Model prices and costs of bringing manufacturing back to the UK?

[Nova Scotian]

2 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

Is automated assembly a real necessity in this context and is the lack of "skilled" staff a major issue?

 

Many consumer goods are assembled by relatively unskilled staff. Whilst manual dexterity would be an obvious requirement, people can be readily trained to carry out repetitive tasks successfully. It is largely down to appropriate product design, correct tooling, relevant training, suitable process engineering, etc.

 

What may be more difficult in the UK is finding a workforce at lower pay scales who have a suitable job ethic, something I fear we have lost over decades since manufacturing of relatively low-cost consumer product has gone abroad. 

I don’t understand all these comments about work ethic. Worry that people see “Britannia Unchained” as non-fiction rather than where it belongs in offensive fiction. I also often find those making the comment haven’t worked themselves in a least a decade and are looking back with rose tinted glasses. (In them days we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea, aye a cup of cold tea, without milk or sugar, or tea!)

 

Labour should be compensated for its production. It should be compensated to a level that one’s labour can provide for a quality of life that’s reasonable. 
 

If labour won’t work your job for wages offered, either make the job better or pay more. 

[maico]

On 11/10/2022 at 18:41, Andy Hayter said:

For those that doubt the UK vs China price comparisons, we do actually have some good comparison data.

 

Roco produce locomotives in the EU - Hungary and Romania - where minimum wages are around 50-75% UK minimum wages.  Here is a Pacific:

https://www.roco.cc/rde/produkte/lokomotiven/dampflokomotiven/78249-dampflokomotive-br-184-db.html

 

Around £420 at current exchange rates for a DCC model in a slightly smaller scale.  Now upgrade to UK assembly labour costs.

 

Additionally, while assembled and largely made in Europe, where do these bits come from?

Motors - Far East?

DCC Chips and components - Far East?  even if the final assembly of the whole is in Europe - which I doubt.

Wheels -  ??

 

 

 

It's the Marklin-Trix main factory that is in Hungary. They also produce at their tradtional base and at new factory extension in Germany. Some production of the budget start range comes from China. My last purchase was a used Trix diesel shunter with a coreless motor made in Switzerland by Maxon. A really expensive Rolls Royce spec motor they no longer can afford to fit to new models.

 

Roco's main factory is in Arad Romania. Their motors and much else are made in Europe as shown in this short video. Design and some mold making still in Austria. 

Some production in Vietnam. Handily the boxes are stamped EU production or Vietnam.

 

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by maico

[Nearholmer]

On 14/10/2022 at 10:40, HonestTom said:

I believe a machine that could assemble a model locomotive is entirely within the realms of possibility using existing technology.

It certainly is. The problem being that such a machine would be so expensive to build that unless the market for the toy trains it assembled was immense, they would be unmarketably expensive. In short, right now people can still do that particular job cheaper than robots, but that might change.

[Bluebell Model Railway]

I think Accurascale answered this recently, and this was before a certain party plunged the markets in to chaos and caused everything to be pretty much unaffordable.
Answer is no China is still cheaper.
Secondly the UK doesn't have all the required skills to do so.. I mean ask someone to do a kit they don't want to do it.. imagine doing one job every day 100's of times, people don't want to do it, and it's not feasible 
Accurascales numbers and I apologies if I mis quote them... somewhere in the region of £100 for a wagon... just 1, a locomotive you can probably have to add a zero to that.

So nop just not an option, I know some manufacturers have tried say India Hornby did for a while... but never worked out... and besides the pound is in a terrible way...

I know many have said or mentioned 3D printing, but it's not there yet, or the materials, was looking at 3D printed wagon done for a retailer, now in the small print it says ok for 25 years, as that material UV cured plastic starts to degrade, and this one only a few years old if that and the roof has gone. So that's not a viable option at this time, and if it was very small runs as the finer printers are slower, and still require a lot of cleaning and prep work hence more cost.

Edited October 15, 2022 by Bluebell Model Railway

[Dave John]

So, the future...... 

 

Really fantastic rtr will require robots with massive ai skills to assemble, and those will be really expensive robots. 

 

So expensive that most normal humans will never be able to afford these fantastic rtr models .

 

But these robots are tireless, they will make lots of fantastic expensive rtr that the humans will never be able to afford to buy.....

