Science & Industry

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

I have a quick question about manufacturing. I was into manufacturing a lot even had my own POS making T2 drones and Ammo making some decent isk, but not enough to keep my POS functioning. But now I'm sparking increasingly interest in manufacturing again, and was wondering is making drones and ammo a good start to making money right off for manufacturing? Or is it more into ships/modules? I don't need to know specifics because everyone has their secrets but I've been looking at manufacturing ships or drones and ammo since they look to sell quickly and make a little bit of profit per sell.

Any feedback would be great,

Thanks in advance,

Maykid

You've already identified that Ammo and Drones, while profitable aren't all that profitable - underlying problem being that they are at the easy end of the manufacturing scale, hence plenty of people start T2 with these exact two items -> high supply, high demand = low profits.

Given you already know your way around the invention and manufacturing process - I'd say look for a less competitive market where you can make the same or more isk, just with less effort (at point of sale)

There aren't any secrets when it comes to manufacturing; Everyone has the exact same (potential) access to information, and (potential) manufacturing capabilities as everyone else.

Hence the 'secret' is actually straightforward; Analysis and (Agility + Time To Market) are the only two points that make or break profitability irrespective of what item you build.

• Analysis - If you aren't constantly (read: daily) reviewing your production costs and the current marketplace for everything you can potentially build, then you arent heading for success. Many people worked out that product X was profitable whenever they started manufacturing.... and they just keep on building it - regardless of what changes may have since occurred in the supply of raw materials, or how oversupplied the marketplace may be for that item... Avoid being one of these people.
• Agility - If your Analysis says that building product X is now more profitable than building product Y - How fast can you start building X ?; If it's waiting 3 days for an invention run and a different set of raw materials to be delivered, another day for manufacturing and then another day again to get your product on the Market, then your profit has all likely gone to someone else..

The key to Analysis is spreadsheets and databases - You should have a system for having a computer outright tell you that based on the current raw materials sell price, invention, manufacturing, shipping, taxes etc versus the sell price for the finished product (with consideration for how many of that product are already on the market versus the average daily sales)
The key to Agility is a huge portfolio of BPOs, BPCs and pre-invented T2 BPCs along with a warehouse full of prebuilt component parts and raw materials - Going too overboard here leads to potentially tying up too much capital in a warehouse of stuff that isn't earning you anything, /and/ is subject to market fluctuations potentially devaluing some of it and messing with your Analysis - So its a bit of a balancing act.