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How is it possible for a company to fail so badly?

4 months into the edition - they know that demand for models when a new codex comes out is higher than it has ever been. Yet - still - out of stock for all the best models 5 weeks after release. I am just dumbfounded. Was it like this for the other armies?

Look at this guy, he clearly knows the entirety and complexity of plastic injecting. He obviously knows that the new, bigger factory GW was using for plastic models had it's power disrupted by government construction work, and that the smaller, older factory is working flat out and unable to keep up to the heightened demand caused by the most successful edition of Warhammer 40,000 yet.

At least, that's the reason I was told (the power cut thing).

This is normal with each codex release. People are buying 2000, 3000 point armies straight fro the webstore as soon as the codex reelases.

GW tries to keep stock, but the US distribution centers are already under load from the FLGS distributors that need to be supplied too.

I'm not certain they could stock enough to handle the load - even if they told your local store to shove it and sell magic cards instead.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be fair, we do feel your pain. I want some of those Dark Angels jetfighters, but they'd been blitzed out of existence everywhere.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
This is normal with each codex release. People are buying 2000, 3000 point armies straight fro the webstore as soon as the codex reelases.

GW tries to keep stock, but the US distribution centers are already under load from the FLGS distributors that need to be supplied too.

I'm not certain they could stock enough to handle the load - even if they told your local store to shove it and sell magic cards instead.

Out of stock on the web-store for 5 consecutive weeks. The stores can't even get the stuff. They just aren't making the kits.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
This is normal with each codex release. People are buying 2000, 3000 point armies straight fro the webstore as soon as the codex reelases.

GW tries to keep stock, but the US distribution centers are already under load from the FLGS distributors that need to be supplied too.

I'm not certain they could stock enough to handle the load - even if they told your local store to shove it and sell magic cards instead.

Out of stock on the web-store for 5 consecutive weeks. The stores can't even get the stuff. They just aren't making the kits.

They aren't making the kits because they don't want to, they aren't making the kits because they literally cannot.

Their actual manufacturing process has been disrupted because of construction at their main facility that isn't under their control. There isn't enough actual power to run at full capacity at their main location - they are unable to produce at a normal rate.

It isn't that they're willfully not producing the kits, they physically cannot. They are a vertically integrated company that cannot outsource their manufacturing to account for production delays.All of their injection molding, machinery, etc. is proprietary so if they can't produce (which they cannot right now because their larger facility is suffering a brown out) it then no one can.

May I suggest a Hive Fleet name for you: "Queribundus Queribundica"

No, it's not actually Latin, but it does shorten nicely to, "QQ".

DCannon4Life wrote:
May I suggest a Hive Fleet name for you: "Queribundus Queribundica"

No, it's not actually Latin, but it does shorten nicely to, "QQ".

That gave me a chuckle.

From the sounds of it reading from an article - they are down 3 injections machines. They have 12 functional. There are also these things called generators that could get the other 3 machines running...but...I'm not sure they thought of that. Plus - preparation is how you handle this kind of thing. You don't produce the kits after the release of the codex - you produce them well in advance. In any case - it's still unacceptable that they can't meet tyranid demand 5 weeks after release...


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 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Their actual manufacturing process has been disrupted because of construction at their main facility that isn't under their control. There isn't enough actual power to run at full capacity at their main location - they are unable to produce at a normal rate.

It isn't that they're willfully not producing the kits, they physically cannot. They are a vertically integrated company that cannot outsource their manufacturing to account for production delays.All of their injection molding, machinery, etc. is proprietary so if they can't produce (which they cannot right now because their larger facility is suffering a brown out) it then no one can.

So their entire main facility is not producing models?

Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

I'm with Xenomancers here -- how many times have we seen space marine models go out of stock? Again, it's a self-perpetuating problem. If GW is producing Primaris batch #347, the molds for Carnifex batch #6 aren't even being utilized. How many ways can I buy a Primaris Intercessor? Well, you've got the various boxed game versions, you've got the easy-to-build versions, and you've got codex, BA, and DA versions. As a person with mostly Xenos armies, yes, this makes me more than a little salty, and I don't think that's unreasonable.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

Don't worry, he always knows better than everyone else about everything. /s

Normally I'd make a prodding joke about Dunning-Kruger, but this attitude starts becoming really toxic after a while. Just angry post after angry post.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

These are easy problems to solve actually...actually having product available to sell is basically rule number 1 of business. They should have expected 8th edition would be as popular as it is. They had a full 6 months (or more) to prepare and stock up...it is - indefensible and it's costing them money. Good companies don't let money slip away from them.

