In response to Cheese's post, I offer the following only as an explanation, I've received enough thanks by those here.
At the time I did it previously, to have the printing done by Tanos would have required a minimum order of 500 units per size, and then there was the cost. We ended up with 550 to 600 by my recollection (the actual number along with break down by size is here on the forum somewhere). My goal at the time was to offer several sizes of a systainer (rather than just one size) in a color combination not yet offered by Tanos or Festool, customized for forum members at a price with a few dollars of readily purchased Festool systainers. I figured that the forum could generate good morale and enthusiasm thru this community project. The only way that all those goals were accomplished were:
PLEASE NOTE: (Again, I mention this not so as to get recognition but rather to lay out the various steps and cost points that could be anticipated to be part of a project like this.)
1. Christian O. was on board from the beginning and urged cooperation with many vendor parts of the puzzle, As part of this permission I had to promise that it would not be a money-making endeavor on my behalf.
2. Japan Woodworker was the distributor for Tanos in the US. The had been convinced or required to carry all sorts of sizes and colors of systainers and they weren't selling well. I was able to get a 40% cost reduction INCLUDING freight of numerous pallets from California to Richmond, VA. That free shipping was a god-send!
3. Tanos set me up as a dealer and sold to me direct which allowed me a 40% discount on the systainers ordered direct from Germany, including the substitution of Festool green latches on all 4 corners instead of the sapphire blue ones. This was important because by doing this I would have enough latches to change out the ones on the cases from California without purchasing additional pairs of latches. Also as part of the cooperation with Tanos, although I was responsible for all the shipping (transatlantic and also domestically here in the US along with customs and import duties, they hooked me up their preferred vendors and I am sure I didn't pay full nickel. Funny fact was that the shipping from the port of Baltimore, MD to Richmond, VA - about 3 hours driving time - was more than half the cost to travel across the Atlantic Ocean.
4. The printer who had experience with all sorts of pad printing projects probably underpriced the job and once into it had to rely on me to build positioning jigs to hold the systainers, etc. There was a problem with the systainers flexing where they were printed under the weight of the pad printing head. After ruining several and facing possible court action they came up with a label solution that I agreed to pay a couple of dollars more for. Ultimately the labels worked out better in my estimation. They were screen printed on the backside of a durable plastic coating with multiple green coats followed by white behind the green and finally blue to match the systainers. Then laminated onto the 3m adhesive sheet. As Michael mentioned, that adhesive was/is tenacious. When I made a mistake with a label back then, if it was on for more than 5 seconds it was sweat time to get it off.
5. All local transportation from places where the pallets could be dropped to my home, across town to be printed, pickup there and transport back to home, transport to Post Office for shipping, etc. was free.
6. Then of course all the shipping materials including pallets of bubble wrap and boxes were all factored in at cost.
7. And of course, then there was the packing and shipping logistics - all done for free.
8. Shipping was done USPS Priority Mail whereas I didn't have an account with anyone and the costs were the cheapest, including shipping overseas. Insurance was provided on all shipments at reduced cost provided by Lloyds of London thru Endicia. There was a monthly subscription cost, but the program was virtually necessary at the time in order to efficiently deal with customs declarations.
Outsourcing all of this would have been obviously more costly and destroyed the goal of relative affordability, and without the process the morale boosting and camaraderie aspects would have been diminished.
The least costly approach today would have any customization done on the latch, which Festool and others have done. Anyone can buy a sapphire blue systainer and separately a latch from Festool and have the basics. I do have the artwork for the logo back then but it doesn't have the increased number of holes in the sandpaper. I was authorized to use the logo back then but since then I consider myself a custodian and won't release that artwork with Festool's permission.
I can talk with Tim and find out parameters, but won't do that if someone else is going to do it also. Having multiple people asking will only get confusing and waste his time.
Peter
At the time I did it previously, to have the printing done by Tanos would have required a minimum order of 500 units per size, and then there was the cost. We ended up with 550 to 600 by my recollection (the actual number along with break down by size is here on the forum somewhere). My goal at the time was to offer several sizes of a systainer (rather than just one size) in a color combination not yet offered by Tanos or Festool, customized for forum members at a price with a few dollars of readily purchased Festool systainers. I figured that the forum could generate good morale and enthusiasm thru this community project. The only way that all those goals were accomplished were:
PLEASE NOTE: (Again, I mention this not so as to get recognition but rather to lay out the various steps and cost points that could be anticipated to be part of a project like this.)
1. Christian O. was on board from the beginning and urged cooperation with many vendor parts of the puzzle, As part of this permission I had to promise that it would not be a money-making endeavor on my behalf.
2. Japan Woodworker was the distributor for Tanos in the US. The had been convinced or required to carry all sorts of sizes and colors of systainers and they weren't selling well. I was able to get a 40% cost reduction INCLUDING freight of numerous pallets from California to Richmond, VA. That free shipping was a god-send!
3. Tanos set me up as a dealer and sold to me direct which allowed me a 40% discount on the systainers ordered direct from Germany, including the substitution of Festool green latches on all 4 corners instead of the sapphire blue ones. This was important because by doing this I would have enough latches to change out the ones on the cases from California without purchasing additional pairs of latches. Also as part of the cooperation with Tanos, although I was responsible for all the shipping (transatlantic and also domestically here in the US along with customs and import duties, they hooked me up their preferred vendors and I am sure I didn't pay full nickel. Funny fact was that the shipping from the port of Baltimore, MD to Richmond, VA - about 3 hours driving time - was more than half the cost to travel across the Atlantic Ocean.
4. The printer who had experience with all sorts of pad printing projects probably underpriced the job and once into it had to rely on me to build positioning jigs to hold the systainers, etc. There was a problem with the systainers flexing where they were printed under the weight of the pad printing head. After ruining several and facing possible court action they came up with a label solution that I agreed to pay a couple of dollars more for. Ultimately the labels worked out better in my estimation. They were screen printed on the backside of a durable plastic coating with multiple green coats followed by white behind the green and finally blue to match the systainers. Then laminated onto the 3m adhesive sheet. As Michael mentioned, that adhesive was/is tenacious. When I made a mistake with a label back then, if it was on for more than 5 seconds it was sweat time to get it off.
5. All local transportation from places where the pallets could be dropped to my home, across town to be printed, pickup there and transport back to home, transport to Post Office for shipping, etc. was free.
6. Then of course all the shipping materials including pallets of bubble wrap and boxes were all factored in at cost.
7. And of course, then there was the packing and shipping logistics - all done for free.
8. Shipping was done USPS Priority Mail whereas I didn't have an account with anyone and the costs were the cheapest, including shipping overseas. Insurance was provided on all shipments at reduced cost provided by Lloyds of London thru Endicia. There was a monthly subscription cost, but the program was virtually necessary at the time in order to efficiently deal with customs declarations.
Outsourcing all of this would have been obviously more costly and destroyed the goal of relative affordability, and without the process the morale boosting and camaraderie aspects would have been diminished.
The least costly approach today would have any customization done on the latch, which Festool and others have done. Anyone can buy a sapphire blue systainer and separately a latch from Festool and have the basics. I do have the artwork for the logo back then but it doesn't have the increased number of holes in the sandpaper. I was authorized to use the logo back then but since then I consider myself a custodian and won't release that artwork with Festool's permission.
I can talk with Tim and find out parameters, but won't do that if someone else is going to do it also. Having multiple people asking will only get confusing and waste his time.
Peter
Thanks for the history, it was interesting to read.
