Robot here:
First, I cannot tell you how happy it makes me (and the rest of the guys) to finally
see our baby out there in the hands of our customers. That said, I wish we could
ship more. And right now. No one wants to ship units more than I do. But we’re
doing a limited release for several reasons.
First and foremost, we are still ironing out the bugs in the manufacturing process.
Though the design is static, it is one thing for PN3K to build them by hand, and
another thing entirely to spin up a production line. Assembly processes must
be determined, documented and scaled. Q/A must be formalized, et cetera,
ad nauseum. PN3K spends every morning from 7:00 – 9:00 on site at the
manufacturer working with them before heading to his day job. We are getting very,
very close to releasing the proverbial hounds.
Another reason for the limited release is our support infrastructure. We had to
implement software to associate serial numbers to people and dates of sale. Why?
So warranty entitlements can be tracked (this is why we mandate that you register
– if we don’t have you in the system, we can’t honor a warranty). And do so in such
a way that doesn’t entail manual data entry. Because, once we begin shipping en
masse, everything must be automated or something will fall through the cracks.
Lastly, we’ve been finding back-up providers for our components. As a discrete
(versus process) manufacturer, we cannot afford to sole source components/sub-
assemblies unless there is no choice. Because were one of our vendors to go belly-
up, we would find ourselves in a very difficult position.
So yes, we are shipping units slowly (I think we sent 25 or so last week). But once
we get the above things sorted out (in weeks, not months) we’re going to step on
the gas. Hard. And those of you further down on the list will be hearing your names
called sooner than you might think.
So thank you, thank you, thank you. For your support, your feedback, and yes; even
your criticisms. This is as much your company as it is ours. You are the reason we
started this.
- Robot