Good day All,
We’ve gotten behind on updates however wished to start out by saying regardless of the delays, there aren’t any critical points. We’re simply attempting to determine this entire hand constructed small batch manufacturing factor out.
High quality Management Bottleneck
The previous couple of weeks of meeting haven’t been going as easily as hoped. Our unique high quality management process concerned pulling 4 pictures via the Scace unit to confirm output temperature was matching the brew set temperature inside our anticipated tolerances. We discovered that the entire machines that had been working accurately had been staying inside our 2C tolerance band. The larger problem we bumped into was machines being constructed incorrectly and having miscellaneous match or perform issues. These machines had to return to the construct course of to be torn aside, corrected, and re-tested.
This took time to not solely work out how we might modify our meeting course of for higher success but in addition modify our QC course of to focus extra on longevity as an alternative of a single set of shot pulls. We’ve additionally modified our meeting process to now require every tech to carry out an preliminary take a look at run after they construct every machine. If any problem arises, that specific technician will then be capable to see the issue and repair it instantly earlier than persevering with on to the subsequent construct. This beforehand created a bottleneck for us the place a technician would proceed constructing machines that had been failing QC then being despatched again to remodel which prevented us from really delivery any items out. Our present objective is to have a totally completed and QC’d machine packaged up and able to ship earlier than a technician can proceed on to the subsequent.
Technician Meeting
We’re nonetheless engaged on hiring extra technicians. Sadly we at the moment are right down to 2 technicians. We’re very pleased with the work that these two are placing out and look ahead to persevering with to develop our crew. We all know consideration to element is a should for this function and are nonetheless refining our interview course of to search out technicians which can be more than likely to reach this surroundings.
Resolving Points
After we despatched the preliminary machines out, we got here throughout a number of instances with grounding points. We’ve since discovered options for all of these which included including washers to house our PCBs off from the mounting plate extra and guaranteeing that the electrically resistive tape between the PCB and mounting plate totally covers all solder factors on the again of the board.
Up to date High quality Management Course of
We’ve an ever evolving QC course of. As we proceed to construct and take a look at we discover new issues so as to add to the checklist to enhance high quality and consistency. We’ve began blowing out any residual water from the fill tube and steam wand strains earlier than delivery. This can be a easy course of however provides an extra step that we predict is critical for common product cleanliness.
Common
As a result of dynamic nature of a small store startup we’ll all the time proceed to attempt issues out, be taught, and adapt. We thought {that a} Launch Guidelines with an Order Progress Log can be useful for patrons to trace orders as they’re constructed, QC’d, and shipped out. Sadly as a result of we’ve had optimistic projections on our construct effectivity and been fallacious, we’ve determined to take away this progress log and embrace what’s been shipped out in our e-newsletter updates. This manner we keep away from giving false hope and might intention to do a greater job at retaining folks updated with precise progress.
We all know folks will proceed to ask and make assumptions about when their orders will ship however there’s realistically no technique to know this data. We’ve confirmed that at our present stage, nothing is constant from week to week within the present construct course of. We are going to proceed to enhance our effectivity and construct as many machines as doable however there’s no technique to know when precisely you’ll rent new store techs or lose some. We’re working to make issues steady in order that projections will be made however can’t promise when that can occur.
We at the moment have 8 machines in packing containers which were QC’d a number of instances on account of our altering and added processes. The one factor left for these machines is the delivery label and dropping them off at FedEx.
9 extra machines want the ultimate stage of water blown out of the strains then are prepared to enter packing containers.
Our two store techs will probably be again to constructing new machines this week.
Ross is taking a while off from his day job to give attention to getting the store organized and dealing with our techs to implement a streamlined technique of going from construct all the best way to packaged and able to ship earlier than shifting on to the subsequent machine.
Movies
A video displaying how one can swap between springs and from spring to direct has been filmed.
First unit delivered in Australia arrange of their Land Rover Defender!
The Argos trying small subsequent to a P100.
Select your participant! So many choices on one desk
Sincerely,
Ross & William
