A lot has happened since I last posted a blog to this site. I was only reminded of it when I received the notification for the annual subscription. My first grandchild has joined the family tree, my father has died and his estate affairs have been largely resolved and the business has grown in turnover and profit. We still have a long way to go and then there is Brexit!

The latest events, of course, are all in the shadow of the Coronavirus pandemic and our jolly prime minister’s decision to “lock down” to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed. Today we have been in this condition for two or three weeks, depending on your definition of the start.

In the factory we kept a day or two ahead of events as the crisis unfolded and drafted policies, prepared for people to work from home, where they can, and managed to avoid being “bounced” into decisions and keep on the front foot.

By the time Boris was telling us to stay at home, it was clear that we had a vital contribution to make. We have a massive and on-going demand for the powder blend that is used in crematoria to absorb the mercury oxides emitted from the incineration of old-fashioned mercury amalgam fillings. (Apparently this is the most significant route for mercury to enter the environment and is therefore subject to restrictions, except in the USA of course). Our customer tells me that he needs to ship a container load to Italy which I presume is a direct consequence of the many virus related deaths in Italy. We also have received many enquiries for packing sanitising fluids which we are now producing a fast as we can. Then there is our on-going work to support the farming and horticultural sectors which provide food. On those three fronts we have important work to do and we are running two shifts to do it.

I say all this because every day as I brief everyone “socially distanced”on the shop floor plus those logged in by “Microsoft Teams” who see me remotely, I feel it necessary to justify why we are asking people to come in to work and seemingly defy the instructions of the cabinet ministers who tell us all to stay at home. Our people are afraid. They are afraid for themselves and for their loved ones at home who fear them returning home with the virus that might kill them. Some, of course, like the idea that they could be at home watching television and being paid 80% of their wage and expecting their job to exist when the all-clear is sounded. So in addition to the constant self-questioning I am also looking to enhance their safety at work by maximising the separation, encouraging the hand-washing, the cleaning of surfaces and the keeping outsiders’ and their virus risk at bay. What more can we do? We have started producing hand sanitising gel for ourselves and our employees’ families.

The fear also leads to previously un-witnessed anger and aggression in people as well as a host of other symptoms of stress that need to be recognised for what they are and managed accordingly. All of it in the midst of learning to cope with a new way of working with colleagues and others by Skype, Teams and Zoom, not to mention the juggling of the phone manager mysteries. These new skills and systems will have long-term benefits and implications for managing staff in the future but I am not one of those who believe that a video meeting is a wholly adequate substitute for a face to face one even if it is usually quicker.

Despite all the pressure and change we did manage to get through our ISO9001 audit which was done remotely and this was a big tick for our Quality Assurance Manager.

It has been a surprise to find that apart from the many spivs who are keen to obtain supplies of sanitising gel in improbable quantities we have been pursued by both new and old customers for repacking work that has never been on our radar before. Is this a result of Brexit, the pandemic or our newly improved website now properly under our control by our recently returned Digital Manager?

Today I worry that the unfolding crisis of the NHS need for PPE will finally extinguish our efforts for the lack of our own PPE. We also need gloves and masks. Let’s see what next week will bring.

 

We are still packing in the warehouse and slowly reinstating the processing areas in the factory. The new roof is being installed but is stopped for Christmas. Fortunately the forecast gales were not a problem and there is no snow to worry about yet.

There is netting under the roof and everyone underneath it must wear a hard hat. Production of the gloopy stuff is beginning to catch up and we should be back on target by the end of January. The dry product processing is up to date, we have made two new products and we have plenty of work in hand for packing in the New Year.

I expect that the roof will be completed by the end of January but the final reinstatement of all the the building functions will take us until late March.

Meanwhile we have unexpectedly high forecast demands for some products and some potentially high volume new orders in the pipeline. So plenty of work to look forward to if only we could raise the productivity where we are working in less than ideal conditions. At least we have everyone’s cooperation working in the cold at the moment.

