Newsgroup sci.research 12503

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In article  Anthony James Bentley  writes:
>In article , "William R. Penrose"
> writes
>>When you are making a product for sale, you can't afford to spend more than 
>>about 20% of the price in making the product.  This *includes* labor.  The 
>>rest of the cost is in overhead (keeping the lites and fones working), sales 
>>and advertising, sales commissions, returns and warranty repairs, customer 
>>service, taxes, blah, blah...  Oh, and also profit, which is the only reason 
>>for going into business in the first place.  Instrument companies typically 
>>generate 5-15% profit.
>>
>>Bill
>True, very true.
>But a common indusry standard is to simply double (or more) the material
>input costs to get the final sales figure.
Perhaps English manufacturing methods are vastly more efficient than over 
here, but I've never heard a figure as high as 50%.  It may be a matter of 
definition.  The cost of production includes cost of materials and labor.  
Whether you include inventory, returns, interest on receivables, etc. in this 
figure is a matter of convention.
In any case, the selling price is not set by the cost of production.  It is 
set by what the market will pay.  Therefore, if a customer will not pay more 
than about four times the cost of production, there is no point to making it 
at all.  So you do find companies that sell $2 cables for $32, especially if 
the customer is buying a piece of $2000 equipment and the cable is a small 
item.
We got burned on an early attempt to market an electrochemical gas analyzer.  
It sold for $5300 and cost $2000 to make.  All the development costs had been 
paid by govt contracts, so these did not have to be amortized.  We lost our 
shirts.  Sales commissions and customer service ate us alive.  Our next 
product sold for $1000 and cost $140 to build.  That one made money, but only 
about $100 per unit.
Bill
********************************************************
Bill Penrose, Sr. Scientist, Transducer Research, 
600 North Commons Dr., Suite 117
Aurora, IL 60504, 630-978-8802, fax: -8854
email wpenrose@interaccess.com, http://www.tsi.com
********************************************************
Purveyors of contract R&D; and fine gas
sensors to this and nearby galaxies.
********************************************************

If I remember right, Radio Shack sells an inexpensive datalogger for your
PC.  Connects to the serial port, and has some manner of simple voltage range
or millamps for input.  Went for about $100.
      program signature
      write(*,*),'Dan Stephenson'
      write(*,*),'dano@cyberramp.net'
      stop
      end

FINALLY  NEW  SCIENTIFIC  EVIDENCE  BEHIND  DOWSING 
Divining rods and all common dowsing devices, are the simplest forms of electroscopes.  The bent rod for example is just a variatio=
n of Gilbert's straw needle electroscope.