Marketplace and Competitive Effects
As of 1984, Peerless saw a number of improvements in
their operations, and some signifi cant changes in their
market as well. In 1979 they had a 14-week delivery lead
time. Part of the reason for this was that 25 percent of their
orders had to be renegotiated with the customer because
the old tooling couldn’t handle the job. This slowed down
the work tremendously. With the laser cutter this has been
reduced to just three weeks, heat treating being the bottleneck
(two full weeks).
Though they weren’t making any blades that could not
be made in 1979, their product mix changed considerably.
In 1979 they made primarily 8-, 10-, 12-, and 14-inch saw
blades. With the new capabilities of the laser cutter they
were now making a much wider variety of blades, and
more complex blades as well. As a matter of fact, they
were producing the more diffi cult blades now, and at less
cost. For example, with the laser cutter, it took one-seventh
the amount of time to cut a blade as it did previously, and
one-eighth the number of machine operators. The resulting
average cost saving was 5 to 10 percent per blade, reaching
a maximum of 45 percent savings (on labor, material, and