We also need to catch up with our strategic thinking as we will soon be in the thick of our busiest period which not good for that sort of thing. We still need to fill a significant sales gap and to identify where we should be looking for new orders. The strategy should also focus on the new areas for added value in the product design at the front end and innovative delivery at the back end. Both areas are potentially rich in opportunities to tell a story but are also minefields of additional complexity so planning a way through to profitable growth will be tricky.

We have something to learn from all of our clients although it is sometimes difficult to see the wood for the trees. Should we drop some of the crazy ones or teach them to behave differently (less expensively)? One way is to invoice them for their expensive behaviour: i.e. we give them what they ask for and charge them for it. However, if they don’t understand that it is their behaviour that is adding the cost they will think that it is our failure or incompetence which is the cause and so we eventually lose the business and our reputation. The most simple example is one in which the client specifies which items that he wants to be packed into one of his boxes and when we advise that they won’t fit we go through several iterations until eventually the job is packed. This involves a considerable wasted time for a number of people, including the client, until he can be persuaded that we can be trusted to optimise the use of his boxes. It is what we do after all:”pack stuff”. This takes us back to some fundamentals: “trust” in people to do the right thing and “understanding” of what is the right thing and then links us to the strategy thing.

So far we haven’t missed a delivery.

On the day after the fire my wife called everyone that we had numbers for, (why didn’t we have all of them?), and asked everyone to come in as usual on Monday morning.

Everyone was gathered in the canteen at 08:00 and we explained the situation. We would start by clearing up the blue pigment so that it wouldn’t be spread any further around the site. We would clean the offices and laboratory and toilets so that people wouldn’t be covered in soot. We would drag usable items of equipment into the warehouse and set up a work area to test and repair them then put them to use for production.

The electricians turned up with a generator and connected it to the warehouse power supply. We hired a compressor and dragged it into the warehouse to serve the equipment that needed compressed air. We started a simple filling job. We received  goods, we dispatched goods, we took orders. It was the first day after the fire.

Gradually we cleared all of the blue pigment and removed most of of the blue stain from the floor. After two weeks we dispensed with the generator as the warehouse supply was restored from a new MCC panel. We also made a supply to two essential process equipment sets: a liquid suspension mixer and a ribbon powder blender. The latter just in time as the Client was urgently calling for stock.

After another week we restored a supply to our compressor room and could dispense with the hire machine. By the end of the fifth week we had our granule blender connected and could start the granule blending that we only get to do once every two years. Then we called in the Engineers who had supplied our larger liquid suspension vessel and asked them to inspect and reconnect the items that had been subject to the greatest heat, being closest to the seat of the fire. This was completed yesterday, the end of the sixth week since the fire. Tomorrow we re-start that production in earnest.

Throughout the six weeks our own engineer has been steadily inspecting and repairing equipment items while supporting the temporary production arrangements and slowly rebuilding our fastest bottle filling, capping and labeling line that had been within a couple of meters of the fire and is now operational in the warehouse. Last week it was used to produce sixteen different product variants which will ship out next weeks as planned.

Every item has been PAT tested and where there is any doubt about the possible long term consequences of the exposure to the fire and smoke the original manufacturer or an agent has been called in to confirm that it is fit to use.

The electricians have still some way to go as they focus next week on our aqueous liquids mixing plant. Then there are the lighting and heating systems to install but that requires a decision on replacing the roof and this is next week’s problem.

Meanwhile any spare people have been used to clean soot from walls and sheeting and gradually we can see more and more each day: helped in part by another roof panel falling in this week. More sunshine, and snow (and hard hats).

The customer facing staff have continued to deliver our service to new clients and old. We have made and delivered two new products for the first time and will deliver two more next week. We have significant new projects in prospect and every intention of winning them.

