What did we achieve this week? Overall we completed 26 of the 30 jobs planned (which is a bit disappointing). We completed two of the jobs that customers were calling for last week, but they haven’t collected them. We completed a couple of the granule packing jobs and all the IBCs of the gloopy liquid that we had in stock.

We also spent 90 minutes participating in a sales webinar promoting some manufacturing system software which has been designed for our sort of business. This is what I referred to last week but I’m not a believer yet! The Company has an impressive marketing strategy and participation in a sales webinar from Toronto was a first for me. However this was just a first step and if the numbers look right we may continue in that direction but only if I can see that we are capable of acting on the information that the system generates.

The dyes work seems to have paused briefly while the customer investigates the flashpoints of two of the products in preparation for their new CLP labels! We now have orders for another 100 drums but no news of the despatch of the last 100 drums.

The FLT situation seems to have descended into farce. We are still waiting for the arrival of our new counterbalance trucks but this week the reach truck replacement for the rather too short- reaching reach truck arrived only to breakdown mysteriously. Particularly annoying was the suggestion that we should keep both reach-trucks without any supporting justification or the attempt to provide it.

Sadly it also seems that our very impressive apprentice is likely to be attracted away by a large local employer who is able to offer a lot more money and an in-house training scheme without the deficiencies that she seems to be experiencing at the College. It was obvious from the beginning that someone of such calibre would probably move on soon but I had hoped that at least we would be able to see her through to qualification and pick up a bit of reflected glory. In the end it will be her decision but as much as I would like us to benefit from her time with us I don’t want her future career to suffer from it.

Samples mixed and mill auger sheared

Of serious management concern is the story of the powder blend that involved spraying an active compound into a blown silica powder and then diluting it with china clay and one or two other ingredients.  One of these is an acid powder that needs to be milled before blending. The relatively small quantity of material required a short period of milling but somehow the person concerned succeeded in overloading the mill infeed such that the feed auger was sheared by the torque generated and so the auger had to be repaired. In the interim it was decided to complete the milling by use of a pestle and mortar. By the end of the week the bronze auger had been repaired and the mortar had been broken, although nobody has yet seen fit to tell me about it. Annoying though both of these management failures are, the more serious ones concern the low yield quantities from both batches and the mis-labelling of the samples taken after adjusting the batches to correct for the low yields and high assays. Apart from the indiscipline of an incorrect identification of a batch sample the actual assay measurement was frustrated by the error. Fortunately I spotted the mistake but what if I hadn’t?

Opportunities lost and gained

One of this week’s enquiries concerned the comminution and sieving of a wagon load of powder that had become compacted in FIBCs. The client wanted a rapid quote for a job to be completed rapidly but the description left me in some doubt as to how difficult the job would be. I took a conservative view and we lost the job. Next day the sample arrived and it didn’t look so difficult after all. Still perhaps that is better than getting a rush job and finding that it is too difficult to do to the price and in time.

Meanwhile the green credentials client has still not supplied any formulations for us to prepare to make his products. This is not encouraging.

One of the things that keeps me going is the occasional prospective customer who comes with a product idea that seems to be innovative, commercially attractive and to which we can add value in some way. This often results in some work where we assist with the development of the formulation or packaging and then trial quantities for market tests and pilot production. With luck there is eventually a regular production slot. This is what we do. There was an example on Friday and I came away with the hope that we might yet be involved in the manufacture of a new product with an exciting commercial future. The customer was certainly impressed with our excellent Chemist. How long I wonder will it be before this one comes to fruition? The pace of this enquiry seems unusually fast so if we produce the requested sample material by the end of next week we could be seeing some serious outcome within a month or two.