nigel dabster Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 #78 "Lastly werent you buying a jgas then declined because of a wait, or was that someone else (cant be bothered to remember) but point being if they cant supply to peeps waiting for bikes what kind of business model is that to aspire to?" It was not me thinking of buying a Jgas, but I did point out that a local GG dealer was choosing to ride a Jgas. The business model I feel would be appropriate for GG is broadly that used by Jgas. Therefore a small assembly factory using parts bought in small batches from subcontractors who have specialised production equipment. My time as a production manager coincided with the move away from manual techniques from design and manufacture to CAD/CAM CNC. There was no way we could justify the cost of moving all our processes to CNC, usually you were looking at a multiple of 10 to 15 for capital cost and an increase in productivity of at least 20 times. We invested in CNC for the core activities and subcontracted the peripheral items to specialist suppliers who were investing in CNC for that type of product. Productivity, turnover and ROCE then grew at an average of 10% per year. GGs business needs to be about supplying well designed and built motorcycles, not wasting time casting and machining metal. Unfortunately judging from their debts they have either been running the business at a loss or over investing in capital equipment. Im guessing you havnt looked in on the gas gas factory recently like me? ALL the manufacturers buy in 95% components (roughr guess) very few manufacture, they are all assembly lines. Pretty sure Sherco (ive been round Twice) make nothing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
totalshell Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 what is it that gasgas are the market leaders of? clearly they have a business plan that is utterly flawed and how they have managed to carry 26000000 euros of debt is incredible.. as are some of the stats above.. delears clearing 1200-1400 a bike.?. i suspect some were spluttering into thier cornflakes this morning when they read that. evo 250 and evo 300 are the most popular trials bikes in the country withf fairly solid registrations / v5 issued over the last half dozen years i havent done the math but suspect that every other manufacturer cant do that many registrations across thier entire range. the registartions may have flaws as a measure of measuring sales BUT when some manufacturers sales fall and others rise over a sustained period then best guetimates can be made . for example in recent years one manufacturer changed importer and registrations have fallen dramatically since. Is that Beta trials bikes or the sum of scooters, enduro, trail &'trials bikes? in 2014 a total of 290 beta product were registered with the dvla of which 149 were evo 250 2t... gasgas had 224 total registrations of which 62 were txt 250 in its various guises Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huski Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 Where/how can the DVLA registration figures be accessed ? to prove the above post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
totalshell Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 (edited) on the internet free access to all in the uk.. https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/make/beta#!newreg this is the beat page go to a -z of manufacturers and play away.. enjoy.. Edited January 25, 2015 by totalshell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iconic558 Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 Could be wrong but I thought supplying dealer to end user mark up was only 200/350 quid? Such sad, sad news, I've owned , enjoyed and loved 5 gasser enduro's over the years, never, ever had a problem with any of them...they just sort of fitted me and my riding style if that makes sense? If manufacturers struggled back in the 70's with the huge sales of bikes then, it must be so much harder now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dadof2 Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 #91 When I made that post I was aware that GG probably do relatively little manufacturing, I have not been inside the factory but some of the videos GG have released do show manufacturing processes such as welding and machining. Without seeing GGs books (assuming they have them and they are correct) for a number of years, visiting the factory and talking to staff anything I or anyone else concludes is just speculation. My impression is that for a company selling only 9000 units per year in competitive (and therefore price constrained) market they have their fingers in too many pies, with each activity supported by too few sales. Also they seem to have a lot of stock both pre and post production and a lot of space to accommodate that stock. Both space and stock costs. I am qualified to audit businesses both financially and for QA purposes and over the years have visited quite a number. Some of the saddest cases I have seen is where the company is maintaining production and sales, the staff are working hard with lots of overtime and the bosses / owners are happy because the company is making a profit. Its a bit like the titanic, non on board have a clue of the coming downturn. Unseen problems include old buildings with high utilities costs, insufficient new product or new market developments, insufficient funds being retained for future investment, lack of staff training (ageing staff) Perhaps Nigel, having visited the factory you can give us your insight into