News flash! GW uses normal manufacturing predictive methodology to determine which SKUs to produce in what numbers.

Holy hell what a stupid conspiracy theory. Do you know why they've got SMs in stock and not Xenos? SMs sell so they produce a higher number of the kits pre-launch based on existing data. It isn't some attempt to slight xenos players (I exclusively play Eldar here) - it is the nature of predicting excepted stock turn over (which is a sound business practice).

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

Don't worry, he always knows better than everyone else about everything. /s

Normally I'd make a prodding joke about Dunning-Kruger, but this attitude starts becoming really toxic after a while. Just angry post after angry post.

I'm pretty sure at this point that you and farseer are the same person. Literally just follow me around trolling me with posts within a few minutes of each other. Could be a coincidence but I don't think so. I'm 100% right here...Companies that can not meet demand on their own release schedule (which they made themselves) are considered incompetent in literally any other consumer situation. GW fans boys I can see defending them but this is just ridicules. To be out of stock for 5 weeks - it is clear they are just making other things like...snap tite aggressors (don't need glue).

 Xenomancers wrote:

These are easy problems to solve actually...actually having product available to sell is basically rule number 1 of business. They should have expected 8th edition would be as popular as it is. They had a full 6 months (or more) to prepare and stock up...it is - indefensible and it's costing them money. Good companies don't let money slip away from them.

So tell me how many years have you spent running an injection facility? How many years have you spent in product management and store set? You have no idea what you're talking about here because you simply don't understand the basic business in play here. Sure in an ideal world every company at all times keeps stock levels ramped to holiday levels, that world doesn't exist though. See the video game console industry, see the high end specialty car industry - it isn't easy to perfectly predict demand against supply. Also let me ask again - do you understand how having excess stock on hand works for a company?


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 Xenomancers wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

Don't worry, he always knows better than everyone else about everything. /s

Normally I'd make a prodding joke about Dunning-Kruger, but this attitude starts becoming really toxic after a while. Just angry post after angry post.

I'm pretty sure at this point that you and farseer are the same person. Literally just follow me around trolling me with posts within a few minutes of each other. Could be a coincidence but I don't think so. I'm 100% right here...Companies that can not meet demand on their own release schedule (which they made themselves) are considered incompetent in literally any other consumer situation. GW fans boys I can see defending them but this is just ridicules. To be out of stock for 5 weeks - it is clear they are just making other things like...snap tite aggressors (don't need glue).

Yes Games Workshop - literally identified as one of the best possible stocks to own in the British market is incompetent. Oh wait - maybe you just know as much as you think you do? But of course not, you're Xenomancers right about everything, incapable of error.

Oh, another Xenomancers hyperbole thread.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Oh, another Xenomancers hyperbole thread.

Be careful, or he'll think you're the same person, too. Paranoia will destroy ya.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:


Yes Games Workshop - literally identified as one of the best possible stocks to own in the British market is incompetent.

without wanting to comment on anything else in this thread as I generally agree with most of it (manufacturing and retail is complicated and hard), GW has a long history of irrational and disastrous business decisions that could be called incompetent.

They're generally very nice to their stockholders, but thats because their CEO and chairman (Kirby) was their like #5 shareholder and derived much of his income that way, and GW would do things like borrow money, putting themselves in the red, to pay dividends, which happened to double Kirby's income. Their years of practically adversarial customer relations, massive mishandling of social media and legal challenges to competitors, copycats and stuff like suing over the term "space marine", the entirety of 6E and 7E and loss of market share for the first time in a generation, Finecast, etc, calling GW incompetent, at least in certain respects, is not unwarranted, intertia has been their greatest friend the last 20 years, not innovation and foresight.

GW is having production issues that will not be resolved until their building can have its electrical work upgraded, which will not happen until after the new year.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:


Yes Games Workshop - literally identified as one of the best possible stocks to own in the British market is incompetent.

without wanting to comment on anything else in this thread as I generally agree with most of it (manufacturing and retail is complicated and hard), GW has a long history of irrational and disastrous business decisions that could be called incompetent.