 

Not only that, robots with fantastic ai will be able to make whole layouts. detailed to the nth rivet. On which to run all the unaffordable rtr. 

 

So, er. That will divide the railway modelling community into Two. The very few incredibly rich who can afford to employ robots , and those of us who forego lifes comforts to buy a few sheets of brass and scratchbuild stuff. 

 

Nihilistic ? Maybe but I have a solution. Build an enjoyment of model railways into the AI of all the robots. So all of them go home at night and build ever more detailed and complex model railways for themselves, after all the wages they get for making the stuff will let them do so. 

 

Since ever more robots will demand ever more models with almost infinite livery variations the market becomes self sustaining, until all humans are gone and the earth is swamped in a vast morass  of super detailed model railways run by robots who just love model railways........... 

 

 

 

[jjb1970]

8 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

I don’t understand all these comments about work ethic. Worry that people see “Britannia Unchained” as non-fiction rather than where it belongs in offensive fiction. I also often find those making the comment haven’t worked themselves in a least a decade and are looking back with rose tinted glasses. (In them days we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea, aye a cup of cold tea, without milk or sugar, or tea!)

 

Labour should be compensated for its production. It should be compensated to a level that one’s labour can provide for a quality of life that’s reasonable. 
 

If labour won’t work your job for wages offered, either make the job better or pay more. 

 

This is a difficult one. I agree with what you say, but having been a hiring manager I have also seen the flip side. Something easy to lose sight of is that people are now just as globalised as industry. For many roles it really doesn't matter where you are in the world. And while there are undoubtedly an awful lot of roles where it's just about minimum cost and finding the cheapest place to manufacture there are just as many roles where it is about skills, knowledge and the value people offer. Countries like Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore etc are not low cost economies (quite the opposite) but they have business friendly environments and a lot of very skilled people. Their people often command a premium but it's a premium companies consider justified. Even China is not the minimum cost place many still think it to be. In my industry I started seeing Chinese naval architects and marine engineers return home from Europe as the salary gap had narrowed right down and their purchasing power was massively higher at home. Which means that to be competitive people either need to offer something or be willing to accept entry roles to develop their skills and expertise. And I have to admit I found that difficult in the UK. It was difficult to find highly skilled people and many people turn their noses up if offered a more junior role than the one they applied for to help them develop. I would love to see more production in the UK but in all honesty if I was investing my own money it would need more than an emotional appeal of seeing a British flag on the box to persuade me. 

[Colin_McLeod]

Interesting debate about bringing model railway manufacture to the UK. Discussion about costs, labour supply etc, but no talk of "why?"

 

If all the discussed problems were overcome amd model railway manufacture returned to UK, so what?

 

What would be the benefit to us modellers?

[Colin_McLeod]

53 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

it would need more than an emotional appeal of seeing a British flag on the box to persuade me. 

 

Do you mean like this?

 

 

 

[jjb1970]

1 minute ago, Colin_McLeod said:

Interesting debate about bringing model railway manufacture to the UK. Discussion about costs, labour supply etc, but no talk of "why?"

 

If all the discussed problems were overcome amd model railway manufacture returned to UK, so what?

 

What would be the benefit to us modellers?

 

Spares availability and support might be better, though there's certainly no guarantee that would be the case. UK factory production might just as easily follow the same model as China on spares. The only benefit would be an emotional one in supporting British industry and jobs, but how much is that really worth? Enough to close the price gap? Maybe for some, highly unlikely for most.

[Michael Hodgson]

8 hours ago, Dave John said:

So, the future...... 

 

Really fantastic rtr will require robots with massive ai skills to assemble, and those will be really expensive robots. 

 

So expensive that most normal humans will never be able to afford these fantastic rtr models .

 

Once you get those expensive robots to make other powerful robots in volume, those products will come down in price because of economies of scale.  When that happens, RTR models will be just one of the product ranges these robots will be able to produce.

[billbedford]

11 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

Labour should be compensated for its production. It should be compensated to a level that one’s labour can provide for a quality of life that’s reasonable. 
 

If labour won’t work your job for wages offered, either make the job better or pay more. 

