AR Sponsor
Posted: 8/7/2009 6:01:33 AM EDT
| Never mind |
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Where do I start? First off, if you are not happy, call me Monday or Thursday mornings and I would be happy to process your cancellation.
Fall of the year is the busiest time of the year for me by far. This time of the year is normally quite dead. In the past years my lead-time gets longer and longer during the fall and winter. During the summer I am normally able to work through most of the back-log and the cycle starts over. Last fall was like the "perfect storm" for my business. Not only did we have an election, not only did a Dem get elected to office, but the City acquired the property that my shop sat on, and l gave me notice that I had 3 months to move out. Seems that the city had plans of putting in a convention center/hockey area, and my shop was "in their way" I was able to negotiate an extra 3 months, but the total of 6 months began with the worst winter in recent Minnesota winter. I was to be out of the shop by the end of May, and couldn't even really start until late in the spring. My new building wasn't ready, so the contents of my shop got moved into several storage lockers. When my building was finally ready, and I was able to finally move, it took what seemed forever to find everything I needed to start producing again. As most know, parts were, for the most part, nonexistent during this last winter. Before the move, I chambered, profiled and fluted barrels, in an effort to get much of the work done for when the parts would start rolling in. About the time I finished the move, I began getting large back-orders from many different suppliers. Some parts were some more obscure, long-standing back-orders. Folks that have been waiting for 11 months for their left-handed receiver now all of a sudden jumped to the front of the line. Two of the owners from Shilen visited me at my shop before the move. While they were at my shop, the phone was ringing off the hook. I was taking 5 to 7 orders a day, and not getting to work on orders that were already on the books. The folks from Shilen told me that many shops like mine only have certain hours that they take phone calls. WOW! What a revelation! I changed my recorded greeting on my voice-mail that I take calls on Monday and Thursday mornings, and would be back in the shop working on customer uppers the rest of the time. That has helped, but I am now working my way through 150 orders on the books. The good news is that the move is, for the most part, finished, and the new shop is working great! I have only been producing for a few weeks, but it is already evident that the output of the new ship is better than what the old shop ever was. Here's a few pictures of my new shop. 
Here's my parts/assembly area. 
And my office. 
Sorry for the long post, but Ultrastealth, if you are not happy, give me a call and I will process your cancellation. I would much rather have you do that than to run across two threads on the Internet like this one. |
AR Sponsor