Start Up Kids Line

Do you ship on time?

May 20th, 2007

When I first started down this path I read in more than one reference book how big of a deal it is to ship on time. I had no idea that the reason it’s such a big deal is because it’s a really hard thing to do. I’m on it about 95% of the time, but that still leaves 5% of the time that stuff doesn’t come through on time.

As my husband said to me yesterday, about an item we’re a whole week late on shipping, “That’s TERRIBLE.” Because it IS flipping terrible. And as hard as I try, it happens once in a while. Sometimes it’s events down the line, issues with the contractors, but most of the time it’s fair to chalk it up to poor project planning. And there’s no one to blame for that but me.

We have a constant production cycle with our blankets, which are dropped into production upon placement of the order. Now we’re throwing traditional production cycles on top of that and I have to figure out how to plan it all and make sure that we are consistently on top of our shipments.

Not shipping on time to these few customers isn’t the end of the world. But I feel horrible about it. Sick to my stomach almost – and even as I say that I feel like surely I could’ve carved a few more hours out of last week to make it happen. Am I slacking? Am I doing the best I can do?

Yesterday I made the radical decision to straighten up my office – using those hours for cleaning instead of all the stuff I need to do to get above said item shipped on Monday. I’m determined to get it organized like it’s never been organized before. And this event has been sparked by two things: first, because a fellow designer recently posted her freshly Spring Cleaned office on her blog, which made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I told her I would send her a picture of mine – but when I took the picture and looked at how truly horribly dis-organized and messy my office looked, I was too embarressed to actually send it. Second, I’ve been reading “Simple Abundance” and it’s all about Spring Cleaning towards mental refreshment right now. So, I was inspired. And desperate for the clean out.

For my mental health, I needed to carve the time out yesterday to start getting the office into some kind of working condition. It’s finally organized into stations: embroidery station, shipping station, my main work table and my designing desk. And then there’s the loads and loads of fabric I have that I’m not supposed to have because I wasn’t supposed to buy it until orders were placed. ha ha -

How we’re going to sell through all that fabric almost needs to be a seperate business plan. I laugh, but really, it’s not so funny. At least I can see it now. I see many bibs and mini-blankets in that fabric’s future.

          

Entry Filed under: Planning beyond the collection,Shipping & Fulfillment,The Startup Phase