[Elecraft] New synthesizer shipping status?

[Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft]

Here's the latest KSYN3AUPG Synth Upgrade shipping status:

As of today, we've shipped most of the KSYN3AUPG orders received through Feb 
27th. (This was a huge number..)
There might be a few orders that didn't make it from the 27th, but not many. We 
about halfway through the total upgrade order backlog, and the new order rate 
remains high for these going forward. (Thanks everyone!)

We now have short pause in KSYN3AUPG shipments as we have outrun our initial 
production schedule and initial pull-ins of product as of today. We should 
resume shipping these in a week and a half, about 4/22, when our next major 
group of boards are ready.


We received an incredible number of orders in the first several weeks, which is 
why may seem that we may be slowly moving through the order dates as we ship.  
There are a very large number of KYSYN3A orders for each day.

When we saw the number of orders coming in that first week (which were well 
above the large amount we expected and planned for), we immediately and 
dramatically increased our parts and pcb material orders, and pulled in as much 
as possible from our existing pipeline of material and assembly orders. We have 
repeated that process as we have received even more orders above plan. Note that 
the time from new parts ordering to finished volume deliveries of boards takes 
between 6-8 weeks for the first finished boards to arrive and be tested. And 
once the new boards start to arrive, we are also also limited based on what our 
outside pcb assembly house here in Monterey, CA,, can produce daily.

We also allocate the Synthesizer boards to three distinct areas at the factory. 
All three of the above areas independently ship based on the order dates for 
each group.

a) K3 Production: Our first focus is to continually support K3 orders. We do not 
want to go dry and stop revenue from one of our primary products for an extended 
time. We have allocated inventory of KSYN3As to keep new K3 orders shipping on a 
continual basis, even when we run dry in the areas below. (Even with that 
buffer, its always possible we could have delays in K3 shipments of up to a 
several weeks if new K3 order rates exceed our planned KSYN3A inventory.)

b) KSYN3AUPG orders: This group gets by far the overwhelming majority of new 
synthesizers, dwarfing K3s. These resume on about 4/22 as noted above.

c) We also independently allocated a very small number of new Synthesizers to 
our K3 repair group.  They handle all repairs and K3 upgrades done at the 
factory. This is small number of synthesizers and does not significantly impact 
K3 and KSYN3AUPG shipments. A key goal for us is to always return K3s to 
customers as quickly as possible to minimize their down-time. I think I counted 
less than 5 synths available in this group this morning. After those are used 
we'll have to wait until the deliveries start again 4/21. (Also note that the 
customer post earlier in this thread that seemed to indicate an out of order 
upgrade board shipment was actually for boards added to a radio in here for an 
existing repair and upgrade. It was not for a new KSYN3AUPG individual board 
order shipment from group B above.)

Lastly, outside of our automated order reply you will not be contacted by us 
until you receive our shipping notice via UPS, USPS etc., or if we have a 
problem charging a credit card . There are just too many orders for us to 
manually contact everyone on backlog with status, and unless your order is close 
to the head of the queue, its also difficult to accurately predict the exact 
date it will ship.

The best place to look for current KSYN3AUPG status is our shipping status page at:
http://www.elecraft.com/elecraft_shipping_status.htm

(We'll update that page with the above info shortly.) As our shipping status 
changes, we'll update that page.

We are running fast buying KSN3A parts, boards, assembling and testing these as 
quickly as possible. Thanks again for your great response to this upgrade!

73,

Eric
elecraft.com
=====

On 4/9/2015 2:34 PM, GRANT YOUNGMAN wrote:
> Relax .. have a Mai Tai, eat some sashimi, stick your feet in the water, watch a sunset.
>
> It will ship when it’s time to ship …
>
>
>> On Apr 9, 2015, at 4:01 PM, David and Dianne on Comcast <dhhdeh at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Dave,
>>
>> Same here. March 10th ordered two and no word since the original confirm..  Not a biggie..... but interesting.
>>
>> I'll cut Elecraft some slack though as it seems that the popularity of the new K3SYNA caught everyone by surprise.
>>
>> Maybe our posts here will prompt a high level Congressional investigation.  ;-)
>>
>