Hello Everyone,
April was a complicated month with the continually changing Tariff situation. We had some delays on our imports while we worked on navigating this but we seem to have things mostly figured out. We shipped 81 machines in April and will continue to work on making sure tariffs have a minimal impact on our fulfillment.
Production Updates:
81 machines is still lower than we’d like (for a number of reasons) so Ross is working on hitting the shop floor to help out more with assembly and QC for the next few months until we’re able to catch up.
We wanted to add another layer of transparency about fulfillments. We have shipped over 900 machines all time and currently have approximately 700 outstanding orders while shipping between 80 to 100 units per month. New preorders will likely ship in 7 months but delays are always possible.
Let’s look at some stats:
This graph shows all machines shipped since 2023. As you can see, things started off slowly as we worked on developing our processes with part time staff. In December of that year, we began bringing on full time technicians, which is reflected in the initial spike in shipments. The dips in assembly were mainly due to procurement delays, especially between batches 1 and 2, as well as a slowdown during Chinese New Year this past February. This highlights the importance of our long term purchase orders, which help ensure a consistent flow of products into our shop.
This next graph shows warranty repairs by serial number, highlighting machines that have been sent back to us for warranty repairs. This data is key to tracking improvements in build quality and quality control. While some defects are inevitable, it’s great to see the significant progress we’ve made from the first 200 machines to where we are now. This reflects our ongoing efforts to improve and ensure a reliable product.
Some might wonder, "Why not just hire more people?" That’s a great question, and we have three main reasons for taking a more measured approach.
Inconsistency: Instead of expanding the team in an inefficient system, we’d rather first focus on improving our processes. As a new business, we’re developing our own standards and procedures from the ground up, tailored to our specific needs. This takes time as we identify gaps in our workflow and implement necessary improvements. The same goes for building a consistent supply chain with high-quality parts.
Sustainability: Our goal isn’t to quickly ramp up the team, fulfill orders as fast as possible, and then face the challenge of layoffs when demand levels off. We’re focused on maintaining a balance where we consistently fulfill more orders than we receive, reducing our lead times, and setting the stage for sustainable growth and sales expansion.
Recruitment: While we’ve paused interviews recently for the reasons mentioned above, finding the right people is challenging. We need individuals with a keen eye for both the technical aspects of the builds and the finer aesthetic details. Given the early stage of our startup, we’re still identifying new challenges in the shop that require problem solving skills and independence - traits that are difficult to evaluate during interviews. That’s why we’re cautious about rushing into new hires until we’ve reached our current production targets.
We’ve completely overhauled our inventory management process. The team conducted a thorough inventory audit to assess current stock levels, and we’ve implemented a new system to track inventory based on our weekly build schedule. In the past, inventory was ordered based on batch size, and we would reorder as stock ran low. However, when we switched suppliers or ordered outside of the usual batch cycles, it created inconsistencies in our inventory levels. On top of that, scrap parts and defects made it easy to overlook orders that should have been placed months in advance. This led to our shop manager manually tracking inventory, which was time-consuming and made it difficult to plan ahead effectively.
Now, with our new tool in place, we can easily update a few key numbers each week, allowing us to automatically track inventory levels across all parts in the shop. The next step will be integrating more advanced software for even more precise tracking.
As of now, tariffs should not significantly impact the fulfillment of our orders.
Design Changes:
LEDs:
Some of the most exciting news out of the past month is new LEDs. Our original requirements called for a shorter LED housing to fit around the temperature dial and steam manifold. This forced the supplier to source a new LED bulb that would fit in this smaller package. These bulbs are rated to ~80C which is roughly the temperature that the top plate can get up to, nearest the boiler. We’ve found that the steam LED burns out the most which makes sense due to its proximity to the hottest part of the machine.
After more discussion and testing, we’ve found a way to fit their preferred higher quality bulb in a slightly longer, updated housing. The LEDs will look the exact same but are now rated to 120C which we expect to really reduce the number of failures. This is the most common part to go out on customers’ machines so we’ll continue to track these replacements in hope of an improvement. A pilot batch of the new lights will arrive this week.
Drip Tray V2 Upgrade:
We finally have the Drip Tray V2 Upgrade kit available on our site. This will ship immediately while supplies last. Currently out of matte black which is in production again. https://shop.odysseyespresso.com/products/drip-tray-v2-upgrade-kit
This is also a great time to order the V2 Long Throw Piston Linkage which allows for higher output shots in direct mode on Batch 1 machines.
https://shop.odysseyespresso.com/products/piston-linkage-v2-0-long-throw
Technical Support:
William and Wern have been working hard on additional technical support resources. This button on our website’s navigation bar will take you to https://help.odysseyespresso.com/
From here, you can now search for a basic term or symptom to find a variety of helpful resources, including photos, videos, and detailed explanations. Wern has done an outstanding job documenting all of the most common troubleshooting issues, along with our recommended diagnostic steps and solutions.
We hope this will serve as both an educational guide and a long term tool to help prevent customer service backlogs. We encourage you to explore this new resource so the next time you run into an issue you may be able to self diagnose for a quicker solution!
Sincerely,
Ross & William