Argos Replace: December 6, 2023

Howdy All,

Delivery Updates

Sadly transport has taken successful the previous few weeks whereas we work on some a lot wanted development. We’ve at present shipped 70 items, have 25 able to be boxed, and 12 ready on the brand new lights.

Whereas we have been delayed with transport resulting from hiring and group efforts, we did nevertheless pre-build an enormous inventory of sub assemblies in preparation for our new lights. We at present have 75 boiler assemblies constructed and stress checked, 50 boiler caps, 140 steam manifolds, 100 steam wands + valves, and 58 piston assemblies.

Staffing:

We’ve acknowledged the necessity and employed 3 full time individuals! The primary one began final week as a sub meeting technician serving to us construct up sub meeting stock to enhance effectivity on last meeting.

The second begins subsequent week as a full time order success and packaging technician. I’ve at present been the one particular person doing last QC checks, packaging, and fulfilling orders as a result of strict aesthetic high quality we maintain for every machine. There’s lots to this function to make sure that every machine arrives to our clients in the absolute best form. Staffing this function with a full time worker will assist us meet our purpose of transport 40 machines per week. This enables 1 hour to totally package deal every machine with equipment which we predict is loads to alleviate the present bottleneck. We’re very excited for this particular person to begin!

The third full time worker is one other sub meeting technician who shall be beginning the sixteenth and proudly owning all components of sub meeting builds, half modifications, meeting fixtures, and many others. This particular person shall be accountable for managing all facets to make sure that machine builders should not slowed down with the distraction of needing to seek out or fear a few sub meeting.

The staffing breakdown is as follows now

Half Time

3 half time machine builders

1 bonding specialist (bonds magnets to wooden and metallic parts)

1 half time miscellaneous store duties

Full Time

2 full time sub meeting builders

1 full time order success

This could enable Ross to concentrate on the meeting course of as an entire and resolve every other bottlenecks which will come up in order that we are able to meet our targets.

{Hardware} Updates:

As talked about within the final 2 updates, Anthony and Trevor have continued spooling up on the machine constructing course of in preparation for the brand new LEDs which arrived yesterday. They’ve constructed 15 machines with out LEDs so that after they arrived, we might drop them in and start testing on every.

We really feel assured that the brand new LEDs will resolve a number of our points. After persevering with to dig into how LEDs are usually examined and high quality managed earlier than being despatched out, We’ve discovered that our new provider has a machine to cycle each bulb 100,000 instances to discard failed LEDs earlier than assembling the ultimate mild. Sadly, we’ve realized that the unique provider solely turns every mild on and off 3 instances after assembling to check earlier than transport.

We’ve now modified our QC course of so that each one machines with the unique LEDs have the lights cycled 10,000 instances by way of the app earlier than we ship. The purpose of that is to catch any early failures earlier than sending items out.

The brand new lights can have a barely completely different look from the originals. The unique lights had inexperienced and orange lenses. The brand new lights will all have what we describe as a “milky white” lens the place the bulb is coloured inexperienced or orange to present the sunshine a cleaner look when the machine is off however nonetheless the identical look when turned on.

The stress compensated circulation management valve components arrived final week and are at present in testing. Outcomes are wanting good however we plan to proceed testing by way of this week to amass extra information on consistency earlier than together with in every machine and sending out to all current clients. As talked about in prior updates, these components will enable customers to drag the lever straight down and never want to fret about any particular method for bleeding air out on the appropriate fee in our included piston bleed valve. Outcomes will embrace extra constant extractions.

Now that LEDs are in, as soon as our two new individuals rise up to hurry on our processes over the following 2 weeks we should always begin to get a real thought of our output and begin monitoring down the following bottleneck within the manufacturing course of. We’re all excited to get right into a groove with getting these out the door!