Hornby - Meet the Team

[Andy Y]

 

The modelling press were invited to Margate to meet the people behind Hornby following their restructuring and the start of a process where the intention is to improve outbound communications and how they'll communicate with the end consumer. The day was hosted by Nat Southworth, Hornby Hobbies Limited's Sales and Brand Director. In the restuctured board Richard Ames as CEO sits above Nat Southworth, Nick Stone (Group Finance Director) and Red McKay (Supply Chain Director).

 

Nat Southworth

 

A broad overview of the organisation's process from research through to point of sale was given to illustrate where Hornby interacts with outside partners such as research, licensing, manufacture and marketing. Nat referenced the briefing held by Bachmann recently as a good illustration of the complexities of supply and what's happening within China and manufacturing and stated that they continue to work at supply improvements and are "Improving the supply chain every day".

 

In discussing marketing approaches it was stated that they'll be more selective about the events which are attended in the future and also the form it may take as it may be possible to meet several people from the business at a show. It was emphasised that the biggest challenge they face is to "recruit people into buying" meaning how they find new consumers for the company's products. It was very evident at many points through the day how much RMweb is read by many people within the business and they do read what the members are saying and an acceptance that they need to be "conscious and awake to the fact that consumers are trying to communicate with us".

 

We were treated to presentations from the development teams from the key elements of the business with Corgi showing us current developments including a splendid 1:72 die-cast Vulcan with an RRP of £180.00.

 

 

The Airfix team led by Richard Petts were justifiably proud of their forthcoming Hawker Typhoon Mk1b in 1:24 scale

 

 

I did ask whether there was any chance that Airfix could look again at kits for the model railway customer. Although the response stopped short of never it was apparent that they didn't feel there was a sufficiently high volume of sales that would be needed to justify the development. Would a 1:43 A4 be a viable product? I'd like to think there could be a market for such pieces especially seeing as the Typhoon will have 509 parts and sell for under a hundred pounds. The Typhoon has been close to a 3-year project so the parallels with model railway development can be seen with it taking 10 months from design to tooling, even the magnificent instruction book has taken 20 weeks to produce, a little insight is that the face of the pilot in the instructions is that of the kit's designer. Long gone are the days when an Airfix box's artwork is based on an evocative painting, these days they're rendered from the same CAD work that leads to the kit.

 

The Scalextric team gave us a practical demonstration of their new App Race Control product where Scalextric can be controlled from your mobile device setting up the parameters for a race with fuel readings, pit stop management and data from races to share over social networks. It looked simple and effective and may give a clue to possible model railway developments. Fancy running to a timetable?

 

Edd Batchelor

 

The main act, for us model railway sorts, was obviously the Hornby Development team led by Edd Batchelor who talked through the roles of team memebers and also some of the complexities that diversification of the manufacturing base can bring. In some cases products that were made at the old Sanda Kan factory shared components and hence tooling. Now the tooling for existing products may be with any one of a number of different factories there can be a need for the tooling from one product to be used at one factory for one product and then moved to another factory for a different product. It's easy to see how that could lead to compounded issues so there's a process underway to replicate such tooling if viable to reduce that bottleneck and all products currently approaching manufacturer will have a dedicated suite of tooling to allow the production to flow more smoothly. Although Nat wouldn't give anything away on the structure out in China due to commercial confidentialities he did say they were still "working to fix" the issues. Later on I did challenge the ongoing statements which have been made about resolution of supply chain issues and when will it end, Nat's response was that the issue could only proved to be resolved when the consumer can see the products on sale on the shop shelves.

 

Whilst there seems to be an acceptance that product needs to be designed with production costs including labour in mind it was accepted that the "consumer has spoken" on the concept of design clever which is terminology they seem keen to veer away from and illustrate that they have looked at detailing and how it can be economically achieved and its fair to say that some of the latest engineering samples as shown below really are bringing back some fine detail.

