Hello All,
Shipping Updates
Unfortunately shipping has taken a hit the past few weeks while we work on some much needed growth. We’ve currently shipped 70 units, have 25 ready to be boxed, and 12 waiting on the new lights.
While we were delayed with shipping due to hiring and organization efforts, we did however pre-build a huge stock of sub assemblies in preparation for our new lights. We currently have 75 boiler assemblies built and pressure checked, 50 boiler caps, 140 steam manifolds, 100 steam wands + valves, and 58 piston assemblies.
Staffing:
We’ve recognized the need and hired 3 full time people! The first one started last week as a sub assembly technician helping us build up sub assembly inventory to improve efficiency on final assembly.
The second one starts next week as a full time order fulfillment and packaging technician. I’ve currently been the only person doing final QC checks, packaging, and fulfilling orders due to the strict aesthetic quality we hold for each machine. There’s a lot to this role to ensure that each machine arrives to our customers in the best possible shape. Staffing this role with a full time employee will help us meet our goal of shipping 40 machines a week. This allows 1 hour to fully package each machine with accessories which we think is plenty to alleviate the current bottleneck. We’re very excited for this person to start!
The third full time employee is another sub assembly technician who will be starting the 16th and owning all parts of sub assembly builds, part modifications, assembly fixtures, etc. This person will be responsible for managing all aspects to ensure that machine builders are not slowed down with the distraction of needing to find or worry about a sub assembly.
The staffing breakdown is as follows now
Part Time
3 part time machine builders
1 bonding specialist (bonds magnets to wood and metal components)
1 part time miscellaneous shop tasks
Full Time
2 full time sub assembly builders
1 full time order fulfillment
This should allow Ross to focus on the assembly process as a whole and resolve any other bottlenecks that may come up so that we can meet our goals.
Hardware Updates:
As mentioned in the last 2 updates, Anthony and Trevor have continued spooling up on the machine building process in preparation for the new LEDs which arrived yesterday. They’ve built 15 machines without LEDs so that once they arrived, we could drop them in and begin testing on each.
We feel confident that the new LEDs will resolve a lot of our issues. After continuing to dig into how LEDs are typically tested and quality controlled before being sent out, We’ve found that our new supplier has a machine to cycle every bulb 100,000 times to discard failed LEDs before assembling the final light. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that the original supplier only turns each light on and off 3 times after assembling to test before shipping.
We’ve now changed our QC process so that all machines with the original LEDs have the lights cycled 10,000 times via the app before we ship. The goal of this is to catch any early failures before sending units out.
The new lights will have a slightly different appearance from the originals. The original lights had green and orange lenses. The new lights will all have what we describe as a “milky white” lens where the bulb is colored green or orange to give the light a cleaner look when the machine is off but still the same appearance when turned on.
The pressure compensated flow control valve parts arrived last week and are currently in testing. Results are looking good but we plan to continue testing through this week to acquire more data on consistency before including in each machine and sending out to all existing customers. As mentioned in prior updates, these parts will allow users to pull the lever straight down and not need to worry about any special technique for bleeding air out at the correct rate in our incorporated piston bleed valve. Results will include more consistent extractions.
Now that LEDs are in, once our two new people get up to speed on our processes over the next 2 weeks we should start to get a true idea of our output and start tracking down the next bottleneck in the production process. We’re all excited to get into a groove with getting these out the door!
Boiler Caps Bonded
Steam Wand + Valve asemblies going together
New Boiler assemblies on the top shelf. Partially assembled ss machines on the bottom.
Piston assemblies
Sincerely,
Ross & William