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A new subject for future discussion; which 2024 'balts are better; the Mothership-built in Kansas, or the new fab-built in Tenn?
"This will be the second Malibu facility outside of the company’s Loudon headquarters and will be used to meet growing customer demand of the existing Cobalt boat brand beginning in early 2024."
I find this topic very interesting for many reasons. How big is the market really for $150k-$300k boats? These things are getting more and more expensive every year and I question how attainable some of these models are for most boat buyers.
770 employees is a lot, especially when you consider their current size. I have no idea how many employees it takes to make one of these boats, but let's just say the average operator makes $60k per year. That's a $46MM annual payroll. That's a crap ton of boats to build to carry that alone, and that's before cost of materials.
In terms of manufacturing them in another facility I have to assume they will have that down. Manufacturers this large have Work Instructions and SOP's well documented. Malibu knows how to build good boats and so does Cobalt. The trick will be getting equivalency between the two locations. These things are hand built so depending on how their production staff are allocated you could conceivably have variable in quality between teams in the Kansas location anyway. From a continuity perspective it makes sense to have another location to minimize risk. As someone who runs a manufacturing company the second location doesn't necessarily scare me. Would I want a boat from that facility the first year or two... probably not. But that might also just be due to my desire to be a part of the whole Cobalt tradition, which I think really started in Kansas. I think they could get there. I also think Malibu knows people are going to be looking at these things under an electron microscope. They'll be making sure they can get it right. It does beg the question though... why not expand the capability in Kansas? Do they have plans to make Malibu's in Kansas too? Will they eventually move all production to Tennessee? It's an interesting move and I wonder what it really means for the future.
To me the bigger question remains is the market really that big? I just can't believe it, but maybe I'm naive. It's definitely interesting to speculate about.
2015 Cobalt R7- Navy w/ Yellow Stripe and VP V8-380HP
2014 Stingray 225LR - Red with Mercruiser 5.0 260hp (FOR SALE!)
lghtspeedz wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 8:58 pm
I find this topic very interesting for many reasons. How big is the market really for $150k-$300k boats? These things are getting more and more expensive every year and I question how attainable some of these models are for most boat buyers.
770 employees is a lot, especially when you consider their current size. I have no idea how many employees it takes to make one of these boats, but let's just say the average operator makes $60k per year. That's a $46MM annual payroll. That's a crap ton of boats to build to carry that alone, and that's before cost of materials.
In terms of manufacturing them in another facility I have to assume they will have that down. Manufacturers this large have Work Instructions and SOP's well documented. Malibu knows how to build good boats and so does Cobalt. The trick will be getting equivalency between the two locations. These things are hand built so depending on how their production staff are allocated you could conceivably have variable in quality between teams in the Kansas location anyway. From a continuity perspective it makes sense to have another location to minimize risk. As someone who runs a manufacturing company the second location doesn't necessarily scare me. Would I want a boat from that facility the first year or two... probably not. But that might also just be due to my desire to be a part of the whole Cobalt tradition, which I think really started in Kansas. I think they could get there. I also think Malibu knows people are going to be looking at these things under an electron microscope. They'll be making sure they can get it right. It does beg the question though... why not expand the capability in Kansas? Do they have plans to make Malibu's in Kansas too? Will they eventually move all production to Tennessee? It's an interesting move and I wonder what it really means for the future.
To me the bigger question remains is the market really that big? I just can't believe it, but maybe I'm naive. It's definitely interesting to speculate about.
Based on your assumed payroll expenditures as a number.
It's a lot more than 46M per year. That's basic payroll.
Add in unemployment % of probably around 2, compensation and disability insurances which is based off of payroll amounts, Social Security with full match, 401K with match, federal and state payroll taxes.. probably closer to 55-60m.
Labor is the number 1 reason everything is costing so much more.
Cobalt probably started planning the expansion after the covid spike in sales and it took a few years to get the plant ready.
I doubt today they would move forward with the current interest rates.
Next they will announce a battery boat that adds 50K to the gas version!