 

Drummond 700 'Black Motor'

 

Drummond 700 'Black Motor'

 

D16/3

 

D16/3

 

K1

 

LNER Extra Long CCT

 

LNER Extra Long CCT

 

It's anticipated that the D16 and the 700 class will be in the country around October, the P2 should be available in July, the K1 will be Dec/Jan and final EP samples of the J15 should be seen around November and samples of the Crosti in July.

 

I questioned the other aspects which may have become entangled with design clever such as the axle bearings as some dealers have commented to me that they've seen issues but Nat stated that there wasn't any level of returns to Margate to indicate there was an issue.

 

The question of initial delivery quantities and where they're allocated to arose and it's apparent that they would like as many as possible of the initial batches to sell straight away rather than sitting as stock as the "sell through percentage of the initial shipment determines the success of a product". It's evident that Hornby want consumers to place orders with the retailers and the retailers to place the orders with Hornby to ensure allocations can be as accurate as possible. The allocation by channel such as the retailer/concession/direct sales split was challenged and met with a response that it's a case of the "consumer deciding where they buy the product from" and giving that choice to try and achieve wider general availability. The website direct sales though were described as a "small part of the business and not a priority".

 

The availability of spares was questioned and Hornby will continue to make spares available either directly or through selected service dealers who can provide the customer support rather than just sales of spares.

 

I questioned the ongoing 'grey area' of the export elements of the retailers' terms and conditions and Hornby are keen to try and support their chosen partners in the respective territory to be able to supply customers in those areas rather than being reliant on buying online from overseas. On the basis of that earlier quote,  "consumer deciding where they buy the product from", I'd say the onus is then on Hornby to ensure those appointed partners for a country have the stock and marketing support as I don't see how it could be policed.

 

It was accepted that they need to 'sell' the product rather than just selling products through better website content and we're already seeing evidence with the updated website and already they've reacted to the criticism of the "Out of Stock" tag to advise that it's a forthcoming product for example. Again it's evident they do read RMweb!

 

With Simon Kohler leaving the business apart from his consultancy involvement it was necessary to make sure there's a communication channel for the press and Bryony Walton will take on that role to channel communications through to the relevant party and ensure responses are made.

 

 

The list of questions raised in the earlier topic are being tidied up and sent to Bryony and we'll get those responses back to you as soon as we get them. Obviously we didn't have time for all those questions and I probably got more than a fair share of questions in through the day anyway and then had to move on to the other planned elements of the day.

 

We had a tour of the Visitor Centre which appropriately featured a magnificent D-Day scene.

 

 

 

With so many childhood memories on show it was inevitable that the inner child was released.

 

Phil gets close up with Thomas.

 

Peter Oliver

 

A fascinating part of the tour was a trip to the stationery room. That may not sound much but we met the brilliant Peter Oliver who caretakes the heritage of Hornby through all sorts of memorabilia and old material.

 

The fearsome looking Harold Hendon, MD from 1950-1975

 

Phil rifles through the stationery cabinet full of old promotional material and internal company magazine 'Happinews' - here Phil's delighted to find a 1970s Hammant & Morgan catalogue.

 

Moving through the warehouse which is where all of the orders get selected and picked.

 

We moved on to the Aladdin's cave of old products stacked high with more memories.

 

 

Is there something we should be told?

 

Hornby's not just about trains, here's a gold-played memento of the 10 millionth Hungry Hippos game.

 

Unfortunately we weren't able to photograph anything in the development room but there were a few clues to possible future releases around if you looked carefully so we'll have to see if anything comes of those! We did get chance to have a really good look at the Hornby 2e samples underway and they look to be well executed considering the price point and plenty of evidence that a lot of thought's gone into capturing detail whilst practical economies are considered. It also looks as though the J15 will feature some improvements to the pick-ups to improve assembly and maintenance which we'll show in due course.

 

It was abundantly clear that there's a development team still at Hornby with a depth of knowledge and passion with attention to detail that can certainly deliver the high standard of products the modellers' market is looking for.

