D.I - I can see how the stops would be useful for sink cutouts. That's the one time I used it , but found it more trouble than it was worth. Eyeballing a witness mark to the line on the saw shroud is much faster for me. I think the guide strip glue issue is related to geography. Here in the SE USA , my guide strips fail often and regularly and have since the late 90's. We have hot and humid weather year round. Very different than Germany. I rarely hear problems in the Northeast USA or Europe where the temps are much cooler.
Gregor & Alex , your view is often voiced by many who have no clue what it's like to run a manufacturing business, or young uns who have grown up in the Information Age where everything is point, click and deliver tomorrow. I'm not picking on you.
It's just that running a global manufacturer with hundreds of products that need to be delivered withing a week at a fixed price in twenty different currencies doesn't lend itself to customization. Even someone like TSO who is small, lean, and has demonstrated the ability to quickly respond to customer feedback doesn't offer customizing of their products. It's simply a different animal.
Computers/ websites can easily accept orders and UPS can deliver a widget anywhere in the world overnite. The difficulty is getting that custom order processed, priced, resent for approval, re-received, materials ordered or machine code written for your one off and then slotted into production. Produced, then custom packaging needs to be made before it's shipped. THAT takes manpower that you will have to pay for. How much more are you willing to pay for all that? And remember , your also going to have to pay for the opportunity cost that is lost by not producing our regular scheduled widgets at a known profit.
Ford could easily take your order for bronze alligator skin seats, herringbone cashmere roof lining and pink sheepskin carpets. They could also make them as they have plenty of experience with seats, roof liners and carpets in cars. No way is that going to happen though. Rolls Royce is happy to accommodate those requests though.
Peter H. Could you eleobrate on the new 3m relationship ?
Changing the extrusion really isn't prefaced by a new U.S. production line. It would just require a change to that line. Just like Germany did when they changed the rails from one spine to the current two spine design. The extruder will produce anything they want to design and pay for. Instead of a section that presses a clear stick on strip to the bottom, they would have a section/module insert one into a slot. Packaging could stay the same, and we sure as shootin know the deflector won't change.
