RACS France

[jhalphen]

Hi to all,

@SquirreBoy:
In its heyday, RACS employed up to 15 people. For the last 2 years, it was just the 2 owners, one in Sales/Financials, the other in Rebuilding.
The only employee left was a warehouse person to pack/unpack the CRTs.

Of the two owners, one was already retired, the other very close to retirement, so no major layoffs here.

The factory's break-even point was 1500 CRTs/year. Why? because of the fixed costs associated with having 7000 square meters of factory space (property taxes, ...) + the very expensive electrical bill as the utility co. has to provide massive KW delivery capacity which includes the rental of a quite imposing substation transformer to power the plant. We're talking hundreds of KWs here to power the ovens & other machinery.

About 6 months ago i suggested why not regroup just the machinery needed to produce 1 or 2 tubes at a time in much smaller premises. This would allow selling the factory floor space and the smaller setup would have minimal fixed costs when not in operation.

Sadly, it appears that they didn't pick up on the idea...

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

[jhalphen]

Hi to all,

RACS update, fresh from today.

Had a long talk with Philippe R. one of the co-owners.

Yes, they are indeed closing up shop but he assured me that beginning Oct each and every tube, parts, etc. will be shipped back to their respective owners at no cost.

He has also promised to give me a detailed list with prices of salvageable machinery: vacuum pumps, getter Al sputterers, ovens, neck glass, virgin CRT glass bulbs, cathodes, filaments, getters and chemicals, Lab power supplies from Filament to EHT, deflection yokes, for possible transfer to the ETF.

So a bit of good news after all & not too long to wait.

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France