[Elecraft] Shipping status ...ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!

[Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft]

Hi Julian,

I apologize for the delays getting you (and everyone else) your K3. We 
are absolutely working as hard as possible to get K3s out the door 
quickly. Every time I see a complaint here (and elsewhere) about 
delivery delays, status accuracy etc., I take every posting very 
personally (especially those criticizing our veracity) and agonize over 
how we can improve things further.

To be totally, and brutally, honest, we were absolutely amazed at the 
amount of orders we received at introduction of the K3. (We're not a 
venture capital financed company that can staff up and spend millions of 
dollars before shipping our first K3.) We certainly underestimated the 
ongoing response and have been playing catch up as we have added staff 
and vendors to meet the demand. This has strained not only our own 
staff, but that of our vendors too. They are doing a great job 
responding, but we are continually looking for additional resources. My 
day starts out -very- early with a review of what new issues and 
problems have to be addressed to keep production rolling and how we can 
improve our run rate. The term 'fire drill' is now permanently engraved 
on the back of my head ;-) Fire drills encompass everything from vendors 
not delivering parts and assembled PCBs on schedule, wrong or faulty 
parts received, key employees out sick, test and alignment taking longer 
than expected, pcb assembly errors at a vendor (requiring rework here), 
customers who personally want to talk with me etc. etc. All of this is a 
normal part of any product ramp up (I've been there before..), and it is 
getting better and more predictable daily. But it takes a lot of effort 
to make sure we increase our output -and- maintain our admittedly high 
quality standards.

As we go forward our shipping estimates will continue to both increase 
in volume and get more accurate. I'm trying to be as honest and as 
conservative as possible with my current shipping estimates, and so are 
Lisa and her crew. But we're human too and will make mistakes or be over 
optimistic from time to time. It is very hard to accurately estimate 
delivery out past a 3-4 week window and I'm sure Lisa and crew have been 
pressured into guessing on some estimates. I'm actually trying to get to 
the point where we will regularly exceed our posted estimates. If my 
'fire drill' threshold is not exceeded this month I think we'll be there 
soon! :-)

Our new order rate is strong (and increasing!) and we have had very few 
cancellations (I can count them on one hand), which has given us the 
confidence to spend even more on staffing, inventory and other 
resources. As K3s have gotten out into the field people are showing 
their rig to their friends and we're getting a lot of referral orders. 
We've now been able to increase our daily production rate ahead of the 
order rate, so my confidence is increasing that we're on the right track 
to keep everyone happy.

As always, we will refund any deposits (and still keep an order active) 
and/or cancel anyone's order without delay should they feel the need to 
do so.

Lastly, please stop arguing with each other here about what should or 
should not be said about K3 deliveries. We want the feedback. But also, 
please tone down the rhetoric and personal criticisms - we are human 
here too and we lose sleep over these postings.

We're doing our best to make the K3 a superb rig and to get it out to 
you as quickly as possible. As always, please feel free to email me 
directly if you feel we have done or said anything you take issue with ) 
or just want to vent! :-)

73, Eric   WA6HHQ
------

G4ILO wrote:
> Jim-170 wrote:
>   
>> Please give the fine staff at Elecraft a break. They are providing a great
>> service to our Amateur Community......
>>
>>     
> And there was me thinking they were advertising products for sale and
> entering into contracts with people who placed orders for them! How silly of
> me!
>
> -----
> Julian, G4ILO K2 s/n: 392  K3 s/n: ???
> G4ILO's Shack: www.g4ilo.com
> Zerobeat Ham Forums: www.zerobeat.net/smf
>