what has gone wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigel dabster Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 #91 When I made that post I was aware that GG probably do relatively little manufacturing, I have not been inside the factory but some of the videos GG have released do show manufacturing processes such as welding and machining. Without seeing GGs books (assuming they have them and they are correct) for a number of years, visiting the factory and talking to staff anything I or anyone else concludes is just speculation. My impression is that for a company selling only 9000 units per year in competitive (and therefore price constrained) market they have their fingers in too many pies, with each activity supported by too few sales. Also they seem to have a lot of stock both pre and post production and a lot of space to accommodate that stock. Both space and stock costs. I am qualified to audit businesses both financially and for QA purposes and over the years have visited quite a number. Some of the saddest cases I have seen is where the company is maintaining production and sales, the staff are working hard with lots of overtime and the bosses / owners are happy because the company is making a profit. Its a bit like the titanic, non on board have a clue of the coming downturn. Unseen problems include old buildings with high utilities costs, insufficient new product or new market developments, insufficient funds being retained for future investment, lack of staff training (ageing staff) Perhaps Nigel, having visited the factory you can give us your insight into what has gone wrong. or perhaps you could admit you might be wrong/innaccurate/misleading/talking ***** for once Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan williams Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 Iconic that's s what I remember from when an importer sent me a master pricing sheet once by accident. It was an eye opener. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jj65 Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 what is it that gasgas are the market leaders of? clearly they have a business plan that is utterly flawed and how they have managed to carry 26000000 euros of debt is incredible.. as are some of the stats above.. delears clearing 1200-1400 a bike.?. i suspect some were spluttering into thier cornflakes this morning when they read that. evo 250 and evo 300 are the most popular trials bikes in the country withf fairly solid registrations / v5 issued over the last half dozen years i havent done the math but suspect that every other manufacturer cant do that many registrations across thier entire range. the registartions may have flaws as a measure of measuring sales BUT when some manufacturers sales fall and others rise over a sustained period then best guetimates can be made . for example in recent years one manufacturer changed importer and registrations have fallen dramatically since. in 2014 a total of 290 beta product were registered with the dvla of which 149 were evo 250 2t... gasgas had 224 total registrations of which 62 were txt 250 in its various guises DVLA registration numbers are not reprensative of the amount of new bikes sold in the UK, as I would guess, most new bikes are not registered from new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breagh Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 Agreed,I've never registered one since 1989. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
totalshell Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 i think i mentioned that as a caveat when i first posted.. none the less they do give a snap shot of sales.. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the addict Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 24 million Euro debt, about 2 hours of UK Government borrowing to get that number in another context. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borus Posted January 26, 2015 Report Share Posted January 26, 2015 Pretty sure Sherco (ive been round Twice) make nothing CNC runs 24 / 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dadof2 Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 Nigel from #103 it seems its some of your assumptions that are wrong. Regarding your final sentence in #97, my comments are neither right nor wrong, they may be either and if you read carefully, you would have seen I had already acknowledged this by describing them as speculation. Jgas for example do not make their frames at their assembly facility (so I understand) but they do own the production facility and employ the workers. This type of split site operation is not uncommon in vehicle and other product manufacturing. Do GG do something similar and therefore it would not be apparent on a visit to one factory. I did hope that as you have visited the factory on more than one occasion you might have some well informed ideas on what has gone wrong, rather than commenting on my speculation. The money that created the debt has gone somewhere, but where??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_earle Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 I do find this a bit worrying, If they do go bust parts will dry up and the bikes will drop in value overnight. If this does happen a mint,hardly used, Raga will be going on ebay the next day and what I get for it, I will struggle to get a bike as good without spending an extra grand or so. Anyone with a Factory Evo wanna swap LOL. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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