Question about outsourcing some work

How many chairs are you talking about? I don’t see the assembly being any different labor wise than the machining or finishing. A local custom shop might be your best bet.

If school was still in… maybe a vocational school that teaches woodworking…maybe they would be interested in helping? What method of assembly are you going to use?

-- Jesus is Lord!

Well you could hire someone to do a quality assembly and raise the price for a professional quality chair.

-- I've been blessed with a father who liked to tinker in wood, and a wife who lets me tinker in wood. Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

It sounds like you are making a lot of chairs, looking to ship elsewhere for cheap assembly labor, is that correct? I guess there is a need for this sort of stuff (unfortunately). Everyone is looking for cheap labor. At the same time trying to maximize their own profit. It’s a spiral we are caught in. Pay a decent wage, charge a reasonable price. Be satisfied that your company made a reasonable profit without resorting to “cheap” labor.

I hope you can find someone local ,the retired guy, to do this for you.

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org

I would think the shipping costs would eat up the savings you would get from not having someone local to you. If you hired someone elsewhere to assemble the chairs, you would need to ship the materials to them for assembly. Once completed, they would need to send the chairs back to you, or on to the customer. The extra costs in these shipping could be used to pay for someone local to do the assembly, and then have just the single shipping charge.

I would suggest trying to find someone local, maybe pay them a decent amount, and go that route. It will also help for you QC needs, since you could check on them locally instead of relying on the assembler to make them correctly.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

That’s what I like about this site. Here I was thinking that assembling the chairs would be a way to give some students some experience, but I missed the issue. That being cheap labor and the need to pay someone local a decent wage, instead of out sourcing like the tool manufactures. Thanks guys!

-- Jesus is Lord!

I am interested to hear what happened on this. Did you outsource or what?

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

Do you have a local sheltered work shop? They employ the handicapped who can assemble at a very reasonable price. The supervision is good and quality is as well.

-- Thos. Angle, Jordan Valley, Oregon