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SM Blueprint
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1. The "Factory Floor" Mentality: High Fixed Costs

Part 8 • Traditional Supply Chain Bottleneck for Vinyl and CDs

Traditional manufacturing for vinyl records and replicated CDs operates on a "factory floor" mentality. These are industrial processes requiring specialized, heavy machinery and skilled labor. Setting up these machines for a new product (your album) incurs high fixed costs, regardless of whether you're pressing 300 or 3,000 units. These fixed costs are then amortized across the entire production run. For small runs, these fixed costs make the per-unit price astronomically high.

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In this module: Traditional Supply Chain Bottleneck for Vinyl and CDs10 steps
  1. 1The "Factory Floor" Mentality: High Fixed Costs
  2. 2The Vinyl Bottleneck: Lacquers, Mothers, Stampers
  3. 3The CD Replication Bottleneck: Glass Masters
  4. 4Minimum Order Quantities (MOQs): The Financial Barrier
  5. 5Upfront Payment: Capital Intensive Model
  6. 6Painfully Long Lead Times: The "Waiting Game"
  7. 7The Inventory Management Burden
  8. 8Environmental Impact: A Heavy Footprint
  9. 9The "I Can't Afford It" Barrier
  10. 10Your Actionable Strategy: Embrace the New Model