This is a plastic part to a table that allows a network cable to go through a conference table. At the moment, we only need one. Take a guess on how much it is. I'll give you some hints. From the image you can see it's a relatively small size. It's made of relatively inexpensive plastic - HIPS to be precise but being made of ABS or other forms of plastic or even rubber wouldn't impact it's mostly aesthetic function. I'll give you the most important clue. The real cost of this item isn't in material cost of the plastic (If you were to buy this material in quantity, the per-pound raw material cost is still under $0.10). Rather, the bulk of the cost depends on proximity of the item to the place of need. My proximity to the conference table is insignificant - only a room away. However, my proximity to a supply of these things is where the real cost becomes apparent.
If I was hypothetically standing next to a barrel of these things at a factory, I could grab one and probably pay pretty close to the material cost of this item. Assuming that factory did retail, and was expecting me to buy many more of these, I would say it's price would be around $0.15 ea.
If was at a local big box store such an item would probably be on a pegboard hook, wrapped in a plastic package with a description and a bar code. The retail price with all package, processing, delivery and sales tax would drive the price up to just above a dollar.
All of the above prices don't take into consideration the searching time and true delivery cost of the item. The most direct way to see the delivery cost of an item is to order an item online and then have it delivered to your door. Given postal rates, an individual can be expected to pay a minimum of around $8 for shipping all but the smallest of items to their nearest postal box. So, in the example above, that can increases the cut rate price of $0.15 to be around $8.15.
Even that expensive ordering option is not how we typically buy such items. Instead, many of us get in our expensive car to drive to the nearest hardware store which is usually at least 15 minutes away. Then spend half an hour looking through all the wall baggies, then find a retail clerk who is faster at searching baggies. Maybe they have one, maybe not. Assuming the item exists and is in-stock, we then expend more time driving back. As can be seen in this example, the whole process can take a large amount of time even if no excessive traffic is encountered on the roadway. If we were to pay ourselves even the new minimum wage of $15 an hour and split the miles driven over the life of the car, well, you know where I'm going with that.
If we need the part at work, cost can still be high. We need to count hourly time for searching for a part from an approved vendor. Then print and submit the appropriate purchase order to the appropriate person. Even if the purchase order process is only asking a boss for approval, their time at their hourly rate is being used too. Then, a small slice of time from accounting to process the order, then send a check. Meanwhile, on the other side, someone needs to maintain a whole business infrastructure so their employee can pick the part, pack the part, then ship it to you. The only bright side to this is that delivery costs may be shared if more than one of the same item is being ordered from that same vendor.
Contrast that to on-site manufacturing. Just measure the diameter of the hole. Start a CAD program (commercial or open source). Then measure the part, draw the piece and export to a printer. Assuming the printer is in working order and has a supply of plastic, there is no additional transport cost, reporting cost and relatively small wait time! Plus, if another is needed at a later time, the cost is even lower! The per-part price from a 3-D printer is still pretty high. However, printers are getting more reliable and less expensive all the time. Due to this, it is now possible to get saving from small batches of multiple items. Just like multi-item orders make per-part costs lower, printers are now reliable enough to print multiples of parts unsupervised. The economics rarely make sense for hundreds of parts. However, when only two or three relatively simple parts are needed, printing rather than ordering may someday become a less expensive option.
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