 

Thanks to Nat and everyone in the team for a very useful and informative day; the stall has been set out that improves will happen in the supply chain and communications with intention as expressed of future events and how to communicate with all of us and it's probably worth reiterating Nat's words on which we must judge progress "the issue could only proved to be resolved when the consumer can see the products on sale on the shop shelves."

[51E]

>The availability of spares was questioned and Hornby will continue to make spares available either directly or through selected service dealers who can provide the customer support rather than just sales of spares.

 

Interesting as I contacted Hornby only last week asking for a spare part only to be told that they don't supply directly and I'd have to carry on hunting around myself. 

[Miss Prism]

Thanks Andy. It was perhaps inevitable that there would not have been anywhere near enough time to deal with the questions raised in the preparatory thread, but at least you got a commitment from Hornby to get some answers.

 

I get the impression that Hornby's aspiration of not so long ago that direct (internet) sales from Margate would begin to dominate has hit the reality buffers, and that they have returned to realising the importance of model shops.

 

Concerning Edd Batchelor's role, presumably this is not specific to model railways (i.e. he's development across the various brands)? I'm still not clear though, given previous reports that Hornby had ditched its previous internal R&D team, whether there has been a retrenchment or there has been a sharing out of current projects.

[Andy Y]

 

Concerning Edd Batchelor's role, presumably this is not specific to model railways (i.e. he's development across the various brands)? I'm still not clear though, given previous reports that Hornby had ditched its previous internal R&D team, whether there has been a retrenchment or there has been a sharing out of current projects.

 

 

Edd's just on the Hornby side of things with a team formed of Carl Hart, Nick Scott, Alex Hartoop, Steve Merry and Phil Morley with Adita handling the admin side of it. There's similar teams within the Corgi, Airfix and Scalextric brands with Jamie Buchanan as a Development Manager sitting above each brand.

[Wild Boar Fell]

Got to say I think those prototypes do look superb.

[7013]

Interesting food for thought, one impression I get from Andy's post is that Hornby are now trying to understand the buying public and what we want, and we will not accept any old quality they want to throw at us.

The examples of locos that Andy has posted look very much better than recent efforts like the heavy tanks etc. there do appear to be many unresolved issues regarding distribution and sales and the direct internet sales bubble for them appears to have burst prematurely. The message is simple really, put decent models and enough models in the shops and they will sell. Clearly Hornby still have a long way to go, but they are hopefully on the road to recovery which bodes well for the future.i

[Miss Prism]

Phil Parker's MREMag version of events concerning re-runs of older models is interesting. Given that Hornby's railway manufacturing is now reported to be spread over at least six different sources, the report of "All new models are being tooled as complete units now to avoid this, even though it raises costs slightly." is disturbing. It's disturbing because it raised the spectre, as we have suspected for some considerable time, that running older tooling in new locations has proved to be extremely difficult or impossible. Thus we have the possibility of a common CAD design for a specific product being translated into various non-common tooling CADs, and therefore different products, all of which will have different accuracy and quality issues. E.g. GWR 3500g tenders. Moreover, I simply don't believe that such tooling duplication and variation 'raises the costs only slightly'. It will raise costs a lot.

 

 

[45568]

Thank you for a very concise and factual report Andy. It is very pleasing to see that certain 'criticisms' of company policy regarding design of models has been listened to and ,looking at your photographs, acted upon.

 As  a leap of faith I had pre-ordered six locos. from the 2014 range from Hattons. I don't think I will be disappointed if the D16/3 ,(one of them), is anything to go by!

 MReMag's editor was similarly upbeat in this mornings issue!

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

[woodenhead]

Hornby already have a production APT in their catalogue "A Pendolino Train" but it would be nice if they ran a batch of railroad heritage APT for those that wish to model the genesis of high speed UK rail from the 1970s to present day as only the production APT is likely to be out of production shortly.......or so we believe.

[Legend]

Thanks for the report Andy. You are a tease with these APT pictures, but I note its in the heritage or old products section!

