I have been under a lot of pressure these last few weeks, some personal and some work related. This has effected my ability to complete many orders on time. But as I always do I want to be honest with you all and hope you understand. I know there is nothing like being kept in the dark about a order you placed, I try to answer all e-mail in a timely manner to keep you informed about the progress of your orders, but once in a while I miss a e-mail or do not get it. If you have sent me a mail and I have not responded, please send it again. As far as I know I am now up to date in replies to all e-mails.
Current situation on orders and new products.
Currently I have 42 orders to complete which I am working on as fast as I can. Many are almost complete, some have a little way to go, a few have a lot of work involved and will take time.
I have lost my part time assistant for a while as he is attending collage on weekdays learning English. He still helps me when he can on weekends, but this means much of the work he did now has to be done by me for some time.
My intended expansion of my workshop is under way, but has been slowed down by current events. See pictures at end of this post.
New product production.
Barrel rifling and plugs, these have not been as well received as I thought and sales are very low. My time and investment in these has not been worthwhile. With this in mind and the low interest shown in the other new parts, 20 ton jack and Tiger 1 and 2 lock bar and tab sets, leave me undecided wether these are going to be fruitful. I will eventually produce these, but I have to put their production on hold for a while, as tentative orders are so low I cannot justify spending the money at the moment in producing the photo-etched parts and molds for spin casting, plus the time in making the artwork and finishing masters. I plan to spend the next four weeks working solely on filling orders.
I have been trying to improve my workshop set up to make it easier and less time consuming in production of parts. One problem I had is space, many of the machines and tools I use are stowed away and I have to pull them for set up to produce some parts. To save time I am expanding into the next door workshop, this will give me another 550 square feet of spaceto allow me to set up all of my production machines and tools to save time.
Another good problem I have is the amount of orders I receive, however keeping track of where they are at has been a problem. My old system was to have the printed order forms on shelves and stack the parts on the forms as they were produced. This worked fine for a while, but as order volume increased it was difficult to keep track and many orders got missed for a while, also parts got mixed and sometimes I sent incomplete orders to customers and in a few cases extra parts. I am now working with order trays on which a customers name and date of order is written, this way I can at a glance find a order and also know if it is getting behind. Should have done this years ago.
Pictures of my new order tracking system, names and dates have been blurred to protect the innocent. LOL! I currently have 50 order trays which will be increase to 100 once my expansion is completed. Still trying to figure out how best to set up the new area.
Please if you intend placing a order do so at your earliest convenience as this will help me plan production and also put your order in the production line for a early as possible delivery time.
Order tray pictures.
New workshop area.
Regards
Mike