November. What a month. A month of records.
1. Biggest ever intake of Bespoke Orders
2. Biggest ever sales of RTW
3. Lowest errors on Bespoke frames (in comparison to sales as a %) by Opticians AND us.
4. Most hired new staff at the workshop in one month (since we started)
5. Most people attending Design School in one month
6. Most hours worked per member of staff.....
What can I say. It is an exciting place to be at the moment. Or rather, I think we are all looking forward to a quieter month which December should bring.
I have finalised my Sunglasses today. Only problem is.... I can’t think when I can fit them in the production schedule. Increased Bespoke sales have gobbled up my RTW capacity and I really wanted to have these in the collection by January. I.e. They were due to hit the production line today.
Well, here are some of the frames I’d LOVE to see... let me know what you think... I’ll try to squeeze them in!
Here are some new RTW frames I’m playing with at the moment. Nothing booked in to the production line yet for these, but available to DESIGN from in Design School or at tradeshows.
One thing I guess I should mention is the delivery times. There is some impression, based on the odd email I've been getting, that our delivery times are getting slower. Actually, this is not the case. I wrote this in an email today to one of our customers and I think it is worth sharing with you all.
“94% of our Bespoke frames have been going out on target.
On the whole, this is how long it takes, from receiving an order, to it leaving our workshop:
Simple Acetate with normal lungs (e.g. Pressure Joint or C joint or NO joint) - 12 days
Acetate with T joints – 19 days (soon to be improved to 14 days we expect)
Combination acetate – 19 days (effectively these are like making two frames her but I think we can improve this by a few days within a few months)
Titanium frames – 19 days
Rimless frames - 10 days
If there is a QC problem, you should only notice on the following delays:
QC Fail once (Chance of failing 8%)
Titanium – 4 days
Combination frame – 4 days
QC fail two times (Chance of failing 1%)
Titanium – 19 days
Combination acetate – 19 days
So you can imagine that when we are making 1000 frames in November, 10 of these frames FAILED QC two times.
Titanium is the only area we have a problem and relates only to the plating / colouring. If the frame fails plating once, we can re-plate (4 days delay). If two times, we have to remake the entire frame since it will not be good enough quality to re-plate more than twice. “
ADDITIONAL COMMENT FORM ME: Delays are a result of our high standards of QC. Many frames which fail QC would not bother the average consumer or Optician. We only deal with exceptional Opticians, therefor, I have made it quite clear, a delay is better than sending a frame which is not perfect.
This sounds rather defensive. It is not intended. We are doing an amazing job at the moment and although a handmade individual product can SOMETIMES take a little longer to get perfect, I have to say we are getting pritty damb good!