In my post last week on the new Lego Factory, which now only ships you the pieces you need rather than expensive bags of (too many) assorted parts, I promised I'd find out how the did it. Yesterday I spoke to Michael McNally, Lego's Brand Manager, who explained how they cracked the tricky picking and packing problem of total mass customization.
The answer: they pack the kits by hand, piece by piece. In one of Lego's Denmark factories, one packing station is now dedicated to Factory. The 520 pieces available in Factory are a number large enough to be interesting but small enough to be stored in bins that are no more than a step or two away for the packer. (The previous model used prepacked bags from the Creator series, which it could ship from a US warehouse). As it happened, Lego had recently automated some other parts of its Denmark operation so it had a few extra workers, who it was able to reassign to this job.
It's not a big job so far--only about 3,000 kits have been sold from the 75,000 uploaded--but that relatively small number and high upload-to-purchase ratio may be in part due to the high kit prices imposed by the previous inefficient parts strategy, which could easily double to price of a model. Now that Lego has been able to drop the average model price by 60% with this only-what-you-need packing process, I suspect more people will be tempted to buy what they design.
Next steps, McNally says: more pieces (including more minifigs) and making the software a bit easier to use.
Chris,
this is really useful stuff on Lego. It'll make great details for teaching the business aspects of computing science - just geeky enough to be cool. Thanks!
Posted by: Bruce | May 17, 2006 at 01:13 PM
Well, if it works for Tesco.com...
http://www.contentcontent.co.uk
Posted by: kenobi | May 18, 2006 at 05:03 PM
And copyrights ? Who own models made by users ?
Posted by: bibi | May 19, 2006 at 01:28 AM
I think Lego has it all wrong. There should be no such thing as "only... the pieces you need". I don't want my kids to be told how to build an amusement park, space station, zoo etc. and then provided with just the right parts for the job. They have their own imaginations, thank you. All they need is a "bag of (too many) assorted parts", and out comes something magic that you never expected. Anyhow, even if you buy a kid a custom-desiged space-ship kit, it will - or it should - be something totally different next week.
The only thing wrong with an "expensive bag of (too many) assorted parts" is the word "expensive".
Posted by: Paul | May 24, 2006 at 03:31 AM
Thanks you for this informative post.
To me this seems like such a ridiculous concept myself. First of all lego pieces are incredible easy to lose. I understand that they are packaged by hand and I'm sure that lego has spent a tremendous amount of money to ensure that each piece is accounted for, but it goes without saying that a piece will get lost unless the parents are the ones putting the kit together. More headache at a higher price. I don't get it.
Posted by: Car Movie Guy | June 03, 2006 at 11:31 AM
I think lego factory is great great tool. The most excited aspect is Gallery page. Imagine you can buy hundreds sorts of Lego toy (other designs) on Lego.
Posted by: ozgur alaz | June 03, 2006 at 02:27 PM
The building is a hell of a work but the PROGRAMMING of thsi factory. I have worked myself with the old mindstorms and it is not very easy to program but this factory RULES!
5/5 (cant get higher)I hope that guys posted this vid on the offical lego site, mayby they will produce it. I will be the first to buy it ;-)
Posted by: christmas presents | November 11, 2009 at 07:41 PM