cnx_vinyl/docs/project-timeline.md

Project Timeline: Today to First Paying Release

A calendar against the dependency-ordered phases in roadmap.md. That page deliberately carries no dates — "the clock starts when the first-phase items move", and it is right to, because nothing in Phase 0 has moved yet. This page is the other half of that: what the calendar looks like if Phase 0 starts now, so the consequences of delay are visible and the critical path is explicit.

Anchored at August 2026. Every duration is an estimate; the ones that are not in this repo at all are flagged as such, and one of them governs the whole schedule.

Re-read in October 2026; the calendar itself is not redrawn yet. Three things changed after it was drawn: the plant now launches with the whole chain in one capital round (one Newbilt Duplex system and one Classic, the Pheenix galvanics line, the Sibert line and the cutting room), commissioned in sequence with galvanics first, not as a later phase; the site strategy is a long lease of raw land (site candidates), not a purchase; and the price is the investor's Plan B, ~217M THB, labelled ~215M (total investment). The USD figures and the land rows below are the August ones.

The answer

First paying release lands around Q4 2028 to mid-2029 — roughly 27 to 33 months from today, on the buy-and-build path. The top of that range is the honest planning figure while the press build time is unquoted; the Gantt below draws the optimistic end.

The critical path is not construction. Whether it is money is outside this page's scope, and that gap should be stated plainly: no financing is committed and none is modelled anywhere in this repo, which prices 1.7–2.9M USD for the launch phase and 4.7–8.9M for the full vision without saying where any of it comes from. This calendar assumes capital is available when each block is ordered. The critical path it does model is:

BOI certificate → press order → press build → sea freight → commissioning

Everything else, including the entire building, has float against that chain. Which means the two things that actually move the date are the BOI filing date and the press vendor's build time, and the second one is not documented anywhere in this repo.

Gantt

gantt
    title CNX Vinyl - Phase 1 to first paying release
    dateFormat YYYY-MM-DD
    axisFormat %b %y

    section Gates (Phase 0)
    Market validation / Making Vinyl   :a1, 2026-08-01, 120d
    BOI consultant engaged             :a2, 2026-08-01, 60d
    BOI application prepared           :a3, after a2, 75d
    60 rai title check                 :a4, 2026-08-01, 90d

    section BOI
    Application filed                  :milestone, m1, 2026-12-15, 0d
    BOI review and analyst meeting     :b1, 2026-12-15, 150d
    Promotion certificate              :milestone, m2, 2027-05-15, 0d
    Company incorporation              :b2, after m2, 30d

    section Land and building
    Zoning and title verification      :c1, 2026-09-01, 90d
    Soil boring test                   :c2, after c1, 30d
    Land purchase or lease             :c3, after c2, 60d
    Design and building permit         :c4, 2027-03-01, 120d
    Phase 1 construction               :c5, 2027-07-01, 240d
    Utilities, solar, fit-out          :c6, 2028-03-01, 120d
    Ror.Ngor.4 factory licence         :c7, 2028-01-01, 150d

    section Equipment (critical path)
    Newbilt re-quote incl. lead time   :d1, 2026-08-01, 90d
    Press order signed                 :milestone, m3, 2027-06-15, 0d
    Press build at vendor              :d2, 2027-06-15, 300d
    Sea freight Alsdorf to Thailand    :d3, after d2, 50d
    Install and commission             :d4, 2028-07-01, 75d

    section Launch
    Hire and train launch team         :e1, 2028-05-01, 120d
    First test pressings               :e2, 2028-09-15, 45d
    First paying release               :milestone, m4, 2028-11-15, 0d

The critical path, step by step

#	Step	Duration	Source
1	Engage BOI consultant, prepare application	4–5 months	Estimate; the application must stack solar, automation and R&D measures (boi.md)
2	BOI review to certificate	4–6 months	boi.md: ~40 working days decision, 4–6 months in practice
3	Company incorporation under the certificate	1–2 months	roadmap.md item 10
4	Press order to vendor-ready	9–12 months	Not in this repo — assumed. See below
5	Sea freight Germany → Thailand	6–8 weeks	Newbilt quote includes freight and seaworthy packaging
6	Install, commission, train	2–3 months	Newbilt includes 5 days; the rest at ~USD 97/h plus travel
7	Test pressings, QC baseline, reject shakedown	1.5–2 months	roadmap.md item 19
	Total	~27–33 months

The one number that governs everything

Nobody has written down how long Newbilt takes to build a Single 2.1 system. It is not in the 2024 budgetary offer summary, not in the site requirements, not in equipment-suppliers.md, and not in pressing-line.md. The 9–12 months above is an industry-typical figure for a built-to-order press system from a small German manufacturer, and it is carrying about 40% of the entire schedule.

If the real figure is 15–18 months — entirely plausible for a shop of Newbilt's size with a full order book — first production moves to mid-2029 and the whole plan shifts by six months, or nine at the widest corner.

Action, and it is free: roadmap.md item 4 already calls for a Newbilt re-quote, since the 2024 offer has expired. Add quoted build time and current order-book position as required fields in that re-quote, and ask Pheenix Alpha the same in item 5. This is one line in an email that is being sent anyway, and it is the single highest-value piece of missing information in the project.

The lever worth checking first

The sequencing rule in boi.md is stated as: BOI approval comes before "any machinery purchase orders", because duty exemption is not retroactive and the certificate defines the import window.

That serialises ~9 months of press build behind ~10 months of BOI process, and it is where most of the 27 months comes from.

