I know the question has come up before on CO2 engraving and cutting, and I do have that side of my business pretty well honed to where I'm happy with pricing.
But where I hit a brick wall is on my Fiber.
Yes I should charge what the traffic will bear. And I do..... One offes have a minimum and specialty items are even more.
Where I'm having an issue is industrial or semi industrial. Again, if it is multiples of the same engraving, say small logo onto a part, I can work through the numbers of parts per hour and get at least starting idea.
Unpackaging and repackaging even into a baggie takes time and I try to account for that also. It is easy to run through 500 parts pretty darn quick even doing one at a time like that.
Where I'm hitting a wall is doing multiples of the same item, but different engravings onto each. Say I have a hundred of the same item, but each will have a different engraving.
No, not sequential numbers. Say Random numbers that have no sequence. And I might have 25 today and 150 tomorrow all different numbers/letters.
I can set up probably 4 or 6 up, so I can pick and place multiples to lower that time, but I have to download the engraving number, export to EzCad and then place in correct position and engrave, pick and back in proper baggie.
Rinse and repeat.
And there may be 5 to 25 different items ultimately. So I may have 5 of each of 5 items for 25, or 5 of each of 25 for 125 total.
How to charge? Total time per item? Engraving time for the 4 items is say a minute. Can't charge for just engraving time.
Pick and place at least a minute for 4. And download and send to ezC is another minute per item (maybe more) So charge for total time? 2 min 15 sec? or should it be a minimum per part regardless?
It is Monkey work, and I need a Monkey job right now, but this has potential of being a 10 hour a day monkey job.
And I don't want to work for bananas.
Yes, lot of junk in this post, but,
Any suggestions?