RE: Shipping dates
If they are overwhelmed, they should hire more help and/or communications or logistics professionals. They are the best 3d printer company on the planet, their comms should reflect that.
I couldn't agree more. Prusa no longer have an undisputed leadership position regarding technology and innovation for home 3D printing. So they should even more strive to remain the most customer-friendly company in the field: Transparent business model with no strings attached, spot-on technical support, easy to deal with throughout the ordering process etc.
When I have made posts critical of Prusa here (and annoyed a few regulars), they all revolved around my disappointment where Prusa falls short of being that perfect customer-friendly company: Asking for full prepayment months in advance, being intransparent about progress (on multiple fronts), shipping a product which seems a bit too immature, giving inaccurate or plainly wrong advice through customer support.
Sure, nobody is perfect -- and Prusa is still ahead of e.g. Bambu Lab in some respects of their customer interactions. But as Bambu Lab keep pushing the boundaries not only of price/performance ratio but also of usability and plain technical functionality, it becomes even more important for Prusa to be the "nearly perfect", friendly, easy-to-deal-with European company.
RE: Shipping dates
No, you don't "just hire more people". That's how business fail.
IF you hired people today, they won't be trained and useful for some time. That's just reality. And after you have hired more people for your rush and your rush is over and there's no work for those people then what? Let them go? Only to try and get them back next year or whatever when you have another rush? Then you won't have anyone wanting to work for you.
Additionally, what good does more people do if you are otherwise resource constrained? If you don't have space, or tooling, or training materials to support them?
It's not what you all want to hear, but you don't staff for the peak of demand. No successful company does this. You have to balance products lifecycles, demand and continued growth and expansion. You staff and plan for steady state demand, anything else is not responsible or sustainable.
A LOT of assumptions going around from folks who seem to not be involved in any kind of real world manufacturing. There are tons of rational real world explanations for delay here, and although waiting a bit longer than you thought you might have to is hard, it too will pass.
RE: Shipping dates
Tell me you already have your Core One with out telling me you already have your Core One (or didn't order one). I think a lot of the folks still waiting for theirs look at the shipping dates page quite often.
I wish... Waiting for my Core One kit, which means I don't even get a table to stare at. 😉
Same.
RE: Shipping dates
No, you don't "just hire more people". That's how business fail.
IF you hired people today, they won't be trained and useful for some time. That's just reality. And after you have hired more people for your rush and your rush is over and there's no work for those people then what? Let them go? Only to try and get them back next year or whatever when you have another rush? Then you won't have anyone wanting to work for you.
Additionally, what good does more people do if you are otherwise resource constrained? If you don't have space, or tooling, or training materials to support them?
It's not what you all want to hear, but you don't staff for the peak of demand. No successful company does this. You have to balance products lifecycles, demand and continued growth and expansion. You staff and plan for steady state demand, anything else is not responsible or sustainable.
A LOT of assumptions going around from folks who seem to not be involved in any kind of real world manufacturing. There are tons of rational real world explanations for delay here, and although waiting a bit longer than you thought you might have to is hard, it too will pass.
Although it's not as simple as just 'hiring more staff', Prusa seemingly has a track record of delays when it comes to newly released hardware. That either speaks volumes of the demands for the products; which is seemingly justified, or the process involved in how they organise the logistics of getting the product to the consumer, the latter of which they should be well versed in at this point in the 3D printing world.
We're at a point as consumers, that when a pre-order is announced people would like definitive timelines when it comes to market, that hasn't happened as such here, and given that the window of March is still relevant for another 10 days, well, let's wait and see.
Seemingly belittleing people who don't seem to be involved in any real world manufacturing, whilst a valid statement of fact for the majority of members here, doesn't help in the grand scheme of figuring out why Prusa operate the way they do, especially for newcomers like myself.
