Six SKUs, 300 units each, four weeks to launch
A licensed collectibles range needed display packaging for six characters, with a launch date that was set by the licensor and could not move. Tooling per SKU would have eaten the entire budget.
A licensed collectibles range needed display packaging for six characters, with a launch date that was set by the licensor and could not move. Tooling per SKU would have eaten the entire budget.
Six SKUs at 300 units is a difficult shape for any manufacturing process. It is too small for moulding, where six tools would be needed, and it is too large to absorb six separate setups comfortably at a machining shop.
The naive approach — six complete designs, six programs, six setups, six samples — would have spent most of the budget before a single unit was made. That is the trap with licensed ranges: the licensor wants visual variety, and the manufacturer wants commonality, and the two have to be reconciled in design.
We looked at what actually had to change between characters and what did not.
What stayed: the base, the back panel, the side returns, the hardware, the carton. All six SKUs share them, which means one program, one jig and one setup for the structural parts.
What changed: the printed graphic on the front face, and one cut profile where the character silhouette differs enough to matter. That is a UV print job and a laser cut — both of which have almost no setup relative to their per-unit cost.
The result was that five of the six SKUs share about 85% of their components. The customer got six visually distinct products; production saw essentially one assembly with different graphics.
A fixed licensor launch date with six character SKUs means the schedule is the design constraint. The only way to hit it is to make everything share one construction so that approval, tooling and packing are done once.
Every case is the same bonded five-sided acrylic display case on a rebated base, differing only in size and in the printed backdrop. That means one jig family, one bonding procedure, one packing format, and six sets of artwork. The artwork is UV-printed on the reverse face of a 3 mm panel, so the ink sits behind the sheet and cannot be scratched off by handling — which matters on a collectible that will be picked up repeatedly.
Licensor approval and factory sampling ran at the same time rather than in sequence. The case geometry was approved by the client from a plain unprinted sample while the artwork was still in licensor review, so the two approvals converged on the same week instead of stacking. That single decision recovered about ten days against a sequential plan.
| Element | Build | Why for a licensed range |
|---|---|---|
| Case body | 5 mm cast, solvent-bonded, flame-polished edges | One construction across six SKUs |
| Backdrop | UV print on the reverse of a 3 mm panel | Ink behind the sheet; cannot be scratched off |
| Base | Rebated, so the cover locates and cannot slide | Stops the case scuffing the figure |
| Packing | Individual foam wrap, SKU-labelled carton | Retail-ready; a short pick is visible immediately |
| Artwork | Six sets, printed on one nest | One print setup instead of six |
Four weeks from approval to delivery, with the licensor's artwork approval in the middle, is tight but achievable if nothing is iterated.
The critical path was not production — it was print approval. We produced printed proofs on the actual sheet before cutting anything, so the licensor was approving colour on the correct substrate rather than on a paper proof that would never match.
Structural samples were made from the shared components once, then approved once for all six. Only the printed face was approved per character. That split the approval work into one structural sign-off and six print sign-offs running in parallel.
All six SKUs shipped inside the window. Per-unit cost landed close to what a single 1,800-unit run would have cost, because the shared components carried almost all the setup.
The reusable lesson is that SKU proliferation is a design problem before it is a manufacturing problem. If a range can be built on one structural platform with printed variation, small runs stay viable.
| Item | Typical range | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Quantity per SKU | 200–500 units | Below 100 the print setup dominates the price |
| Sampling | 3–7 business days | A plain sample releases geometry; printed proof follows separately |
| Production | 7–15 business days | Plus 3–5 days for print and cure on a six-SKU run |
| Approval risk | The critical path | Licensor review is outside both parties' control; plan for two rounds |
| Minimum viable launch | 4 weeks | Only achievable if geometry and artwork approval run in parallel |
The cost structure on a licensed case is dominated by the print and the packing, not by the acrylic. A 5 mm bonded case is a known quantity; a six-SKU print run with proofing, cure and individual SKU labelling is where the money and the days go.
Where a licensor's date is immovable, the practical advice is to approve geometry first and treat artwork as a separate, later release. A case built to an approved geometry can be packed and staged while the print catches up, and that is usually the difference between shipping on the date and air-freighting to make it.
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Send the SKU list and the artwork. We will map which parts can be shared and which genuinely have to change, and that map usually decides whether the budget works.