Managerially we need to come down from the adrenaline fueled reaction state to a more planned and disciplined one as we try to retain the enthusiasm and pro-activity of all of the staff while returning to and improving on previous productivity and performance levels.

We have some bills to pay!

It has been a while since I made the time to share my thoughts. Most recently they have been devoted to a bit of an inconvenience, the recovery from a fire in the factory.

I was called from my bed early on a Saturday morning to hear that there was a smoke coming from the factory. I pretended that I had blue lights and arrived on scene at about 06:00. By noon the fire was out and the six fire engines had gone and I was looking at a black hole with no lights and 20 mm of blue pigment and water over the entire floor. Every room in the office area was covered in black soot, every surface in the factory was black and most things plastic were melted, particularly electrical conduits and wiring.

By then we had a couple of volunteers from the staff turn up as well as the Insurance broker, our loss adjuster, plus a speculative one who had kept track of the fire brigade. We also had a couple of clean-up contractors to quote for the five figure clean-up project.

My focus was on getting the power on and some temporary lighting to enable us to make plans. Our usual electrical contractor provided a magnificent service in doing just that.

By the end of the day we could see the size of the problem and the one item of good news: the fire-door between factory and warehouse had prevented the smoke from spoiling stock in the warehouse. The warehouse was still clean and would serve for manufacturing when we could get it supplied with power. The power to the offices was restored with a temporary connection and we got the computers and telephones operational.

On the next day, Sunday, my wife worked to make some of the office area clean enough to use and I was in a daze as I tried to plan the way forward. In mid afternoon I was standing in the factory, so dark despite the temporary lighting that I could barely see the equipment around me when part of the roof fell in.

As I watched the glittering strands of glass-fibre from the burned-out translucent roof panel twinkling on their way to the floor I could see the sky! And I knew that we would overcome this minor inconvenience because I could see what was to be done.

We would start “Project Revival” tomorrow. No customer would miss a delivery, no supplier would be turned away, no sales opportunity would be missed.

A frustratingly hard week with too much time and capacity devoted to re-blending the gloopy stuff and a total output below the 50,000L target. We did get the 48,000L shipped despite some annoyance concerning the container arrivals and document completion. We did manage to use the 5,000L vessel to make a couple of batches and begin to get a grip on the measurement of viscosity in process and so avoid the production of out of spec batches. Very much work in progress!

Frustrating example of the consequence of using an erroneous SDS supplied by the dye solution Client and a resulting claim for the cost of the container labelling rectification. This will be pushed back to the Client but I’m in no doubt that this story has some distance to run.

Also annoying that no sooner the long delayed ingredient had arrived for the pesticide blend, our Client for that product was chasing for completion. Not in itself surprising but a bit galling to discover that having increased the order and caused us to purchase an increased quantity of the excipient they had then reduced the order again without telling anyone. Fortunately we received another order from another Client on Friday that will allow us to use the material.

Considerable time spent on the micronutrient packing job involving 12 different products for a total of 10,000 litres. The frustration here is that the Client had failed to supply all of the components to complete the job which interrupts the production process and causes inefficiencies. The really annoying thing is that we failed to count the components on arrival (not an easy job but one that is part of our receipts procedure) and so we didn’t know that we were short before we started. This meant that we needed to request additional components from the Client three times in all, which puts us on the back foot when the Client asks why we didn’t list all of the shortages the first time.

This sorry story brings into focus all of the problems associated with serving the Client with what is a complex series of very similar jobs with very similar names in relatively small quantities. I feel that the solution lies with our producing a spreadsheet that is used by all parties in the course of the process from order to despatch.

With regard to new work, I was pleased to pull the order from our new client for the fuel treatment product into shape and get all of the materials on order with a plan to produce before the Summer shutdown. We are also nearly ready for the first production run of the vegetable oil lubricant product which will be good to get off the list ‘though I’m not convinced that this will be a long-term relationship.

