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Why do parts go NLA? - Pierre Hedary (Video)
- Thread starter Harv
- Start date
I don't think there's a lot in this video that we didn't already know. The main message that he says is to badger MB Classic to get NLA parts back into production, and that "the system works."
I agree somewhat, but not 100%, with his sentiments.
While I think Pierre is super solid, and generally right on and aligned with me in terms of business philosophy, "doing the right thing right, the first time," and hate for Chinese Junk parts (and I have met him once in person), I don't like the fact in several videos now that he "disses" Uncle Kent Bergsma.
Not because I agree with Uncle Kent, and his philosophy to often sell/use cheap parts in his kits he sells. But I just think it is wrong to overtly cap on your competitors (or colleagues). Kent has been around for a long time, and he provides a certain service for many owners that has allowed them to keep their vehicles on the road and learn to maintain the vehicles themselves. There's nothing wrong with this, and I have yet to see too much (perhaps a few things) that I totally disagree with Uncle Kent on.
I think it cheapens the dialog for one competitor to be sniping at another one, UNLESS THERE IS SOMETHING THAT IS VERY VERY WRONG.
Pierre can be slightly melodramatic, but other than that I like what he's doing, and he is often addressing issues that you don't see addressed anywhere else (except perhaps on this forum).
Cheers,
Gerry
I agree somewhat, but not 100%, with his sentiments.
While I think Pierre is super solid, and generally right on and aligned with me in terms of business philosophy, "doing the right thing right, the first time," and hate for Chinese Junk parts (and I have met him once in person), I don't like the fact in several videos now that he "disses" Uncle Kent Bergsma.
Not because I agree with Uncle Kent, and his philosophy to often sell/use cheap parts in his kits he sells. But I just think it is wrong to overtly cap on your competitors (or colleagues). Kent has been around for a long time, and he provides a certain service for many owners that has allowed them to keep their vehicles on the road and learn to maintain the vehicles themselves. There's nothing wrong with this, and I have yet to see too much (perhaps a few things) that I totally disagree with Uncle Kent on.
I think it cheapens the dialog for one competitor to be sniping at another one, UNLESS THERE IS SOMETHING THAT IS VERY VERY WRONG.
Pierre can be slightly melodramatic, but other than that I like what he's doing, and he is often addressing issues that you don't see addressed anywhere else (except perhaps on this forum).
Cheers,
Gerry
Absolutely agree with the assessment on Kent @ mercedessource. To me it falls under the "horses for courses" category, there is a real niche for the service he provides, and I think his heart is in the right place. Sure, he at times "creates" a problem to sell you a "special tool", but so what. I for one have learnt a ton from his youtube vids, and they are always very well produced, which i am sure takes a ton of time to edit and such.
I think that right now MB is building to many cars which creates too much variability in parts in order to support their product line. This requires them to carry a lot more new inventory. If I was an inventory manager, my focus is to carry fast moving items and not store slow moving items for years on end as your money and space is tied up in this inventory. While I agree that there is a big margin in classic car parts, there is a cost to storing items.
How much crap have you thrown out in the last 5 years that functioned perfectly well?
How much crap have you thrown out in the last 5 years that functioned perfectly well?
I have probably double to triple the "inventory" that I carried 5 years ago. I'd never throw out anything that functioned perfectly well.....
Hoarder
You're looking at it from a different perspective. Imagine running a store and having to carry stuff for years that you're not selling. You'll eventually want to move them out and use the space for stuff that sells. You're trying to carry inventory so that you can support your cars because your suppliers are no longer carrying stock. That's somewhat different to what i'm talking about and maybe general household items are a better example in this case. You might not want to throw anything away, but I suspect that MrsVZ will make you.
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Hoarder
You're looking at it from a different perspective. Imagine running a store and having to carry stuff for years that you're not selling. You'll eventually want to move them out and use the space for stuff that sells. You're trying to carry inventory so that you can support your cars because your suppliers are no longer carrying stock. That's somewhat different to what i'm talking about and maybe general household items are a better example in this case. You might not want to throw anything away, but I suspect that MrsVZ will make you.
Some time ago when I was working for a consumer electronics company, we had an intense focus on SKU reduction. If a SKU wasn’t moving at least 1M USD per Q, we would kill it. We had benchmarked some internal metrics and we had calculated that the incremental costs of carrying each additional SKU in the price book was like 100K per Q. That’s the costs associated with having SKUs active, not even the cost of the inventory!
