6 May 2013

06 May 2013

Production Dilemma

Today we had our weekly meeting to discuss the way forward with the production of our back-pack bags. We are now in one of the hardest stages in the Genesis project- the production phase. I thought the product development phase was difficult, but I was wrong. So now that we have the prototype, having to find a reliable, good and affordable manufacturer is quite is difficult. Also having to maintain that relationship with them is challenging.

Right now we are still at the stages of finding such manufacturer. And to be quite honest, our group was not supposed to be in this situation if we had planned everything in advance. I mean we are group which has the most money; our product does not require any hard- to-find materials. So ideally we were supposed to have sold at least 20 backpacks by now, even Stuart always get frustrated every time we have we have a meeting with him as he expecting us to have sold at least 5 bags by now.

Since tomorrow Stuart is going to ask us again “how many bags have you sold so far?, we sat down trying to figure out what we can do so that we do not look disorganised in front of him. Our current manufacturer was supposed to have sent us the full cost of production by now. However it’s been three weeks now waiting for her. We are now started to feel very frustrated.  I think the main problem here was that we relied so much on her that we did not even look for other suppliers. So now it’s back to square of finding another manufacturer because we need to start selling our bags as soon as possible.

This experience has taught me that we should always keep our options open so that when one fails, we can choose another alternative. I have learned that true success that not automatically comes to the group with all the resources however to those know how to manage what they have and have a SMART planning ahead of time. In many occasions we as a group found ourselves just going back and forth without any progress simply because we did not have a clear plan that included setting out deadlines and ensuring that everything is done on time it was supposed to be. The whole relying on one manufacturer has also taught me the importance of planning head and always having a back-up plan in case the first one fails. If we had looked and compared different manufacturers, things could have turned out differently and maybe who knows we could have even sold some bags by now. We could have easily switched from the one to another.