Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 13 May 2012 04:29:28 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Incidentally, I once calculated what it cost my employer to ship an
empty box. That's a product that costs zero to make, but which still
has to carry the overhead such as purchasing, inventory control,
documentation, billing, shipping, etc. That was $75 in about 1980.
Probably much more today.

did you work for NASA or some other goverment organization?

I usually ignore one line cute remarks, but since this is a topic that
interests me, I'll make an exception here.

No. I have never worked for the govermint. I did that calculation
working for Intech Inc, in Santa Clara CA, for the marine radio
division.

If you have a problem with my numbers, try doing the calculation
backwards. Take a publicly traded company (so that the numbers are
available), and obtain a number for how much they spend each year on
everything. Then, multiply their approximate parts and labor costs
times the number of units shipped in the same time period. The
difference is the selling price plus overhead, which must be paid by
the customer. Assume break even and zero taxes to keep things simple.
Divide by the number of units shipped and you have the cost of
shipping an empty box with zero value contents.

This math is as nonsense as those "calculators" from places that do
backups and datarecovery where you type in numbers and they claim you lose
10% of your annual revenue per minute your computers are down or whatever.

The only way it costs $75 to ship a box is if you factor in your 100
million dollar failed SAP installation as part of your "billing costS" or
whatever, and then blame the box for the expense.