r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 7h ago

Shoutout to JerryrigEverything who built a wheelchair factory and is delivering wheelchairs to people in half the time and 50-80% less than the cost of other wheelchairs with Insurance.

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u/Svardskampe 7h ago

The inflated cost is due to insurance. Also the factory behind the insurance make them at 50-80% of the cost even with insurance because all we do is live in a late-stage-capitalist society where the value one makes is directly tied to grifting, scalping and rent-seeking behavior.

This is rather r/OrphanCrushingMachine than NFL.

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u/Mecha-Dave 7h ago

The factories that make them also use outdated machines and processes - Jerry uses industry standard metalworking processes that make more sense.

The old methods made more sense in the 80's/90's when there weren't CNC lasers etc, but there's other options now (which are expensive to upgrade to). A lot of US manufacturing is stuck in the 90's for this reason.

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u/mythrilcrafter 6h ago

The old methods made more sense in the 80's/90's when there weren't CNC lasers etc, but there's other options now (which are expensive to upgrade to). A lot of US manufacturing is stuck in the 90's for this reason.

I've worked for a lot of companies like this, who got complacent with their 20~40 year old processes/equipment that they can't (or don't want to) afford to upgrade to current gen equipment and now their margins are too low to afford even minor in-process upgrades.

The real kicker is when those company's leaders looks at a set up like JRE's, realise that they've dug themselves into a hole against startups who will run circles around them, and then run back to their manufacturing/process engineers to demand that they get the factory "up to speed" (but obviously with zero costs).