At the present time, there is no MrsVZ. That will change in the future, though....
I had a three-car garage in Texas, with full storage above it. Things got VERY heat-baked up there most of the year. MUCH nicer having a full basement (i.e. even temperatures almost year-round) here in MD, along with proper storage racks and bins to organize parts storage.
Totally agree. But CA residents are generally unfamiliar with the concept of a "basement", as most houses there are built on slabs. If you have a crawl space, that works for storage too, at least for items that will fit... wrap in plastic or put in plastic bins/tubs for protection from moisture & critters.
Anyone else have hoarding tips?
Yes, my home in Texas was also built on a slab. My first two homes in Portland both had full basements.
I buy the industrial rack shelving at Costco and use that for my parts storage in the basement (and a couple of the shelf racks in the garage, as well). Works very well for parts organization.
I buy the industrial rack shelving at Costco and use that for my parts storage in the basement (and a couple of the shelf racks in the garage, as well). Works very well for parts organization.
Former midwesterner here, in California +10 years now, can confirm.
I bought huge industrial blow molded cabinets to put my non-valuable garage stuff in outside back porch storage and turned my one indoor garage cabinet into my parts stash place. I also have huge plastic bins filled parts stacked up in my tiny crawl space under my house. Whenever I have too much stuff Gerry always ends up buying my excess off me. I view Gerry's stash as my backup stash but with a 5x cost to get it out of hands!
I also use a blow-molded cabinet (typically what you'd use for garden stuff) in my garage as a "chemical storage" cabinet. All of my motor oil, ATF, PS, SLS, diff fluid, car cleaning and detailing fluids, @captruff-SommerFit washer fluid, lubricants (Gleitpaste included) and such all goes in that cabinet.
I'm working on a second shop space in N Texas. It's about 4000sq/ft.
The original goal is to rent it to a friend of mine for a couple of years as he was looking for shop space and then eventually move out of my other space and into it as I downsize, but I'll more than likely sell it as I don't need two units.
The original goal is to rent it to a friend of mine for a couple of years as he was looking for shop space and then eventually move out of my other space and into it as I downsize, but I'll more than likely sell it as I don't need two units.
Attachments
Some observations and comments:
1.) Having worked in manufacturing for a company that had legacy products that were still in service going back 60 years or more, I can well relate to the situation Mercedes is in. All I can say is that they’re doing yeoman’s work in the volume and range of classic parts they offer. I was amazed at the range of available parts when I was restoring the Finnie this year, especially little fiddly bits like rubber bumpers for the top of the front door frames, for example. Sure, that part is probably used across numerous chassis’ and applications, but I can’t imagine they do enough volume to justify the cost. I got brand new, recently manufactured front springs for a 50 year old car for roughly $100. That’s crazy!
They must be doing this at a loss as a service to the end user, and nothing more.
Carrying charges alone have to consume much, if not all, of the profit on these. They do “clean house” annually and reduce dead inventory, but it doesn’t appear to be a large part of the offerings.
2.) I’ve known Pierre for years and have met and worked with him. He’s a great guy, and like many gifted folks, is a bit quirky and as we used to say in the generator business, he “runs at 70 Hz.” I don’t always agree with him, but one thing you have to take into consideration is his total commitment to keeping every one of these cars on the road. It borders on fanaticism. With this in mind, his sniping at Kent is somewhat inappropriate because it directly conflicts with that line of thought. I personally think Kent is an opportunist, and a lousy one at that, but he does provide a service for those too lazy to research things - I think many of his customers probably buy URO parts, too. Those folks aren’t going anywhere, and despite our holding our noses when we see this sort of thing, there’s nothing we can do to make it go away.
I live in Florida where basements don’t exist. I moved here from the Midwest, giving up 1200 sf of basement that contained a very complete wood shop for building fine furniture (a now defunct hobby, sadly.) My storage choices are similarly limited, and even with a newly acquired house with a three car garage my available space is limited to that for equipment and consumables. I have a 10x10 offsite storage unit, but I’m trying to pare down it’s contents.
Dan’s Law States: “Your possessions will alway expand to exceed the storage space available.” The only variable in the equation is time, as in how long it takes to reach the threshold of excess.
Dan
1.) Having worked in manufacturing for a company that had legacy products that were still in service going back 60 years or more, I can well relate to the situation Mercedes is in. All I can say is that they’re doing yeoman’s work in the volume and range of classic parts they offer. I was amazed at the range of available parts when I was restoring the Finnie this year, especially little fiddly bits like rubber bumpers for the top of the front door frames, for example. Sure, that part is probably used across numerous chassis’ and applications, but I can’t imagine they do enough volume to justify the cost. I got brand new, recently manufactured front springs for a 50 year old car for roughly $100. That’s crazy!
