Help get LEGO to re-release retired sets!

[Johnny1360]

I can see good reason to claim mold production costs being an issue, especially if the part you are making will only be used in a few thousand sets for a limited time. As opposed to a few hundred thousand parts in many different sets for years to come.

But I am far from knowledgeable on the subject and have limited information to support my claim.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Johnny1360

[howitzer]

The cost of the mold in itself is indeed a non-issue, but when producing a part (new or old), the mold is only a small piece of the whole production chain. The mold needs to be worked in an injection machine, which needs to be supplied with correct kind of plastic, the produced bricks need to be extracted, counted, stored and delivered to facilities where parts are bagged and then assembled into kits. While molds can probably be rather easily and cheaply be made, the whole logistics of the brick production cannot be switched from one element to other just like that, there's a lot of work involved changing every part of the production line. And while the production line is working on one type of part, it's not working on any other type of part, so every part produced must be justified by the economics of production. Part A won't be produced if there's more money to be made by producing part B, C or D.

In the end there's a whole a lot of planning and forethought involved in managing an operation like this, which extends all the way to future years set lineups and the direction the company is heading with their product, and whatever is going to be produced must fit into this greater plan. So if I really wanted, I could spend few tens of thousands of euros to have the goat mold redesigned and manufactured and then do a production run of few thousand items, but managing the production of tens of thousands of different elements year after year is entirely different thing, where careful planning is the only way to keep the costs from getting completely out of hand.

From the top of my head, I can't think of any other industry where the manufacturer has to produce similar number of different types (tens of thousands of combinations of shape/colour) of injection-molded parts, with similar tolerances (10 micrometres) and in similar numbers (millions or more of each). Almost any other toy is produced with much less parts, and much bigger tolerances. Same goes for example to most consumer electronics, even though they sometimes have tight tolerances, they never have hundreds or thousands of different parts (and the number of different colours in one product tends to be very small too).

[Toastie]

  On 7/23/2021 at 11:06 PM, howitzer said:

I can't think of any other industry where the manufacturer has to produce similar number of different types

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Well, look into the semicon world, industry, and market. There are 2 - 5 (currently) nm nodes to be made, with ever-increasing challenges. I believe there are many other industries tackling such challenges. With a myriad of different compounds and/or materials to deal with. ABS + colors is TLGs (production) challenge. Maybe a very low number of other polymers clocks in as well.

The other thing is: Everything you said is correct. However, TLG had 60+(!) years to streamline/optimize the production process/channels. 60+ years. Is there any other industry having that much time to refine? Yes, there are. Many. But what they did 60 years ago is not anymore what they are doing today. TLG on the other hand, is still molding ABS pieces. The only thing they have to deal with - when all is reduced to getting the bricks out - hasn't changed for 60+ years. They know how to streamline this process, for sure.

It is not the molding, it is what to do with the pieces. Revenue wise that is. TLG is a toy company, but they don't/can't toy around.

Best,
Thorsten

 

[howitzer]

  On 7/24/2021 at 12:24 AM, Toastie said:

Well, look into the semicon world, industry, and market. There are 2 - 5 (currently) nm nodes to be made, with ever-increasing challenges. I believe there are many other industries tackling such challenges. With a myriad of different compounds and/or materials to deal with. ABS + colors is TLGs (production) challenge. Maybe a very low number of other polymers clocks in as well.

The other thing is: Everything you said is correct. However, TLG had 60+(!) years to streamline/optimize the production process/channels. 60+ years. Is there any other industry having that much time to refine? Yes, there are. Many. But what they did 60 years ago is not anymore what they are doing today. TLG on the other hand, is still molding ABS pieces. The only thing they have to deal with - when all is reduced to getting the bricks out - hasn't changed for 60+ years. They know how to streamline this process, for sure.

It is not the molding, it is what to do with the pieces. Revenue wise that is. TLG is a toy company, but they don't/can't toy around.

Best,
Thorsten

 

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Yeah, TLG has had a long time to streamline the process, but there's diminishing returns, for every possible avenue of streamlining, an increasing investment is necessary and at some point it's just not feasible anymore. I believe they have already done pretty much everything there is to be done with this and the ever increasing number of elements is a testament to that, they couldn't keep releasing new molds and recolouring old ones year after year if they hadn't spent a lot of effort in streamlining their process. So I think the gains of streamlining have gone mostly into developing new stuff, instead of either bringing prices down or bringing back the old stuff that has at some point been discontinued.

[1974]

TLG have many hundreds of moulding machines. The machines, not the actual moulds, are very expensive. They too get worn out and newer, cheaper options emerge. So it's anever ending quest to streamline the entire process

[howitzer]

  On 7/24/2021 at 9:15 AM, 1974 said:

TLG have many hundreds of moulding machines. The machines, not the actual moulds, are very expensive. They too get worn out and newer, cheaper options emerge. So it's anever ending quest to streamline the entire process

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That's not exactly streamlining the process though, it's just replacing old with new. Except if something fundamentally changes about the machines on a way that they can operate on much higher efficiency, last significantly longer, or something like that. Streamlining processes is about for example making sure that the waiting times are minimized or making sure there's no excess transportation capacity in one place and too little in another.

[Lyichir]

  On 7/24/2021 at 11:49 AM, howitzer said:

That's not exactly streamlining the process though, it's just replacing old with new. Except if something fundamentally changes about the machines on a way that they can operate on much higher efficiency, last significantly longer, or something like that. Streamlining processes is about for example making sure that the waiting times are minimized or making sure there's no excess transportation capacity in one place and too little in another.

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Yup. For Lego to get the most value out of their production capacity, they have to try to run things at capacity (or as close to it as possible). That means that even things like changing out molds in a particular machine or changing the color of plastic being used in a particular mold needs to be minimized, since time spent with the machines "offline" is essentially money wasted. The scheduling for those sorts of things is tight, which is one reason why many smaller or more niche product lines (like limited edition gift-with-purchase sets or early sets from the Lego Ideas program) largely need to rely more on parts that are already in production for other sets, since those teams have less influence on the overall production timetables overall.

[MatthewRC]

Well, LEGO had previously reissued two Ideas sets, the NASA Apollo Saturn V and the Ship in a Bottle. So I wonder what LEGO could reissue next? I’m hoping they’ll reissue Voltron one day!

And as much as I would love for LEGO to reissue the Old Fishing Store, I’ve decided to use BrickLink to “built the set from scratch”, in addition to using required LEGO elements scattered throughout my household.

[TeriXeri]

LEGO might re-issue some older sets in other colors next year.

So far rumoured sets are : 

3-in-1 : 31058 Mighty Dinosaurs - 2017 - 2 new versions would be darkblue/lightyellow and brown/darktan

City : 60110 Fire Station - 2016 - New version has the style of the 2019-now Fire sets, with more light yellow, different logo and red helmets.

10271: Fiat 500 - 2020 - New version would be some type of light blue , could be medium azure, or light blue , color wasn't 100% confirmed for the VW bus , ended up being medium azure while being lighter at first.

https://brickset.com/article/63066/more-revised-sets-coming-soon

 

So far those recolors seem to be seperate from their main set lines, being 77940-77944

77943 incorporates multiple elements of other sets, like the buggy from 60247: Forest Fire , the electric cabinet from 60231: Fire Chief Response Truck and a smaller garage firestation build in the style of 60215: Fire Station

Edited August 21, 2021 by TeriXeri