But the duty exemption attaches at importation, not at contract signature. If an order can be placed — even with a deposit, while the BOI application is in review, so long as the machinery clears customs after the certificate is issued and appears on the approved machinery list, then steps 2 and 4 overlap and the launch pulls forward by six to nine months.

This is not a claim, it is a question, and it is the first question to put to the BOI consultant in roadmap.md item 2:

Can we sign a machinery supply contract and pay a deposit before the promotion certificate is issued, provided importation and customs clearance occur after issuance and the item is on the approved machinery list? What is the risk to the exemption if the certificate is delayed or refused after the contract is signed?

Nothing else on this page is worth six months. This is.

What has float, and how much

Track	Needed by	Float	Becomes critical if
Land purchase	Design start, ~Q1 2027	~4 months	Zoning fails and a new site is needed (~6 months reset)
Phase 1 construction	Machinery arrival, ~Q3 2028	~3–5 months	Soft-paddy soil forces piling, or permits stall
Ror.Ngor.4 factory licence	First production, Q4 2028	~4 months	Galvanics effluent permitting stalls it: galvanics is in the launch plant and commissioned first, so it is in the licence scope from the first filing
Solar and BESS	Fit-out, ~Q2 2028	large	Gobel lead time is documented at 50–60 days; not a risk
Hiring and training	Commissioning, ~Q3 2028	~2 months	Galvanics process expertise, "the hardest skill to hire" per equipment-suppliers.md, is needed first: galvanics is commissioned before the presses

Construction has the thinnest float of anything with a real duration, and it is thin for a reason: it cannot start until the land is bought, which cannot happen until zoning is verified, which has not started. Zoning verification is the cheapest schedule insurance available and it currently sits unowned — scale.md flags it as "still unverified" and gates "phase 1 every bit as much as phase 2".

The BOI windows are not a risk here

Worth confirming explicitly, because they are hard deadlines with penalties:

Window	Deadline on this schedule	Actual need	Margin
Machinery import, 30 months from certificate	~Q4 2029	Machinery clears customs ~Q3 2028	~15 months
Full operation, ~36 months from certificate	~Q2 2030	First production ~Q4 2028	~18 months

Comfortable, but only on the buy-and-build path as drawn. The margin is consumed by exactly one scenario: filing BOI early to start the clock, then discovering the site does not work. Which is another argument for verifying zoning before filing, not after.

The lease-versus-build fork

total-investment.md states the phased entry as "leased building instead of purchase", saving 1.0–2.1M USD of upfront capital. Recent work has gone the other way: a full parametric building model and a construction RFQ for a purpose-built 60 × 25 m facility on a purchased Mueang Chi parcel.

Both are legitimate. They are not both costed, and the difference is not only money:

	Lease	Buy and build
Upfront capital	~0	1.0–2.1M USD (34–69M THB)
On the critical path?	No	Yes, with ~3–5 months float
Earliest first production	~Q4 2028, same as build	~Q4 2028–mid 2029
Slab rating, 3 t/m²	Must be verified in an existing building; most Thai light-industrial stock will not have it	Specified from the start
500–1,000 kVA supply	Existing connection, or a PEA upgrade with its own lead time	Designed in
BOI land ownership privilege	Unused	Used
Galvanics effluent (launch plant)	Landlord's permission needed, and may not be given	Ours to permit

Leasing frees a seven-figure sum but, on this page's own critical path, cannot pull the launch forward on its own — the press chain governs, and construction has only 3–5 months of float against it. Removing an item that is not on the critical path does not move the end date. Leasing only advances the launch if the press order also moves forward, which is the BOI question above; the two are one lever, not two. The cost is a building that probably compromises on the two hardest requirements (floor loading and power) and may block the galvanics line, which the launch plant needs from the start, entirely. Locating in the Northern Region Industrial Estate, which boi.md already favours for its shared central effluent treatment, is the version of leasing an existing building that keeps the galvanics line possible. (Decided since: a long lease of raw land with a purpose-built plant, which keeps both.)

This is an unresolved fork, not a decision I can make. It is worth resolving before more design effort goes into the parametric model, because the model is only useful on one side of it.

A further lease option arrived in October 2026: Payap University offers land in Chiang Mai next to a pharmaceutical facility under construction (site candidates). Its zoning is as unverified as Mueang Chi's, so it adds a candidate without moving the critical path.

The investor's CD and cassette request

Adding CD and cassette to the plant has been raised by the main investor. Its effect on this schedule depends entirely on which of three very different things is meant, and the range is enormous:

Option	Capex order	Space	Effect on this timeline
Cassette duplication	Tens of thousands USD	~40–80 m²	None. Short lead times, fits inside the building programme, can be added during fit-out or later
CD-R duplication, short run	Low tens of thousands	~20–40 m²	None
CD replication (glass mastering, injection moulding, metallising)	Millions USD	~300–600 m² plus clean room	Substantial — new BOI activity codes, a larger building, and a second commissioning programme

The first two are schedule-neutral and can be decided late. The third is a different project bolted onto this one and would need to be in the BOI application from the start, since activity codes cannot be added casually afterwards.

Because the answer changes by three orders of magnitude, this page assumes the vinyl-only critical path until the scope is settled. The substance of that decision is not a timeline question and is discussed separately.

What this page is not

It is not a plan of record. No Phase 0 item has started, so the whole calendar shifts day for day with the BOI consultant engagement. It is a tool for seeing which delays cost time and which do not:

• A month lost engaging the BOI consultant costs a month of launch.
• A month lost on land or construction costs nothing, until the float is gone.
• A month lost getting the press lead time in writing costs nothing today and may cost six months of surprise later.