It has been around two years now that I have come to the realization that the moment I am not able to maintain a fair delivery time of orders. At the start of this year I had about 40 orders to fill, 130 orders have been delivered this year, 126 new orders have been received to date and I still have around 50 orders to complete.
There are several reasons for this, some that I cannot do anything about such as my age and not being able to put in as many hours as I would like at the workshop. Another reason is that my product line has outgrown my system of storage and organization of parts for delivery, plus my overall workshop operation needs to be reorganized to improve production time. My plan is to do this in two stages, Stage one is completed which I will explain shortly. Stage two will start once I have got my delivery of orders down to less than four weeks for large orders.
I have taken on a part time employee for 15 to 20 hours a week, his task will be metal spin casting and resin casting, plus assisting me in assembly and preparation of orders. He has worked for me before and is proficient in casting and assembling of many parts. This will give me the much needed time for the production of new parts and completing many projects that are not finished.
To better explain what I am doing I will be using lots of pictures to lessen the text in this post.
In 2003 when I first started making tank parts I produced 10 sets for the Tiger I, when I moved to Las Vegas in 2004 I had about 50 product, by 2005 it was around 70. At this time my metal parts were being cast by another company. In 2006 I acquired my own spin casting equipment and cast my own parts from then on.
My original set up for organizing parts was a bin system for raw parts and finished products. This system would accommodate about a 100 parts. Yellow bins for raw products and red bins for finished products ready to ship. See pictures below
By 2006 I was over a 100 products and had to increase the size of my bin system, See pictures below.
By 2008 I had around a 150 products and again my bin system would not accommodate them all. I had to place parts in plastic cups which were placed in other areas of the shop. This was still manageable.
In 2010 I had around 200 products, with parts all over the shop which started the slow down as I was wasting lot of time finding a keeping track of parts in stock.
By February 2012 with over 250 products it was completely out of hand. See pictures below of my shop in 2005 and how it was in February 2012.
Last week I decided I need to take the time to reorganize and set up a new system for parts, it has taken the better parts of 10 days to do this but I now have a new set up which with the help I have hired should improve delivery time.
Here is how the bin system and customer order bins looked in February 2012
The new system will accommodate up to around 300 parts, there are no longer raw part bins and a finished part bins for each product. Each product has one bin, some two, which contain all the parts for that product, less fixtures. Now when I need to assemble or pack a kit for a order I just have to pull the bins related to that part and everything I need for it is in the bin except the fixtures and tool clamps if required, which have a bin of their own. I know this will save me time, but will not know how much effect it will have on delivery until I start filling orders later this week. Around 40lbs of white metal have already been cast this weekend to stock the bins and I have just ordered over a $1000.00 worth of photo-etched parts I was low on to do the same.
Here is the new parts and customer order bins.
Here are samples of the bins with parts.
Well if you got this far I am sure you have a interest in the continued service of 6th Scale Icons, with that in mind I want to give you a brief plan of for the future. I am currently 68 years old and hope to at least semi retire at 70. I have put 9 years of hard work into 6th Scale Icons and do not wish to see it disappear, however there is going to come a time that I will no longer be able to manage the company or do the work. 6th Scale Icons is one of the leading manufacturers of 6 scale parts for tanks and AFV's with over 600 happy customers and proven products that sell themselves. I am looking for someone to take over the company, if you have a interest please contact me.
Regards
Mike