 

According to Jason Shron the hourly rate that his Chinese workers are paid is roughly the same as the cost of a midday meal. Looking around the part of East London where I live, it is possible to get a meal at midday for less that the minimum ware rate. So I don't thing that the relative cost of labour is the significant problem. 

 

If someone in the UK has money that they want to use for investment the property market offers  whole lot less hassle with a better and more predictable return than putting into a start-up company. Bank investment lending is running at a ratio of about 80-90% property to productive manufacture. 

[billbedford]

2 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

Interesting debate about bringing model railway manufacture to the UK. Discussion about costs, labour supply etc, but no talk of "why?"

 

Because an economy that's based on productive manufacturing, in the long run, is more stable that one based on property speculation. 

[Jol Wilkinson]

11 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

I don’t understand all these comments about work ethic. Worry that people see “Britannia Unchained” as non-fiction rather than where it belongs in offensive fiction. I also often find those making the comment haven’t worked themselves in a least a decade and are looking back with rose tinted glasses. (In them days we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea, aye a cup of cold tea, without milk or sugar, or tea!)

 

Labour should be compensated for its production. It should be compensated to a level that one’s labour can provide for a quality of life that’s reasonable. 
 

If labour won’t work your job for wages offered, either make the job better or pay more. 

I haven't worked for remuneration for twenty years, having taken early retirement, but have done unpaid work (charities, etc.). 

 

You are right about labour rightly not wanting to work unless they receive what they perceive to be a fair wage.

 

However, I strongly disagree that believing in having a positive work ethic is a negative attitude.  Let's say you are living on government benefits, are fit and healthy but choose not to take up a job as the extra you would earn isn't significantly more than you are already getting. That may be great if you are occupied in some voluntary service, caring for parents or children, etc. However, if you don't have anything that fills your time to your satisfaction (which for some people may be watching the TV all day), then a job can provide benefits beyond earning a wage. Companionship, a sense of worth, status, etc. 

 

I hadn't heard of Britain Unchained and having "Googled" it, it is definitely on my list of books I shan't be reading. However, I would recommend "What we have lost. The dismantling of Great Britain" by James Hamilton-Patterson.

[Northmoor]

3 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

However, if you don't have anything that fills your time to your satisfaction (which for some people may be watching the TV all day), then a job can provide benefits beyond earning a wage. Companionship, a sense of worth, status, etc. 

 

I've learned it's also quite hard to get promoted when on unemployment benefit.

[Dungrange]

4 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

What would be the benefit to us modellers?

 

Nothing, as far as I can see. 

 

I think the notion of bringing production 'home' is that in the 1980s I could buy a new locomotive with 'Made in England' on the bottom of it for £20.  Now I have to buy one that is 'Made in China' and it costs £200.  If we could return production to the UK, then surely we'd go back to 'the good old days'.  Of course that is just a romantic notion and it's not really what most of us want.  We might want a £20 loco, but we don't want a 1980s model: those who do buy second hand.

 

Back in the 1980s it was easier to get spare parts, but I'm not sure that bringing production back to the UK really helps.  Where something is made is not really the issue here - it's the fact that production is outsourced rather than being in-house.  Currently Hornby outsource production to factories in China and therefore they have less control of production slots. They can choose what to make in the slots they have booked, but can't easily scale up and down in line with demand. However, if they were to outsource to factories in the UK in the same way, many of the same issues would remain.  Taking it in-house gives greater control, but it means that the machines are used less efficiently than when they are shared across various producers production lines, so that wouldn't help on the cost side.  Besides, the storage of spare parts is expensive.

 

At the level of the UK economy, it would probably be beneficial if our economy was more balanced, which means producing more manufactured goods, but where a few toy trains are manufactured isn't going to make much difference to the UK economy as a whole.

 

I guess we could argue that it would be better to employ people in the UK (ie get them off benefits) rather than paying wages of people living elsewhere, but if the suggested way of overcoming the issues that have been discussed is to build expensive AI robots to do the work, then that doesn't really help.  I suppose some may prefer to know that it is assembled in the UK by an AI robot rather than a human being in China, but I struggle to see that as a selling point. 

