My anecdote isn’t quite the same since it deals with something a lot simpler, and lower stakes than stuff like this.
used to assemble bicycles for a sporting goods chain, and had to travel to a nearby city to build theirs because nobody there knew how. I had two days to get 300 done.
I got there and start, and about two hours in the store manager comes over and tells me he’s pulling 2 of their operations employees to help and learn how to build. “they’re the strongest guys we have so they should have no problem tossing these bikes around”
I straight up told him I have no time at all to train them on how to build and do the safety inspections correctly, not to mention the fact that I will still have to personally inspect every single one they put together anyway, so if they want to give me help I’ll take it but they’re on trash duty. Remove all the packaging, put the bike next to my work area, toss the trash. I will build. If there’s extra time at the end I will be happy to instruct everyone in the store how it’s done. Or even put me on the schedule for next week to do it.
Dude got pissy and wanted me to train people first, so I just called the district manager while he was talking and had him tell the guy to do what I said because I’m here at corporates request and if I don’t get the bikes finished in time then “it will look bad on your store’s next visit if the bikes are still boxed up”
In the end I got all of them done with about 3 hours to spare, so I spent the rest of the time teaching a couple people how to do it.
More like 12-14 hours, and with the experience I had I was able to build most in about 6-7 minutes.
There’s downsides to speed building like that, because whoever has to inspect it when it gets sold has to spend a lot longer fixing minor problems.
If I were building at my own store, each bike took about 20 minutes because I made sure everything was as close to “ready to ride” as possible.
Nowadays I bulk build for many companies. They don’t give a shit about quality but I spent years making sure my bikes were perfect, so I still like to make them good to ride out the door.
my quickest bike was one particularly well put together model. 3 minutes per bike and it was good enough that I’d ride one without tools to the nearest store a few miles away.
My anecdote isn’t quite the same since it deals with something a lot simpler, and lower stakes than stuff like this.
used to assemble bicycles for a sporting goods chain, and had to travel to a nearby city to build theirs because nobody there knew how. I had two days to get 300 done.
I got there and start, and about two hours in the store manager comes over and tells me he’s pulling 2 of their operations employees to help and learn how to build. “they’re the strongest guys we have so they should have no problem tossing these bikes around”
I straight up told him I have no time at all to train them on how to build and do the safety inspections correctly, not to mention the fact that I will still have to personally inspect every single one they put together anyway, so if they want to give me help I’ll take it but they’re on trash duty. Remove all the packaging, put the bike next to my work area, toss the trash. I will build. If there’s extra time at the end I will be happy to instruct everyone in the store how it’s done. Or even put me on the schedule for next week to do it.
Dude got pissy and wanted me to train people first, so I just called the district manager while he was talking and had him tell the guy to do what I said because I’m here at corporates request and if I don’t get the bikes finished in time then “it will look bad on your store’s next visit if the bikes are still boxed up”
In the end I got all of them done with about 3 hours to spare, so I spent the rest of the time teaching a couple people how to do it.
Holy shit. In an 8 hour day that’s like 20 bikes an hour. So that’s a bike every three minutes. How is that even possible?
Lol I wish it was just an 8 hour day.
More like 12-14 hours, and with the experience I had I was able to build most in about 6-7 minutes.
There’s downsides to speed building like that, because whoever has to inspect it when it gets sold has to spend a lot longer fixing minor problems.
If I were building at my own store, each bike took about 20 minutes because I made sure everything was as close to “ready to ride” as possible.
Nowadays I bulk build for many companies. They don’t give a shit about quality but I spent years making sure my bikes were perfect, so I still like to make them good to ride out the door.
my quickest bike was one particularly well put together model. 3 minutes per bike and it was good enough that I’d ride one without tools to the nearest store a few miles away.