New Drill Range?

[jonny round boy]

I'm new to this site, and haven't trawled through ALL the previous posts yet, so if I'm repeating something that's been said already, I apologise in advance!

I have heard a rumour from my Festool dealer that Festool are currently designing a completely new range of drills/drivers for release Q3/4 2008. Indeed, part of the reason why the Kapex is coming through in smaller quantities than we would like is that there's a world shortage of some raw materials - this is compounded by the fact that Festool are trying to stockpile the materials in question for the new drill range.

Anyone else heard this?

 

[Eli]

I heard a rumor that there was a big fire in a warehouse in Germany and that was what was slowing the Kapex release in Australia.

A rumor or rumour , is "an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person and pertaining to an object, event, or issue in public concern"

 

[Bob Childress]

Well, Festo may or may not be designing a new drill range, but I can tell you that the days of companies "stockpiling" expensive inventory in material are long gone. Carrying costs are too high. One strong measure of efficiency is Return on Assets Employed and not employing assets for a year while they gather dust on a shelf ain't happenin'. Instead, they would line up material and sub-assembly suppliers well in advance with preliminary drawings and specs and everybody would yell "Heave Ho" at the same time. 

 

[Ned]

That's a great description, Bob.

Festool does many things differently, and it's possible that a family-owned (= privately held) German company might operate differently from a publicly-held corporation, German or otherwise.  They certainly have the freedom to make choices that are not available to a company that must constantly worry about its stock price and what the "analysts" might say.

Ned

 

[Christian93117]

Jonny round boy,

Thanks for your question. Let's see:

1. Bob Childress is right. We neither can afford to stockpile inventory, nor do we have the warehouse space to do so. The raw materials barely hit the
warehouse before they are used.
2. Raw materials are getting more and more expensive and are sometimes hard to get, but this is not the reason for the Kapex shortage.
3. The Kapex shortage is caused by an overwhelming demand in some countries. Festool cannot increase manufacturing overnight since we don't want
to compromise on quality. The factory is increasing the capacity step by step.
4. There was no big fire in the warehouse. But one of the machining centers was on fire and it took a couple of days to get it back working.
5. Your dealer seems to know more about a new drill range than I do. What I know is that the TDK is getting kind of old, will be on closeout in the US
starting September, and that we don't have a drill with Lithium-Ion batteries yet...

I hope I covered all the rumors.

Christian Oltzscher
Festool USA

 

[Eli]

We should do this once a month Christian. Thanks. That was very satisfying.