 

Local production could arguably reduce risk in the supply chain as we have seen with for example the Ever Given and the war in Ukraine.  What would happen if China were to go to war with Taiwan?  Would the West impose the same sort of sanctions on China as has been imposed on Russia?  Where would that leave the production of our Chinese produced models?  Presumably UK suppliers would be unable to pay for their production slots and all deliveries would cease.  That may be the end of the world for some, but I suspect we'll have much worse than a lack of new models to worry about if that were to happen.

 

Perhaps you have actually asked the most pertinent question - what are the perceived benefits of bringing production 'home'?

Edited October 16, 2022 by Dungrange

[Dungrange]

11 hours ago, Dave John said:

Since ever more robots will demand ever more models with almost infinite livery variations the market becomes self sustaining, until all humans are gone and the earth is swamped in a vast morass  of super detailed model railways run by robots who just love model railways........... 

 

But, will these AI robots complain as much as the humans on RMWeb?

[Nearholmer]

12 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

bringing production 'home'?

As an aside, I’m not at all sure why people think that Britain is somehow the natural home of toy train production anyway. If anywhere can lay claim to that title it is Germany, which was by far the dominant place* where small scale, mass produced toy and model trains came from until WW1 forced Britain to have a go. All of the very good pre-WW1 volume production for Bassett Lowke was in Germany, with the British firm acting as commissioners of product, just as British forms do from China now, and the first Meccano 0 gauge was a straight copy of Bing to fill a ‘war gap’.

 

Anyway, back to the current century….
 

*The US had a home grown industry of a rather different kind too, as well as importing from Germany.

 

 

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by Nearholmer

[AY Mod]

1 hour ago, Dungrange said:

 

But, will these AI robots complain as much as the humans on RMWeb?

 

AI analyses content and rephrases opinions to make it appear they are human, they tend to repeat back without checking whether their input is any different or adds value.

 

 

"You know I hate to ask

But are 'friends' electric?

Only mine's broke down

And now I've no-one to love."

[Nova Scotian]

2 hours ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

 Let's say you are living on government benefits, are fit and healthy but choose not to take up a job as the extra you would earn isn't significantly more than you are already getting. That may be great if you are occupied in some voluntary service, caring for parents or children, etc. However, if you don't have anything that fills your time to your satisfaction (which for some people may be watching the TV all day), then a job can provide benefits beyond earning a wage. Companionship, a sense of worth, status, etc.

What has happened over the last 40 years means the stereotype of someone able bodied and choosing to not work, but having a life that isn't miserable is no longer applicable. The sell-off of council houses and refusal to build enough replacements fast enough means accommodations are incredibly tenuous. You'll get 77 quid a week, if you can prove that you're actively seeking work. If you can't that gets cut - over the last decade of universal credit they've turned the screws - making double amputees attend in person to prove they're unable to work. The categories of welfare spending in the graph below are 33% of govn expenditures (wait until you hear how much pensions cost the government!), and you can see what a small sliver of the total unemployment is:

All this to say - there's not a large population in the UK capable of work, seeking work, and sitting about on unemployment. The pool to draw from for training would be relatively limited - although there are regional pockets of concentrations (seaside towns...).

 

As per someone else's comment - why would one reshore? Many of us on this thread think that the industry trend for complex builds will continue to be to seek out a lower wage jurisdiction, likely one with a supply chain in place. I can't see a UK product being "better" than a product from China, the current quality of our models is fantastic. I'd pay maybe a 10% premium to support British, not a 100-500% premium. 

[Dungrange]

36 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

AI analyses content and rephrases opinions to make it appear they are human, they tend to repeat back without checking whether their input is any different or adds value.

 

So how many humans are on RMWeb?  That description of AI sounds like posts in many threads on this site!

[AY Mod]

4 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

So how many humans are on RMWeb?

 

I can only vouch for a few hundred that I've met, I think all the others were programmed by Kenton (and they all moan about JavaScript).

[woodenhead]

Maybe we need to think outside the box more - we need to find a group of people who will work very hard and very fast to bring cost of production down, might not be the cheapest hourly rate, but have all the benefits of robots when it comes to hard working, regular attendance at work and not complaining.

 

I present you with the Amish

 

[Jol Wilkinson]

12 hours ago, Bluebell Model Railway said:

"Secondly the UK doesn't have all the required skills to do so.. I mean ask someone to do a kit they don't want to do it.. imagine doing one job every day 100's of times, people don't want to do it, and it's not feasible 
 

Firstly you are not comparing apples with apples. Building a kit is not the same as a production line job.