Perhaps the most significant event concerned an ex-employee and a situation outside work. The company and I had sponsored this individual in his Degree course during the last few years and my wife and I were keen to attend his graduation for the award of a First. This sort of Ceremony attendance is usually the privilege of proud parents and followed by a posh lunch in town but our protégé is estranged from his parents. In retrospect I believe that our encouraging his attendance, gown and mortar board and all, was doomed from the beginning. I remember arguing to my father that my own Graduation Ceremony was a nonsense and waste of resources but he told me not to be silly and that we would all look back on the event with pride as one of life’s rites of passage. He was right and we had used the same argument.

In the event, having secured tickets for us both and made plans to attend I was surprised to be informed on the night before the Ceremony that the Graduand did not possess any suitable clothes to wear on the following day. I duly loaned a couple of suits, shirts and ties and agreed to collect and transport him to the appointed place for robing at 08:00 in the morning.

The following morning I had taken a day off work and so I logged on to complete some last-minute tasks in order to relax for the rest of the day. I was surprised to find two messages, one before midnight changing the arrangements for the morning and one at 06:20 to say that as he had a migraine he would not be able to attend the Ceremony after all. We called on him at the agreed time to check if things had changed and it was clear that our day out was no more. My wife cancelled the posh lunch and we both went to work. We both feel very disappointed at how things turned out and we hope that what we witnessed is not an indicator of our protégé’s future behaviour in similar situations even as it does mark the end of our relationship with him. Not having attended he will never understand the “rite of passage” thing and will therefore miss his doctorate ceremony too, probably.

I have been trying to distil a general lesson from this with a view to attempting to motivate our office apprentice to take more personal responsibility for her tasks. Her failure to do so is annoying to her co-workers and contributing to a sub-optimal performance in the office as a whole.

So setting aside the fact that I’ve become a grumpy old man and young people are all spoiled wastrels, (not true!) what is the point I’m trying to make?

One of life’s lessons is that respect and satisfaction usually follows from the completion of tasks as agreed. The failure of the Graduand to go through with the agreed plan deprived him of the satisfaction inherent in the memory of the event and the respect of my wife and I for allowing us to share it with him.

The completion of a list of tasks as agreed or planned via a time management schedule is inherently satisfying (ticking off the list, keeping a promise or fulfilling an objective). The respect follows from fellow team members, superiors or customers recognising that you can be relied on to keep your promise and that they can then fulfil their own tasks which may depend on yours being completed.

The excuses that may be available for non-completion provide little or no compensation for the loss of respect for failure but by contrast can provide a source of additional respect if the sources of the excuses are overcome and the objectives fulfilled anyway.

Disappointment and loss of satisfaction and respect follows from unfulfilled promises.

Something that has taken a few hours this week has been an issue raised by our apprentice engineer in connection with her College course.

In essence she has felt that her series of assignment “distinctions” has been broken by her tutor failing to teach enough for her to achieve a distinction in the latest one. Apparently this was also the perception of a group of the students and she is disappointed at the impact on her average for the year.

If this was the only issue I probably would have shrugged it off and encouraged her to do the same. But the tutor concerned also appears to have demonstrated an unsatisfactory attitude and manner towards all of the students by way of unsuitable language and bullying manner throughout the year.

Bullying is a difficult issue from everyone’s point of view but there are policies for dealing with it. I prefer to address the specific and demonstrable matters of the words used and let the College decide on whether to categorise it as bullying according to their procedures.

Naturally our apprentice had raised the matters with the Course Coordinator and also the Department Head who had suggested that she should encourage me to contact the Coordinator to initiate a complaint because otherwise nothing would be done. Nobody suggested that she should make a formal complaint via a published procedure.