 

Its great that Hornby have done this and hopefully marks a new era in communications with the buying public. I note they have already acted on Ian's points on their new website, which is heartening.

 

I'm not entirely convinced , however, there are still some items there that have my alarm bells going

 

"I questioned the other aspects which may have become entangled with design clever such as the axle bearings as some dealers have commented to me that they've seen issues but Nat stated that there wasn't any level of returns to Margate to indicate there was an issue"

The old we haven't had many returns response. Well I do believe they read RMWeb, so they should know this is a significant issue to many modellers. Why do they continue to persist with this line? I predict this will be a continuing festering sore, much like tender drive locos were in the 90s.

 

I always thought "Design Clever" was an own goal and interesting to note that they are trying to get away from this. While  there are many  that will pay continuing larger amounts for more detail, the results of your recent poll show that many people have a limited amount of cash to spend. Whats missing in this briefing is any reference to keeping costs under control. I fear that we too often send out a message that we would pay any price for more detail.

 

Finally Nats comment about Manufacturing Supply issues being fixed when there's products on the shelves. Well thats a bit like saying its fixed when its fixed! My customers wouldnt accept that , they want dates!   I appreciate its a plc and therefore there are commercial sensitivites but the response to this question is not exactly illuminating

 

However overall I congratulate them on making the effort and the explanation about moving tooling and the complexities involved was certainly interesting and goes a long way to explaining the issues they have had. Maybe they should do this meeting quarterly until issues resolved!

[JSpencer]

While the d-day scene is apt, the scene is should be taken as toy rather than a serious diorama. There are lots of errors. Tanks coming out of an LCM (landing craft) for one. They would have sunk.

 

Recruiting new buyers is important. They need to get that railmaster software and elink refined. It is temparamental and not as user friendly as it should be. I find it annoying that I cannot run the model railway just from an iPad, but have to take a PC + router system with me.

Further the online app for phones and tablets, will barely open at all, bugs quite easily.

 

Most users especially newcomers these days would want just an app they download and an ability to connect the box directly to the phone or tablet with the options of running from a PC using phones are wireless controllers.

[Multiple identity account]

Thank you Andy for the posting and taking the time to go and enquire. Special thanks also to Hornby for their time as well for hosting this. 

The pre-production samples look great. Looking forward to seeing the J15, Crosti 9F and Mk2s soon.

Cheers!

[JSpencer]

The square axle bearings are giving me considerable trouble with my DOG. The model is really a bad performer now after 3 months. The trouble is I cannot send it back for replacement as there is nothing to replace it with.

 

Doubtless most people are choosing between no model or poor running one.

 

When you consider I have a clan! running really well after so many years! this is a bad show. And I will cancel my orders if I learn that the crosti 9F and LSWR 700 have square axles as well.

[Hilux5972]

Was there any news on the GWR Hall progress Andy?

[Andy Y]

Was there any news on the GWR Hall progress Andy?

 

I did get to look at a 3D print of the loco body in the development room so although there's no new images we can see it's progressing.

[Andy Y]

The square axle bearings are giving me considerable trouble with my DOG. The model is really a bad performer now after 3 months. The trouble is I cannot send it back for replacement as there is nothing to replace it with.

 

 

My suggestion would be to communicate directly with Hornby with your feedback to ensure they are aware and can evaluate any wider issues.

[Hilux5972]

Thanks Andy

[TheHobbyShop]

Was any info given regarding the International brands (Rivarossi, Jouef, Lima, Arnold etc.)?

[Andy Y]

Was any info given regarding the International brands (Rivarossi, Jouef, Lima, Arnold etc.)?

 

It's hoped that an answer can be given on this in the near future.

[shunny]

This is just what was needed from Hornby some good PR work to give some updates and responses to issues. Good to hear the steps they are taking to tackle issues such as tooling duplicate parts to help with different factory production and that they have listened to feedback on design clever. The new models look very promising and let's hope the team follow up on this event with similar updates

[micklner]

Interesting comment from Hornby "We havent had many back (returns) "

 

I wonder if they will ever get their head out of the sand and realise that the only reason they dont get many back IS because punters cant get replacements !!! and therfore mend them themselves. 