They must be doing this at a loss as a service to the end user, and nothing more.
Carrying charges alone have to consume much, if not all, of the profit on these. They do “clean house” annually and reduce dead inventory, but it doesn’t appear to be a large part of the offerings.
2.) I’ve known Pierre for years and have met and worked with him. He’s a great guy, and like many gifted folks, is a bit quirky and as we used to say in the generator business, he “runs at 70 Hz.” I don’t always agree with him, but one thing you have to take into consideration is his total commitment to keeping every one of these cars on the road. It borders on fanaticism. With this in mind, his sniping at Kent is somewhat inappropriate because it directly conflicts with that line of thought. I personally think Kent is an opportunist, and a lousy one at that, but he does provide a service for those too lazy to research things - I think many of his customers probably buy URO parts, too. Those folks aren’t going anywhere, and despite our holding our noses when we see this sort of thing, there’s nothing we can do to make it go away.
I live in Florida where basements don’t exist. I moved here from the Midwest, giving up 1200 sf of basement that contained a very complete wood shop for building fine furniture (a now defunct hobby, sadly.) My storage choices are similarly limited, and even with a newly acquired house with a three car garage my available space is limited to that for equipment and consumables. I have a 10x10 offsite storage unit, but I’m trying to pare down it’s contents.
Dan’s Law States: “Your possessions will alway expand to exceed the storage space available.” The only variable in the equation is time, as in how long it takes to reach the threshold of excess.
Dan
Overhead storage is a decent option to eke out some extra space in a garage., at least for stuff you don't need to access frequently.
I installed one on these in our dog kennel space. I put the plastic tubs containing their winter coats, travel gear, etc there.
www.saferacks.com
Costco offers very good pricing on their products.
Fair warning: installation is quite a more work than assembling a shelving rack.
I installed one on these in our dog kennel space. I put the plastic tubs containing their winter coats, travel gear, etc there.
Overhead Garage Storage - SafeRacks
These high quality storage racks help to make your garage a more functional space for your vehicles and toys. SafeRacks is designed first and foremost for maximum strength and durability. Each product boasts a heavy duty design and is manufactured with industrial grade steel.
Costco offers very good pricing on their products.
Fair warning: installation is quite a more work than assembling a shelving rack.
I've seen Dan's Law in action. We moved about 9 years ago, and our "new" place had a shop 2.5 x larger. The old shop was pretty full at the time, "new" shop was relatively sparse. Nine years later... umm... I need a second shop.
Just this year I finally upgraded from consumer-level shelving (multiple sections, 4' wide, 6' tall, 2' deep) to industrial pallet racking. Old total shelf space was ~120 sq ft, I think. Additional space added was 480 sq ft. Sad part is, it mostly just got crap off the floor so I can walk around without shoveling a path. I'm still not done organizing the new space.
I've seen Dan's Law in action. We moved about 9 years ago, and our "new" place had a shop 2.5 x larger. The old shop was pretty full at the time, "new" shop was relatively sparse. Nine years later... umm... I need a second shop.
Just this year I finally upgraded from consumer-level shelving (multiple sections, 4' wide, 6' tall, 2' deep) to industrial pallet racking. Old total shelf space was ~120 sq ft, I think. Additional space added was 480 sq ft. Sad part is, it mostly just got crap off the floor so I can walk around without shoveling a path. I'm still not done organizing the new space.
The only time in my life that Dan's Law failed to work was with the house we owned in Indianapolis. It was a 4,000 sf behemoth, and that, coupled with things like the wife being laid off constantly, limited our ability to fill it. So in this case the time constant was off. Had we lived there longer I'm sure it would have worked out.
I did fill the basement with woodworking equipment and related stuff, but there was at least 400 sf of unfinished conditioned space over the garage I didn't even get to make a dent in...
Dan
It is hard to know where to stop on hoarding parts. . . I think my wife hit her limit when I bought three sets of LCAs for the 124s and 129. I have cooled it for a while, but do appreciate the notice that guys on this site provide on NLA or soon to be NLA parts. I was able to assemble a complete set of pods for the AC before they went NLA for both the 124 and 126. I would never have known about those if it were not for the warnings on this site.
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Come to my shop, I'll show you.
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