Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 285

A bottleneck refers to a situation where production is limited by some factor when trying to produce under certain conditions. The analogy is that the neck of a bottle is narrow, preventing the water inside from flowing out all at once. However, since glass bottles are luxury items not widely used in this world, I struggle to find a suitable term to explain it to Sara.

“Hmm… I might be able to prepare silver coins, but it’s impossible to find that many people who can write. What do you call the narrow mouth of that vase?”

In the end, instead of using a bottle, I reference a flower vase found in slightly upscale inns. The shape is similar, but since it doesn’t closely relate to Sara’s life, it doesn’t seem to resonate with her.

Would it have been better to use a leather bag for holding water? Water leather bags, made from sheep’s stomachs, have narrow openings and serve a similar function.

“Well, it’s normal to have challenges. This is the same as when we set up the church’s seal department. When the problem is tough, we break it down into parts. If we tackle them one at a time, there’s no problem we can’t solve.”

“Break it down… like what?”

“Let’s think about the first 10 copies separately from the remaining 1,000. Even if we ultimately need to prepare 1,000 booklets, we should first make about 10 as prototypes to test. Remember when we made the guardian’s shoes? We made samples. There are many ways to innovate even in the booklet itself: what kind of text to include, what materials to use, what size to make it, and how to generate profit.”

“You’re focused on profit.”

“Since I’m already swamped with shoe manufacturing, if booklet production becomes profitable, someone else might want to take it over, right?”

If a business is profitable, successors can be found; if it isn’t, they can’t. The same issue applies to agriculture and the lack of successors in small to medium-sized enterprises. The reason for the lack of successors is that the work isn’t profitable. Conversely, if it is profitable, there will always be someone considering taking it on.

So creating a profitable business structure is the most crucial element.

“…That’s true. So, what kind of booklet do you plan to create? I doubt anyone other than you is thinking about it.” Sara asks about my vision for the end result.

Indeed, if we discuss this without a shared understanding of the final form, the conversation won’t progress. I need to clarify my intent.

“That’s right. First of all, we want to create an inexpensive booklet. If we don’t keep it cheap, we won’t be able to distribute 1,000 copies. If we can reduce the cost of making one copy by one copper coin, that saves us 1,000 copper coins overall.”

“When you look at it that way, even one copper coin is significant.”

Since we’re producing in large quantities, keeping costs low is essential. To popularize it, we prioritize “affordability” as our first principle.

“Next, I want it to be quick to produce. The current estimates show production takes too long. Making it quicker means we can make it cheaper. After all, the labor cost of paying people to write is higher than the material cost. If there’s less writing to copy, it will be faster and cheaper. I believe we should focus on that rather than lowering material costs.”

“Why’s that? You’d want materials to be as cheap as possible, right?”

“True. For example, if it’s just about cheap materials, we could skip parchment and use goblin skin instead.”

“Ew! No way. That’s disgusting.”

“But it’s cheap.”

“Even if it is, I don’t want it!”

“Well, that’s what I figured you’d say. If even an adventurer like you finds it gross, there’s no way the church would accept it.”

“Though the analogy is gross, I get what you mean.”

While low-priced items might be welcome, no one likes poor-quality products. That’s the point.