I duly summarised the complaint in a message to the Coordinator requesting a meeting with the College Principal. I was not surprised that the response ignored my request but sought to arrange a meeting with the Coordinator at the Company at the first opportunity. What did surprise me was that within hours of my arranging the meeting the Coordinator was instructed to cancel it and I was requested to attend the College for another meeting with someone from HR. There was no explanation or apology for this extra demand on my time. Fearing that this could result in some sort of “stitch-up” to the disadvantage of the Apprentice or simply to sweep the complaint away I began my preparation for the meeting by researching the College, its staff, its procedures and the most recent Ofsted report. In the company of our HR specialist I also interviewed the Apprentice at length to ensure that I am adequately briefed on the issues in question and that I have a signed formal complaint in my possession when I attend. The document for this complaint, called Feedback form, was impossible to obtain on line without a student login.

One thing in our favour for this research is that Colleges are required to make public a great deal of information: minutes of Governors’ meetings and sub committees, policies and procedures, and Ofsted publishes all its reports. However, in trying to access policies and procedures on bullying I found that the web links didn’t connect and so I requested assistance from the “help” page.  This was promptly answered by the PA to the Principal. After a following communication concerning the continuing failure of weblinks the PA astutely asked if there was a problem that she could help with. I explained that as I was visiting HR next week I would be pleased to speak with the Principal for a few minutes.

So now I feel more equal to the task of representing my employee’s case. I have an opinion on the quality of the College’s Policies, Procedures, governance and staff as concerns this case and I can understand why Ofsted did not grade the College higher than 2 (Good).

What will happen on Monday remains to be seen. Maybe I will even get to speak with the Chief Executive of this £33million turnover organisation with 1000 apprentice students whose tutors appear to treat with contempt and disdain.

Anyone reading this might reasonably ask “why?”

In interviewing the Apprentice I asked “what are you looking for from this?”

Her reply: “I’d like to make him care – but I don’t think it’s possible” … “the guy does know his stuff but he did not teach this one properly” – “If I was not employed I would not have stayed the course” …because of him.

In preparing for the meeting I asked myself – “Why am I doing this?”

Because:

• I committed to support my employee in expressing her complaint.
• I believe that the behaviour as described is unacceptable and should not be tolerated.
• I believe that the College management system should deal with this matter and not ignore it.

And “What outcome would I like to engender?”

• An apology to our Apprentice from the Principal for both service failures.
• An apology to the Principal from the Tutor for behaviour that has damaged the reputation of the College.
• The College management system deals with the behaviour in accordance with its mission and procedures.

I think it’s all a matter of integrity.

So how did the interview at the College go?

Well, all our preparation was worthwhile and our visit to the College was uneventful, apart from the absence of a visitors’ carpark. There is not even a carpark for staff! Everyone must use the nearby public “pay and display” which is all very egalitarian but fairly low on the customer service scale.

The interviewers were not as proposed but they did seem to be genuinely collecting the facts and appeared to take note of everything that we said. They will visit us to interview our Apprentice next week on her return from holiday. Work in progress!

Many aspects of this story relate to the delivery of quality customer service which connect with some generic issues that I am thinking about in “Quality of service is embedded in how things are done”.

I was not present at the interview with our apprentice on our premises but I understand that the process was thorough and conducted well. Our apprentice showed herself to be very mature and not vindictive.

Due to holidays the College will probably be unable to complete their procedures for a few more weeks. We will wait patiently.

 

This week we saw the last of the seasonal work and seemingly, all of a sudden, we don’t have enough work for everyone.

One of the jobs that I had committed to do is being frustrated by the non-delivery of a key ingredient. We are in the hands of the UK distributor and the principal has experienced a series of delays, culminating in 2 weeks so far, in delivering to the distributor. This of no interest to our customer’s customer who is just angry that we have not been able to supply. It is frustrating because it seems to be impossible transmit the pain back to the source of the problem.

Meanwhile we have started to clear up some of the jobs that have been put to one side and these have highlighted some stock shortages.

We have at least two customer year-end stock counts and they seem to have passed off OK.