They're generally very nice to their stockholders, but thats because their CEO and chairman (Kirby) was their like #5 shareholder and derived much of his income that way, and GW would do things like borrow money, putting themselves in the red, to pay dividends, which happened to double Kirby's income. Their years of practically adversarial customer relations, massive mishandling of social media and legal challenges to competitors, copycats and stuff like suing over the term "space marine", the entirety of 6E and 7E and loss of market share for the first time in a generation, Finecast, etc, calling GW incompetent, at least in certain respects, is not unwarranted, intertia has been their greatest friend the last 20 years, not innovation and foresight.

And all of this matters now given that Kirby no longer even has an advisory role with the company? Or is relevant given the article that named them as such was published less than a year ago under the Rountree era? Or has any veracity given the consistent growth in performance since 2015 when the change over occurred? Yes I'm being snarky but its to prove a point - GW is doing very well right now reporting one of their best fiscal years in recent memory with high dividends and constant growth, none of which have anything to do with their previous management or are even reflective of that as opposed to the growth shown under Rountree.

Hell, I don't think ork wierdboyz have been for sale since 8th dropped. Like, at all. You can't find them on ebay, amazon, or any physical store I've visited.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:


Yes Games Workshop - literally identified as one of the best possible stocks to own in the British market is incompetent.

without wanting to comment on anything else in this thread as I generally agree with most of it (manufacturing and retail is complicated and hard), GW has a long history of irrational and disastrous business decisions that could be called incompetent.

They're generally very nice to their stockholders, but thats because their CEO and chairman (Kirby) was their like #5 shareholder and derived much of his income that way, and GW would do things like borrow money, putting themselves in the red, to pay dividends, which happened to double Kirby's income. Their years of practically adversarial customer relations, massive mishandling of social media and legal challenges to competitors, copycats and stuff like suing over the term "space marine", the entirety of 6E and 7E and loss of market share for the first time in a generation, Finecast, etc, calling GW incompetent, at least in certain respects, is not unwarranted, intertia has been their greatest friend the last 20 years, not innovation and foresight.

And all of this matters now given that Kirby no longer even has an advisory role with the company? Or is relevant given the article that named them as such was published less than a year ago under the Rountree era? Or has any veracity given the consistent growth in performance since 2015 when the change over occurred? Yes I'm being snarky but its to prove a point - GW is doing very well right now reporting one of their best fiscal years in recent memory with high dividends and constant growth, none of which have anything to do with their previous management or are even reflective of that as opposed to the growth shown under Rountree.

GW has been doing well for a very short time period, and were at some of their worst just before that. Limited data set and low hanging fruit. They've stopped digging down, but they've got a long way to go still, with a loooong track record of poor choices spanning many years and many are not all that old by any means.

Again, I totally agree with the comments about manufacturing and supply issues and all that, but lets avoid setting up GW as a paragon of business competency just yet. We've seen GW try to turn things around before only to crash and burn so to speak, though yes they're better than they were a year ago.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
News flash! GW uses normal manufacturing predictive methodology to determine which SKUs to produce in what numbers.

Holy hell what a stupid conspiracy theory. Do you know why they've got SMs in stock and not Xenos? SMs sell so they produce a higher number of the kits pre-launch based on existing data. It isn't some attempt to slight xenos players (I exclusively play Eldar here) - it is the nature of predicting excepted stock turn over (which is a sound business practice).

Lol, predictive methodology sounds like something a tech savvy company would use, not an old-timer operation like GW. You've got to be kidding me if you don't think GW has pushed marines to the detriment of other factions. Heck, release a Xenos kit to get the loud whiners on FB and other platforms to shut up! Even if the sales numbers say people buy marines (which yeah, they certainly do, I'm not arguing that), it makes you look bad when people whine (justifiably!) about how they can't buy the Xenos kits. Sure, GW is doing pretty well these days. But I think they could improve sales and goodwill by sharing the love a little bit.

It's just reboxing. You can still order it from your FLGS through the distributor.

My girlfriend got me a ton of genestealers for xmas.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
News flash! GW uses normal manufacturing predictive methodology to determine which SKUs to produce in what numbers.

Holy hell what a stupid conspiracy theory. Do you know why they've got SMs in stock and not Xenos? SMs sell so they produce a higher number of the kits pre-launch based on existing data. It isn't some attempt to slight xenos players (I exclusively play Eldar here) - it is the nature of predicting excepted stock turn over (which is a sound business practice).

