On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:15:20 -0600, Ignoramus9551 wrote:
I have a question about cost of wrenches. I thought that making
wrenches is automated. There is not much labor cost in wrenches. They
are stamped, forged, polished etc, and that all seems to be a fully
automatable process with no need for much human input. Hence labor
cost is not a big consideration. Am I mistaken?

I toured the snap-on plant in Kenosha about 10-15 years ago, and was
amazed at the amount of hand-work being done for what seemed to me could
easily be done by machines. Maybe that's changed now but it was
impressive.

On 23 Dec 2007 15:45:42 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:15:20 -0600, Ignoramus9551 wrote:
I have a question about cost of wrenches. I thought that making
wrenches is automated. There is not much labor cost in wrenches. They
are stamped, forged, polished etc, and that all seems to be a fully
automatable process with no need for much human input. Hence labor
cost is not a big consideration. Am I mistaken?

I toured the snap-on plant in Kenosha about 10-15 years ago, and was
amazed at the amount of hand-work being done for what seemed to me could
easily be done by machines. Maybe that's changed now but it was
impressive.

For what its worth:
We had a project some 15 years ago where the client specified
"snap-on, or equal" so we ordered snap On - some $150,000 worth. As I
result I got to meet the Asian Rep who when asked about the high cost
of their tools blamed Product Liability Insurance for a substantial
part of the cost of a Snap On wrench.

I suspect the "I got it and you want it" syndrome also has some effect
on the price.

Bruce-in-Bangkok
(Note:remove underscores
from address for reply)

Bruce in Bangkok wrote:

For what its worth:
We had a project some 15 years ago where the client specified
"snap-on, or equal" so we ordered snap On - some $150,000 worth. As I
result I got to meet the Asian Rep who when asked about the high cost
of their tools blamed Product Liability Insurance for a substantial
part of the cost of a Snap On wrench.

You sure it isn't the distribution system?

Snap-on, 8 mpg truck with franchisee drives to each sale, cost embedded in
product.

Sears, mpg doesn't matter, customers drive their car, truck or van.

Wes

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:46:41 -0500, Wes wrote:

Bruce in Bangkok wrote:

For what its worth:
We had a project some 15 years ago where the client specified
"snap-on, or equal" so we ordered snap On - some $150,000 worth. As I
result I got to meet the Asian Rep who when asked about the high cost
of their tools blamed Product Liability Insurance for a substantial
part of the cost of a Snap On wrench.

You sure it isn't the distribution system?

Snap-on, 8 mpg truck with franchisee drives to each sale, cost embedded in
product.

Sears, mpg doesn't matter, customers drive their car, truck or van.

Wes


Not on a project in central Sumatra, Indonesia. They did honor the
guarantee fully though. Every month the country rep would visit the
site and take an inventory of all the broken snap on tools we had
collected. Within a week or so they delivered replacement tools to our
office in Jakarta.


Bruce-in-Bangkok
(Note:remove underscores
from address for reply)