term. This is really brave policy for a notionally communist government, as it will in time demolish the governmentally managed command economy. All those better off Chinese workers are going to be spending their dough wherever they please. Any number of them have a taste for overseas travel for a start, something which is becoming ever more apparent. (I met a few a couple of weeks past, by complete chance; there they were in Haworth to visit the shrine to the Bronte sisters.They had read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall too, which most British Brontistas have not!) 

 

The consumer products coming out of China will thereby increase in price. I liked it when I could obtain Hornby's A3 and A4 pacifics, and Bachmann K3s for £40; but knew then that this was no permanent thing. So long as the product represents value, I will buy. I'll not spend more than my budget mind, and when the product exceeds in price what I can achieve by DIY, guess what I will be doing?

 

And there's plenty more cheap manufacturing labour economies out there. The death of the command economy in China will release a business like Kader to set up satellite manufacturing in lower cost economies. Seen it all before with the Japanese planned economic growth, followed by outplacement of operations too expensive to perform in Japan; and more currently poor people will get on the ladder to opportunity for income, education and the quality of life that we have had in the UK since the dark satanic mills were first fired up. This is the goal, everyone in the world gets a decent chance in life, with the benefits we take for granted.

[Combe Martin]

Hard luck – every sympathy. I have waited for a 7F in either LMS or S&DJR black and behold!

 

Are you aware that both models are inaccurate.  The Fowler tender is the wrong one, and given that the boiler change from large to small happened in the same year (1930) that both were renumbered as LMS 9679/9680 it's doubtful that the small boilered 'no 9' ever carried number 89. 

 

Just found the details. No 89 was involved in a big crash (it ran away from Combe Down Tunnel) in Bath yard in Nov 1929. When it returned from repair at Derby works in 1930 it had had the small boiler fitted and was numbered 9679. So 89 was only ever a large boiler loco.   

 

 

 

Edit to add last paragraph.   

[Colin_McLeod]

Just got an e mail from Hattons regarding Bachmann 2016 announcements. It includes DMUs and coaches with passengers pre installed.

[MGR Hooper!]

I wouldn't mind paying the increased prices for a Class 66 if it were produced to today's detail standards, but the Bachmann offering is looking increasingly tired and woefully 'Railroad' in appearance; especially when you compare to the detail level of for example, the forthcoming Dapol Class 68, which at £118 is looking like a bargain compared to a Bachmann shed, which to my wallet is telling me no longer represents good value for money...

Glad I am not the only one who feels that way. Wasn't impressed with the Class 66 from Bachmann detail wise. Very good running wise. I share the same opinion regarding the Bachmann Class 70 too.

 

Clearly a manufacturer who has no idea about what levels of detail they want to apply. Class 66 and Class 70 in OO with lacking underframe and chassis detail. They have a Class 47 in N gauge with moulded handrails on the face but not the side. And yet their latest Class 31 in N gauge comes with cab detail and sandpipes apparently, but moulded handrails again on the face.

[sub39h]

Thanks for finding the link and quoting that.

 

At 20% per annum for 2014, 2015 and now 2016, prices should now be in the range of a 73% increase over 2013 pricing. Forewarned is forearmed and none of the price increases should come as a surprise.

It's only 20% for the labour costs, so imho Bachmann's price rises are not justified. They have to make a profit and I understand that but they won't be selling me very much.

 

I agree that people should be paid a fair wage, but I'm not paying £55 for a Mk2. Just glad I managed to bag the Model Rail Exclusive Mk2 RR twin packs for £40 each before the prices got stupid!

[Hilux5972]

Just had this email from Hattons re the Midland Pullman pack.

 

 

That's my preorder cancelled.

[Andy B]

Still no class 45 with sealed beam lights

Agree with this. This is a massive gap in the mid-late 80s range. Spoke to the fellas at Warley and they weren't aware of such a detail difference from the ones they already had produced though so I'm not holding my breath sadly. Maybe keep filling in the feedback form on the website to remind them that this is required by some of us.

 

A

[Andy Hayter]

I hope you are right 34C.

 

If it were my business I would make sure that my senior marketeers in Hong Kong were looking at what the press and forums were saying about a major announcement to the market.  I would probably now be having some fairly hard conversations with my UK team about them having to prove very quickly through the sales that they have it right, otherwise those extra resources would be withdrawn and put into a less fragmented and difficult market (ie Europe, China and the US).

 

 

For those that posted negatively in the hope of influencing Bachmann's future strategy I simple say, be careful what you wish for.

[bigP]

--

['CHARD]

Agree with this. This is a massive gap in the mid-late 80s range. Spoke to the fellas at Warley and they weren't aware of such a detail difference from the ones they already had produced though so I'm not holding my breath sadly. Maybe keep filling in the feedback form on the website to remind them that this is required by some of us.

 

Not sure who was manning the stand, as I didn't go to Warley '15, but this lack of subject knowledge as described is poor.  

 

The variant is the single most common nose style worn by the 193 locos, 165 receiving it, and it being relatively long-lived, certainly dominating the TOPS blue era.

 

 

(It's not a dissimilar story to Bachmann ignoring the two most common Brush Type 4/ Class 47 permutations, when you think about it....)

[The Stationmaster]

It's only 20% for the labour costs, so imho Bachmann's price rises are not justified. They have to make a profit and I understand that but they won't be selling me very much.

 

I agree that people should be paid a fair wage, but I'm not paying £55 for a Mk2. Just glad I managed to bag the Model Rail Exclusive Mk2 RR twin packs for £40 each before the prices got stupid!

 

This makes interesting reading -

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/108856-the-psychology-of-group-responses-to-model-railway-product-announcements/

[JSpencer]

Holy crap!  No wonder you've cancelled your preorder.

 

I see they've got the yellow end ones still on sale for £171 though - at that price you could probably get one and have it pro repainted for less than the new release!

 

 

Cheers,

Paul

 

 

He would also have to reduce the width of his rails as well, in order to run it. The £171 one is N gauge.

[jonny777]

None of us want to pay more than we've been used to but I was looking at a HO EWS liveried 66 at the weekend at just under £200, the stripe was too yellow rather than golden and the maroon too dark to my eyes,

 

Well, that appears to make the Heljan O2 2-8-0 even more of a bargain.  (Sorry going somewhat O/T).