Lol, predictive methodology sounds like something a tech savvy company would use, not an old-timer operation like GW. You've got to be kidding me if you don't think GW has pushed marines to the detriment of other factions. Heck, release a Xenos kit to get the loud whiners on FB and other platforms to shut up! Even if the sales numbers say people buy marines (which yeah, they certainly do, I'm not arguing that), it makes you look bad when people whine (justifiably!) about how they can't buy the Xenos kits. Sure, GW is doing pretty well these days. But I think they could improve sales and goodwill by sharing the love a little bit.

I can source their predictive methodology by virtue of having worked for GW in a manufacturing support role for almost 9 years (no longer employed). GW is a business who produces what sells and what sells more than anything else is Space Marines so when you're forecasting a release you are going to produce SM kits at a much higher volume with better back stock (because of turn over vs. lead time) because you can have faith that come inventory time you aren't going to be sitting on excess product. Forecasting for production, especially during a new release is very difficult because you have to rely on previous similar scenarios to set quantities - it is an inexact science at best and one that can be cripplingly expensive if you get it wrong from a tax on physical inventory stand point. And even if they'd predicted perfectly you cannot account for a significant loss in production capacity such as losing actual power for a long period of time. You run the machines and you produce the SKUs that move and when you get a break you catch up on the slower SKUs - that's simply how the manufacturing business works, I always have to pay the bills before I catch up on the lower end movers.

There is no sharing the love - there is finding the best possible way to operate using the currently available production capacity to generate the most revenue as possible.


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 Marmatag wrote:
It's just reboxing. You can still order it from your FLGS through the distributor.

My girlfriend got me a ton of genestealers for xmas.

Depends on who the distributor is. For many stores the distributor is GW, some stores still stock through Alliance who may have some back order they're sitting on.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
News flash! GW uses normal manufacturing predictive methodology to determine which SKUs to produce in what numbers.

Holy hell what a stupid conspiracy theory. Do you know why they've got SMs in stock and not Xenos? SMs sell so they produce a higher number of the kits pre-launch based on existing data. It isn't some attempt to slight xenos players (I exclusively play Eldar here) - it is the nature of predicting excepted stock turn over (which is a sound business practice).

Lol, predictive methodology sounds like something a tech savvy company would use, not an old-timer operation like GW. You've got to be kidding me if you don't think GW has pushed marines to the detriment of other factions. Heck, release a Xenos kit to get the loud whiners on FB and other platforms to shut up! Even if the sales numbers say people buy marines (which yeah, they certainly do, I'm not arguing that), it makes you look bad when people whine (justifiably!) about how they can't buy the Xenos kits. Sure, GW is doing pretty well these days. But I think they could improve sales and goodwill by sharing the love a little bit.

I can source their predictive methodology by virtue of having worked for GW in a manufacturing support role for almost 9 years (no longer employed). GW is a business who produces what sells and what sells more than anything else is Space Marines so when you're forecasting a release you are going to produce SM kits at a much higher volume with better back stock (because of turn over vs. lead time) because you can have faith that come inventory time you aren't going to be sitting on excess product. Forecasting for production, especially during a new release is very difficult because you have to rely on previous similar scenarios to set quantities - it is an inexact science at best and one that can be cripplingly expensive if you get it wrong from a tax on physical inventory stand point. And even if they'd predicted perfectly you cannot account for a significant loss in production capacity such as losing actual power for a long period of time. You run the machines and you produce the SKUs that move and when you get a break you catch up on the slower SKUs - that's simply how the manufacturing business works, I always have to pay the bills before I catch up on the lower end movers.

There is no sharing the love - there is finding the best possible way to operate using the currently available production capacity to generate the most revenue as possible.

Fair enough -- thanks for the insight. As a Xenos player, this fact frustrates me, but it makes sense why this is GW's SOP.

 Marmatag wrote:
It's just reboxing. You can still order it from your FLGS through the distributor.

My girlfriend got me a ton of genestealers for xmas.

Geenstealers havn't been out of stock anytime I have looked at the nid kits online. Tried to order from a GW store but they just use the online system to make their special orders. Are you saying that if I went to a non GW store and had the owner order from the distributer they would be able to get me carnifex?

I love the conspiracy theory that GW are pushing SM to the detriment of other factions. All of those SM fanboys at GW HQ making irrational business decisions just to push their favorite faction. Can't they see that if they just release more eldar models they will sell like hotcakes?

 Xenomancers wrote:
How is it possible for a company to fail so badly?

Failing so badly, that there is literally waiting lists for their product, because demand is so high? Amazing stock performance... Unparalleled popularity... yeah, they are failing terribly. Go back to complaining about Space Marines.