I was warned, on Reddit of all places, the this could be a prickly place to be, but I'm here to learn and will no doubt be 'prickled' along the way, I'm fine with that. But the tone that some die hard members take on here, leaves people like myself wondering how we're meant to learn from more seasoned members of forums without feeling like you're asking stupid questions?
Scott
RE: Shipping dates
It's not what you all want to hear, but you don't staff for the peak of demand. No successful company does this. You have to balance products lifecycles, demand and continued growth and expansion. You staff and plan for steady state demand, anything else is not responsible or sustainable.
A LOT of assumptions going around from folks who seem to not be involved in any kind of real world manufacturing. There are tons of rational real world explanations for delay here, and although waiting a bit longer than you thought you might have to is hard, it too will pass.
Look, you can't distort other users' posts with your own assumptions, and then conclude from your misrepresentations that those other users are clueless.
Who was talking about "staffing for peak demand"? Prusa has been consistently late with all their product launches, and has consistently launched products before they were quite ready for prime time. It seems that they are consistently understaffed, or/and consistently over-optimistic. There's a systemic problem there. It seems like Prusa have never been able to keep pace with their growth -- be it regarding staffing, infrastructure, or disciplined processes.
Those critical posts here are not about being unable to wait any longer. They are about being disappointed that Prusa is not the excellent company it's romanticized to be by some long-standing customers.
RE: Shipping dates
You have answered your own question correctly. Increased demand. Lots of people want it, and they are at capacity. They are in the grand scheme of things very close to where they thought they would be. All the handwringing is pointless, and you all are only making yourselves feel worse with all the speculation and theory about how who makes what. A bunch of folks who are ignorant to the process (not an insult, means you don't know) speculating amongst themselves isn't going to learn anyone anything either. Just inflame emotions.
Most people are ignorant to manufacturing here in the US, it's a consequence of shipping all of this stuff overseas decades ago. I'll wager it's the same in many other places. It is to our collective detriment, and without getting political more folks would do well to seek out a better understanding of how things are made. I personally find that the first step to learning something is being able to admit that I don't know it. Not meaning to belittle, as I generally don't take it as an insult when I don't know something. I usually just accept the challenge. 🙂
RE: Shipping dates
[...] A bunch of folks who are ignorant to the process [...]
Most people are ignorant to manufacturing [...]
Repeating this over and over does not make it a better argument. Please consider the possibility that some people here do in fact know about product development and manufacturing.
RE: Shipping dates
Next day for an assembled printer in the UK 😀
I ordered my assembled C1 from https://www.123-3d.co.uk/Prusa-Original-Prusa-CORE-One-3D-Printer-i12040-t16612.html
This was on a Friday afternoon. It was with me lunchtime the next day which was a Saturday as well
Total cost inc delivery etc £1137.00
Very happy with this as not stung for any shipping or import duties and no import handling charge which they chuck on top as well by TNT or whoever handles the customs side of things.
Normal people believe that if it is not broke, do not fix it. Engineers believe that if it is not broke, it does not have enough features yet.
RE: Shipping dates
Next day for an assembled printer in the UK 😀
I ordered my assembled C1 from https://www.123-3d.co.uk/Prusa-Original-Prusa-CORE-One-3D-Printer-i12040-t16612.html
This was on a Friday afternoon. It was with me lunchtime the next day which was a Saturday as well
Total cost inc delivery etc £1137.00
Very happy with this as not stung for any shipping or import duties and no import handling charge which they chuck on top as well by TNT or whoever handles the customs side of things.
That's awesome. Are they a reseller or something?
RE: Shipping dates
Must be an authorised UK Reseller as they had these as soon as they were available from Prusa, looks like they have a lot of prusa items in stock, Buddy Cam anyone?
Yep found this on their home page.
https://www.123-3d.co.uk/search/?search=prusament
Prusament in stock as well.
Normal people believe that if it is not broke, do not fix it. Engineers believe that if it is not broke, it does not have enough features yet.