 

Sadly as to Square axleboxes then the only cure would be a new chassis block. Perhaps a idea for a replacement part from the cottage industry? or Hornby recall the lot and fit the properly designed chassis they should have had in the first place.

[Revolution Ben]

Hello all,

 

"Hornby Ditches Design Clever" - I'm not an OO gauge modeller but that headline has to be good news.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

[Paul Cram]

Hello all,

 

"Hornby Ditches Design Clever" - I'm not an OO gauge modeller but that headline has to be good news.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

I think that remains to be seen. I am not sure they will get the volume of sales at the price they will need to charge for fully detailed models. You only have to look on the Bachmann thread to see the resistance to the proposed prices and they also include moulded handrails.

[S.A.C Martin]

I questioned the other aspects which may have become entangled with design clever such as the axle bearings as some dealers have commented to me that they've seen issues but Nat stated that there wasn't any level of returns to Margate to indicate there was an issue.

 

That's infuriating because the issue isn't that there is anything wrong in terms of the QC of a model with the square axle boxes. Thow it was designed, after all. The point is that brass bearings set into properly shaped axle boxes into the mazak chassis will produce smoother and more reliable running in the long term.

 

My Duke of Gloucester has nothing technically wrong with it other than the square axle boxes have led to incredibly indifferent, and at times totally unacceptable running qualities including (but not limited to) stuttering, tightness all round in the driving wheels (the original coupling rods fitted were one piece too, and after replacement with Britannia coupling rods the running quality improved mildly).

 

So I can't return the model on the basis that the specification isn't good enough - can I?

 

Not to mention the issue of the severely limited of models made in the first place on many of the modern production batches. I can't be guaranteed, even if I got my money back, of getting a replacement DoG.

 

Regarding feedback on the brass bearings, I have written to Hornby a number of times on this issue. I've pointed out the excellence of their Tornado model and the advantages of standardising on the brass bearing types and sizes (any 6ft 8in driving wheels produced by Hornby over the last 20 years will fit in the Tornado chassis without fuss). Modellers have spoken about it to them at shows, it has been discussed at length on this very forum a number of times and via all the usual outlets to voice this issue.

 

What more can modellers do to press this issue and get Hornby to take the matter seriously? Bachmann have introduced brass bearings to all of their new models and on new chassis for older models. If a competitor is raising their game to match the high standard Hornby has abandoned, shouldn't that be telling Hornby something?

 

Not to mention - and I will press this point - that Hornby have had price rises for a number of models over the years and in some new models (prices comparable to better detailed and older models) the overall specification is much lower. Case in point: DoG is more expensive than Tornado, and Tornado has the higher specification.  

 

You cannot keep pushing prices up (whilst of course accepting the changes in the industry and manufacturing abroad) and pushing the specification down without alienating otherwise reasonable members of your core consumers.

 

On a related note, the idea of making each new model's tooling completely self contained bewilders me. How much easier must it be for Hornby to have the B1 tender tooled up that can go behind the B1 and the forthcoming K1? I note the tender coupled to the K1 above is in fact from a recently released B1 - unless we're saying Hornby tooled up another version of the same tender just to put behind the K1 specifically? So what if that factory making model X goes out of business and the tooling can't be transferred to a another factory? Isn't that effectively setting up Hornby for the same problems they've experienced previously?

[edcayton]

The square axle bearings are giving me considerable trouble with my DOG. The model is really a bad performer now after 3 months. The trouble is I cannot send it back for replacement as there is nothing to replace it with.

 

Doubtless most people are choosing between no model or poor running one.

 

When you consider I have a clan! running really well after so many years! this is a bad show. And I will cancel my orders if I learn that the crosti 9F and LSWR 700 have square axles as well.

 

Perhaps if they tried square bearings and square axles?????.....

 

Ed