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Production seems to have slowed significantly

 

Between August and Sept I moved up about 200 spots, and this month I'm currently trending to be closer to ~100 for the same period. At first it looked like I was going to get it by Halloween, now it's inching closer to mid December(Way too cold to go out and POTA in Canada).

Why such a slow down?
 

If I had to guess, I'd say one factor is the new QMX+. It's a more time-consuming build than most of the QRP Labs kits, so the same building resources will produce fewer assembled radios.


On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 11:17?AM Ian - VE3RIM via <madgoat=[email protected]> wrote:
Between August and Sept I moved up about 200 spots, and this month I'm currently trending to be closer to ~100 for the same period. At first it looked like I was going to get it by Halloween, now it's inching closer to mid December(Way too cold to go out and POTA in Canada).

Why such a slow down?
 

Another may be that some of Hans' employees are now back at school..................

Lee KX4TT


On Wednesday, September 25, 2024 at 11:19:54 AM EDT, Shirley Dulcey KE1L <mark@...> wrote:


If I had to guess, I'd say one factor is the new QMX+. It's a more time-consuming build than most of the QRP Labs kits, so the same building resources will produce fewer assembled radios.

On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 11:17?AM Ian - VE3RIM via <madgoat=[email protected]> wrote:
Between August and Sept I moved up about 200 spots, and this month I'm currently trending to be closer to ~100 for the same period. At first it looked like I was going to get it by Halloween, now it's inching closer to mid December(Way too cold to go out and POTA in Canada).

Why such a slow down?

_.

_._,_._,_
 

Like any small production line, it can be influenced by local holidays, people getting sick or their families becoming ill, schools/colleges starting the winter semester and other things. Give it a week or so for things to sort themselves out.
--
Wayne S.
KF7RCM
 

Hi Ian, all

> Why such a slow down?

According to my records for the last 6 months, there has not been a significant slow-down. Remember September isn't over yet. September production was certainly?lower than July/August.

Reminder, the waiting list is updated daily here:?

The table below shows September up until 25-Sep-2024 so it is an incomplete month. The table shows the number of new assembled kit orders, and number of orders shipped. Note that this is the number of orders, not the number of kits (some orders are for more than one assembled radio, so the number of assembled radios per month is higher than what is indicated here).?

Month? ? ? ?New? ?Shipped
-----? ? ? ?---? ? ? ?---
March? ? ? ?170? ? ? ?252
April? ? ? ?153? ? ? ?210
May? ? ? ? ?236? ? ? ?154
June? ? ? ? 185? ? ? ?177
July? ? ? ? 157? ? ? ?286
August? ? ? 140? ? ? ?250
September? ? 93? ? ? ?124

Of course there is some month to month variation, there are a lot of factors involved. Factors include (but are not limited to):?
  • We have 11 full-time employees here (plus XYL and myself). All of our team are capable of building transceivers. Several of them are specialized to certain tasks: Shipping, Testing/calibrating, Flashing bootloaders and testing boards, Fixing issues (technician). If for some reason their specialized tasks are complete for the day then they default back to building kits.?
  • Of course from time to time someone leaves, someone joins, it takes time for them to get up to speed etc.?
  • In April, May, June a lot of resources were diverted to kitting efforts in preparation for Dayton and Friedrichshafen hamfests. It takes a lot of time and effort to pack a thousand QMX for example, all the little parts have to be sorted and carefully counted out, checked to try to make sure there are no errors, etc.
  • In July and August we had several extra summer intern employees on and off, apparently collected from around the neighbourhood, uni or college students etc. in their summer holidays. Sometimes I'd look out of my glass office and I'd?be like, who the F - there's some new teenager, I could sort of half recognize from having seen around the area some years ago when they were smaller and back in the days when I actually occasionally got out of the lab and saw the light of day. Hi hi. Anyway all good work experience for them and they need money.?
  • July/August/September are also a time each year when order volume noticeably decreases, and this also frees up resources from kitting/packing/FedEx-DHL'ing?to build radios instead.??
  • In May/June there was a burst of new orders for the QMX+ (which was launched at Dayton in mid May) and it definitely takes more time to build one of those than it takes to build earlier kits like QDX. As we are now shipping kits that were ordered on 21-May-2024, this is very soon after the QMX+ launch and at that time people were mainly ordering QMX+.
  • Another reason production is a little lower in September is that several employees chose to take annual leave holidays around this time; and we also had two employees who were each away for one week due to sickness.?
Generally it's hard to size a team; one cannot hire and fire on a whim; there are of course human factors, also legal ones (labor law), financial, time to train people, blah blah. So there's always going to be some ebb and flow in the waiting list size and production rate.?

I'm also attaching the chart of waiting list length since we started producing Assembled radios as well as kits, which was November 2018. At the end of last year we peaked at 906 waiting orders for assembled radios. Right now the waiting list is 542 orders, which is the lowest it's been in 16 months, since before the QMX launch at Dayton last year in May 2023.

73 Hans G0UPL



On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 6:17?PM Ian - VE3RIM via <madgoat=[email protected]> wrote:
Between August and Sept I moved up about 200 spots, and this month I'm currently trending to be closer to ~100 for the same period. At first it looked like I was going to get it by Halloween, now it's inching closer to mid December(Way too cold to go out and POTA in Canada).

Why such a slow down?
 

Thanks for the reply Hans.

I just really hope I get it before the snow hits, and in Canada that could be tomorrow for all we know hehe.

Damn labour laws .. Can you tell all employees all hands on deck until I get my order shipped, and also stop innovating until then ?

I never take leave(unless forced), because when I come back there's just too much work waiting for me, and I've forgotten how things work (Kind of like a vacation hangover).
?
These were my observations.?
The average change of my position between August 7 - August 28 (21 days) was ~ 14 per day
The average change of my position between September 6 - September 26 (20 days) is ~ 7.27?
That's close half of August's output so far...

 

Man, running a physical product business sounds like a real PITA.
 

All,
I have seen my assembled QMX-PLUS order drop in position from over 800 to, now, less than 50 !
HAPPY DANCE !
72 / 73,
Bill Mabry, N4QA/QRP
ps,
Martha seems happy, too !
 

It takes a lot to please the minister of finance and these kits are the ticket!
 

It's eye opening to get a window into the production, thank you for sharing details.

Pengo VK3PGO

> We have 11 full-time employees here (plus XYL and myself). All of our team are capable of building transceivers. Several of them are specialized to certain tasks: Shipping, Testing/calibrating, Flashing bootloaders and testing boards, Fixing issues (technician). If for some reason their specialized tasks are complete for the day then they default back to building kits.?
 

YEE HAW !!!!!
I can see position ONE from where MY order sits !!!
72 !

--
N4QA/QRP
 

HEY !!!!!~
My order is no longer on the waiting list !!!
I KNOW WHAT *THAT* MEANS !!!
72 and whoopty DOO !

--
Bill, N4QA/QRP

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