 

Secondly repetitive work is what's goes on in mass production industries around the world. Providing adequate renumeration (in local terms), good working conditions, etc. contributes to a more enjoyable workplace. If it was so onerous, nobody would make anything, Mass production isn't restricted to developing or low pay economies, otherwise you couldn't buy your Audi or BMW made in Germany or the USA.

 

 

5 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

What would be the benefit to us modellers?

 

A stronger economy if we had a more production-based economy with less imports. But that would rely on other industries joining in.

 

6 minutes ago, Nova Scotian said:

What has happened over the last 40 years means the stereotype of someone able bodied and choosing to not work, but having a life that isn't miserable is no longer applicable. The sell-off of council houses and refusal to build enough replacements fast enough means accommodations are incredibly tenuous. You'll get 77 quid a week, if you can prove that you're actively seeking work. If you can't that gets cut - over the last decade of universal credit they've turned the screws - making double amputees attend in person to prove they're unable to work. The categories of welfare spending in the graph below are 33% of govn expenditures (wait until you hear how much pensions cost the government!), and you can see what a small sliver of the total unemployment is:

All this to say - there's not a large population in the UK capable of work, seeking work, and sitting about on unemployment. The pool to draw from for training would be relatively limited - although there are regional pockets of concentrations (seaside towns...).

 

As per someone else's comment - why would one reshore? Many of us on this thread think that the industry trend for complex builds will continue to be to seek out a lower wage jurisdiction, likely one with a supply chain in place. I can't see a UK product being "better" than a product from China, the current quality of our models is fantastic. I'd pay maybe a 10% premium to support British, not a 100-500% premium. 

Interesting graph relating to spending, but I am not sure how it relates to the number of people in work or not. Government data shows 1.24m job vacancies and 1.19 over sixteens unemployed in the UK at present. Matching them clearly isn't easy, especially in the lower paid roles such as health carers, hospitality, etc.

 

There are many factors influencing the ability of the UK to manufacture things competitively, a suitable workforce being just one of them.  If products could be manufactured in the UK at reasonably competitive prices, then benefits could accrue such as shorter supply chains, etc.

 

Will prices remain at the level RTR buyers have become used to over the years. We are seeing the £200 plus loco becoming the norm going by recent releases but it doesn't seem to restrict the buyers judging by some of the threads on RMweb and prices will only go higher, especially if the £ stays weak. Even then I don't think that we are likely to see a return to being a manufacturing-based economy (I could say why I think that but it would be venturing into politics).

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, Dungrange said:

 

But, will these AI robots complain as much as the humans on RMWeb?

That's an optional extra.

[Andy Hayter]

6 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

Interesting debate about bringing model railway manufacture to the UK. Discussion about costs, labour supply etc, but no talk of "why?"

 

If all the discussed problems were overcome amd model railway manufacture returned to UK, so what?

 

What would be the benefit to us modellers?

 

Speaking of the generality rather than the specifics of model railways, we, the western world, have for decades now outsourced manufacturing to cheaper to produce countries and regions.  The move eastwards has ended up with massive quantities of manufacturing in China.  China - a country with very different societal beliefs and who would aim to spread their beliefs to a much wider audience.

 

However there has been a tacit belief that they needed us as much as we needed them.  When the first off-shoring to China happened that was certainly true but I think it has become and continues to become less and less valid.  China now has a burgeoning middle class in the biggest cities, whose standard of living - if not cost of living - rapidly matches our own if not surpassing it.  

 

With around 12% of the world's population as a potential market, we have to ask ourselves just how much China needs us.  

 

The situation may be seen as being analogous to Europe's reliance on Russian energy.  I am not suggesting that China is about to invade or take over Taiwan or another neighbour - but it might.  We do however already see the signs of the different societal beliefs in its reaction to covid and how to deal with it.  We already see the impacts of this with the supply (or lack of it) of a number of key items that we the west rely on.

 

So returning to model railways, on-shoring would be as critical to the Chinese economy as a flea sneezing on the back of an elephant.  We do however have to start somewhere.  Our economic reliance of China and continued good relations is IMHO too exposed.