Spoke To The Factory

[Jumpman]

random idea:
have the factory make all 4000 cases, but have them only ship 1000.
That way they don't need to set everything back up again and align stuff, so all the cases will be consistent.

Yeah Whitebat, I made that suggestion also. It will be good for the remaining 3000 to be ready to ship right after the CNY! That way all reamining orders are all of the same quality, and knowone has to wait to long!


Chris

 

[shunun]

I say just make (and ship) all the cases before Chinese New Year! Of course some photo's of the first 1000 would be vital before churning out more. The quicker things are done the better. It's not fair if some of us have to wait until after chinese new year really.

 

[rick0815]

Go team P

But please, have a look at this post. Write some paper where is written that damages like the big gap at the hinge area will not be accepted and will be returned.

edit2: erm, somehow the link I posted doesn't work like I expected. I meant the post from Madcad77 on page 34 on this thread: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51815-here-is-what-will-be-happening

Ok, Chinese new year is coming (Feb 14th), and this literally means China will be shut for 2 weeks (according to Chinese mould makers I liaise with in my work). The open Pandora team disparity need the finished mouldings shipped before the weekend.

Question: Do you have design freeze on all of the components (are you confident that the current design, if produced to drawing, will work without any further adjustments)?

if the answer is yes, then I can only suggest what I would do, given the same situation:

There is now no reason why an order for the full quantity cannot be placed on the moulders, given the right amount of quality control. The Pandora team need to make it clear to the mould makers what is acceptable, and what is not, use plenty of marked up images in a document that clearly describes the current issues.

The images I have seen show little or no finishing, the surface finish of these parts is critical as often, it covers the imperfections of the mould. Decide on a level of surface roughness, the VDI or Ra index for spark erosion is universally accepted to be the norm.

Most importantly make it clear to the moulders that if the quality of the components does not meet your requirements, then these parts will fail inspection and be rejected back to supplier, at their cost. Also make it clear that this process is not only for the initial batch, but every subsequent batch supplied indefinitely.

It is also standard practice to request a certificate of conformity for material supplied with every batch, and also an ISIR (Initial sample inspection report) for the first batch, detailing the accuracy of the critical dimensions and features to tolerances provided on the drawings (useful paperwork, if there is such a thing).

I'm not promising these actions will get you everything perfect, but it does give you a get out of jail free card, if things do go wrong again. Hopefully you will get a sizable quantity of good parts to use for production, and get the ball rolling.

I have not suggested anything here that is not industry standard, In fact any company that wants ISO9001 certification, needs procedures as described above.

Good luck.

Ps, It is now Monday, 5am in China, they will all be in work in 3-4 hours time.

 

[Dimacus]

Wonderful. Just plain and simple wonderfulness.

 

[fade]

Good News!

 

[mindlord]

I think I'm going to have to rethink my "Garfield-like" relationship with Mondays now...

Sure is good news. I pretty much hedged on it being just cheap recycled plastic, and quickly produced sample cases this time around. It was the only explanation that made sense. Thank God the wait is almost over... soooo... I'm in the first 100 or so... I should see mine in like 10 days, right. I jest - I jest... Here's praying that everything goes smoothly over the next couple of weeks. I know that the wait is going to be well worth it. Thanks to the team for not getting drawn into the hysteria.

 

[Tokiopop]

Without seeing one where the machine has been 'warmed up'?

It takes a bunch of cases that need throwing away for the machines to warm up, apparently, and they simply don't want to run off hundreds of cases to supply 5 samples. Not entirely unreasonable. Given that these cases are supposedly an order of magnitude cheaper than getting them elsewhere, OpenPandora might well be ebtter off risking a 1000 or even 4000 batch "and hope" - call it a large batch of samples, if you will. If they are bad and OP need to order more, but fixed, it's still cheaper than paying in the West. Yet if they're good, we have the cases sooner rather than later, and OP can ship some Pandoras to customers!

I feel a LOT happier now that I don't feel OpenPandora are asking us to take on more of the development risks and costs than we already had.

But the other samples wern't like this, so surley they could do what they did the Rev 1 & 2 for Rev 3?

 

[SNESFAN]

yall get the new blog post?
http://www.open-pandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=2&Itemid=2&lang=en

 

[Jumpman]

random idea:
have the factory make all 4000 cases, but have them only ship 1000.
That way they don't need to set everything back up again and align stuff, so all the cases will be consistent.

If they have the 4000, why not ship all 4000?

Well, it would take to the end of the week to get all 4000 done, if they can even make that many. But the problem is the holiday starts on saturday, so if the case of 4000 doesn't leave the country it will be stuck for however many days. I suggested to just ship them in smaller runs as they are completed(500,1000,ect), that way many shipments leave as they are completed, and if a few get stuck, a few more will make it to texas. That way 1000+ can be ready for assembly. If any get stuck, the ones that make it will keep production busy, and then when everything gets going, they are already in the shipping pipeline!


Chris

 

[mindlord]

But the other samples wern't like this, so surley they could do what they did the Rev 1 & 2 for Rev 3?

I'm sure that OpenPandora Ltd. is not the only company putting pressure on them to get things shipped before the new year. They rushed out the Rev 3 cases to show that they fixed the problems in the Rev 2 case, nothing more. Good thing too, because if they waited any longer none of us would be getting our Pandora's anytime soon.

 

[Joshwaan2k]

Oh shit yeah good work OP team, now let the good times roll on

 

[Jumpman]

Craig, does the mould factory have the proper shipping address in Texas USA? I know early on, some of the prototypes went to the wrong team member. I would hate for these to finally ship, and then go to the wrong location.

Also has Michael booked his flight to Texas yet? I'm sure many would like to here that he has, as that would make this current news even more real, but I'm also sure he doesn't want to waste plane fare if the mould company doesn't deliver as promised this week. Please keep us posted!


Chris

 

[fiori_musicali]

Great... So how long approximately until the last pre-orderer gets his Pandora? If they're not shipping the 4000 before the Chinese new year, then it will be something like 5-6 weeks, no?

 

[trix]

Awesome!! For once the "best case" seems to be the true case!

I can't wait!! Hopefully that one guys dream of Feb 24th comes true!

- trix

 

[kloplop321]

Bring it to me!
Before March(like planned last year)

 

[urjaman]

I normally wouldnt use this, but now:

 

[traylorpark]

My smile just touched the tips of my ears for the very first time.

 

[Iorgy77]

Great news.

BRING IT ON!

 

[FBI]

Excellent! This means President Obama's daughter, Tishanda, is now safe! National Security is restored!

Now everyone in the building gets to go back to Solitaire and Minesweeper. I shoulda joined the CIA.

Also, one of our posts got deleted! We realise it was likely due to an offensive word used, but the word could have been edited rather then the whole post removed. The FBI Director only authorised me to make 5 posts, and make them count, but now one of them is forever missing, with the only evidence it ever existed being a quote in a really long thread, by Consequence9.

Since this is our last allowed post, I would like to end it with the following amazingly deep piece of information:

 

[Vitel]