The big excitement concerns the commissioning of our new vessel for the manufacture of the gloopy stuff. The equipment was finally installed and we made the first 5,000L batch yesterday. We should have some results on Monday and we still need to do some programming but at last the capacity is there. We just need to optimise the performance and build on it to produce 50,000litres per week. There is still much to do but at last we have the basis for producing the volume required!

This is good for the business because we have a clear run making as much as we can for the next two months which will go some way to counteract the usual Summer decline.

I was trying to explain to someone yesterday about the process that we follow when receiving clients’ goods before we re-pack or relabel them. This goes way beyond the all-important identifying, counting and labelling the goods as part of the unloading operation.

Our policy requires that for every one of this type of delivery a pack of the product is brought to the office for inspection and photography. A copy of the photograph is retained with the delivery documents and a file is sent to the customer for their records. The photograph includes the batch marking on the primary and secondary packs. The inspection has two purposes. One to allow us an early opportunity to identify any particular difficulties that we might encounter when repacking or re-labelling and the second to assess, on behalf of the client, if the product is genuine or counterfeit.

This process provides the client with an early warning if the product is suspect, photographic evidence of the integrity and traceability of the material to comply with their Registration conditions and some assurance as to the original state of the material if there is some later insurance claim.

I was trying to explain that this process, which is not explicitly requested and invisible to the client, provides value to both the client and ourselves in the event of a later challenge by a third party but is time-consuming and expensive to undertake. This is particularly onerous when the quantity of goods to be re-packed or re-labelled is only small. It is something that I have instituted and in the most part I execute. The difficulty comes when I am not available to execute the process. Does it happen? If it does, do the people concerned understand why they are doing it and what is the purpose? After all it is not immediately obvious how the process contributes to the primary objective of re-packing or re-labelling.

“Procedures” you say and “training” and you would be right, but how often do procedures and training go to that level of detail?

But they should because without that level of detail “how we do things round here” doesn’t get done and the added value that the customer expects evaporates and what makes us special disappears too.

I see the same issue in a parallel example quoted by my highly talented daughter who is responsible for mass participation sporting events involving large numbers of people running or cycling around a course in London, or another major city. These events re often paid for by high-end clients who expect a large amount of attention to detail for both the benefit of the participants and for the visual appearance of the event which will feature in their Marketing and Social Media exposure.

So something simple like the appearance of the stakes that hold the tape that marks the course across the park is not an insignificant matter. If the stake is wooden and painted white it is both more visible at a distance and has a higher quality appearance as compared with a piece of rusty steel that has loop formed in the top to carry the tape. If the event is run as an annual event and the Client begins to notice that the appearance of the course doesn’t seem to be as attractive as in previous years the choice of stake might be seen as a loss of attention to detail, or worse, as budget cheeseparing. This might result in the loss of business next year, all for the lack of a procedure or training as to “How we do things – and why”. Nobody intended to undermine the event’s reputation but they assumed that the team knew “how” and “why”. The team didn’t even see the issue until the irascible Project Director demanded to know why there were no white stakes. It was about the appearance and feel of the thing from the perspective of the participant and Client. This is a Quality of Service matter.

I feel the same about the response that I received from the FE College when I complained on behalf of our Apprentice in “A matter of Integrity”. The College rightly saw my complaint as an important issue that should be treated quickly and in accordance with the relevant procedure. What they did not do was to look at the situation through my eyes or those of my Apprentice. Their procedure did not address the most appropriate location for the initial investigation interview, how to visit the College or the lack of familiarity on our part with the procedures relating to complaints or the courtesies of calling for a meeting with one member of staff and conducting it with another.

As I pointed out, the procedures that relate to Harassment and to Learning, which lie at the heart of the matter, are curiously one-sided in their failure to address the failure of staff to behave appropriately or to teach sufficiently.

Quality of service is embedded in how things are done and the organisation must ensure that the details of how and why are properly communicated in the detail necessary.

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.