Offering up an update to its backers, creators of the Kickstarter nano drone Zano, Torquing Group, announced details about shipping and schedules.
While explaining how the process is going, Torquing Group’s Director Marketing and Business Development, Reece Crowther, stated:
“Our EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Service) has been by our side with this project since we launched on Kickstarter, they have done an admiral job in dedicating their resource to our project and ensuring the manufacturing process is as efficient as possible.
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“Despite our best efforts to design a product conducive to volume manufacturing, in reality, there are always growing pains and teething problems when scaling up to volume production for any consumer electronic device, especially one as complex as ZANO. There are many unforeseen factors that have taken more time in the assembly process than we accounted for, however, we feel we have identified and found solutions for these issues that have held us back in allowing us to scale up to volume production.”
Crowther went on to note:
“We are now in a position where our EMS can now provide us with 200 ZANOs per working day. Obviously 1,000 ZANOs per week. Our goal is to meet the supply from our EMS with our own internal resource and ensure we are in a position to assemble, test and fulfil 200 ZANOs per day moving forward.
“We now feel we have all of the internal and external processes in place for us to successfully dispatch 200 ZANO’s per day. We currently have one bottleneck, which is delaying shipment at the moment. The supply of the new, lighter plastics. We expect to receive a shipment of 2,400 Black plastics on the 2nd of November. However, this will not stop our EMS from shipping ZANOs to us ready for testing and as soon as the new plastics arrive on the 2nd of November, we will begin assembly and dispatch.”
Reece also broke down the Assembly and Testing processes:
- Assembly: “The assembly process has previously been quite labor intensive, as we had to solder the motors ourselves, as well as conformal coat the motors and then fit the heavier plastics. Thanks to the efforts of our EMS, ZANOs will now arrive to us with motors fitted. Thomas has spent some time redesigning the plastics to allow for a more simple assembly process. We have timed the new process and we hope for one of our team members to assemble 12 – 15 ZANO’s per hour. We will have 2 members of the team on this for 1 x 8 hour shift 5 days per week. Averaging out at 1,000 ZANOs assembled per week.”
Testing: “The current testing process has been quite well documented; this has been a real bottleneck for us at the moment. Each test rig is able to test and calibrate 1 ZANO every 10 minutes. This means we are currently able to test 12 ZANO’s every hour. We currently have 2 test rigs operating 1 x 8 hour shift per day, which delivers approximately 96 ZANO’s per day. We will be running 2 x 8 hour shifts per day/night and we hope to be adding a 3rd test rig, which will increase our testing capacity further, moving forward. Our goal is to consistently test 200 ZANO’s daily until all ZANO’s have been dispatched.”
In regards to the schedule, Crowther added:
“As announced previously, we will maintain the fulfilment schedule for ZANOs based on colour. All Black ZANOs (Kickstarter rewards and pre-orders) will be dispatched first, we will then dispatch the rest in the following order: White, Glow in the dark, Red and Camouflage.
“I know there will be some disappointment from our supporters knowing you will not receive your ZANO until after Christmas, however, our goal is to provide clear and accurate information and set expectations moving forward. We hope you all appreciate our candour on this matter and can get behind the team; we’re all working around the clock and making the most of the resource available to us to deliver ZANO to all of our supporters!”
Check out the full timeline below.
- November 2nd: Receive new lighter plastics. Begin assembling stockpiled 2,400 ZANO’s.
- November 13th: Complete dispatch of 3,000 ZANO Blacks (Including 600 already dispatched)
- November 20th: Complete dispatch of 4,000 ZANO Blacks (Including 3000 already dispatched)
- November 27th: Complete dispatch of 5,000 ZANO Blacks (Including 4000 already dispatched)
- December 4th: Complete dispatch of 6,000 ZANO Blacks (Including 5000 already dispatched)
- December 11th: Complete dispatch of 7,000 ZANO Blacks (Including 6000 already dispatched)
- December 14th: Complete dispatch of 7,165 ZANO Blacks (Including 7000 already dispatched). Black Zano’s finished shipping.
- December 18th: Complete dispatch of 1,000 ZANO Whites
- January 8th: Complete dispatch of 2,000 ZANO Whites (Including 1000 already dispatched)
- January 15th: Complete dispatch of 3,000 ZANO Whites (Including 2000 already dispatched)
- January 22nd:Complete dispatch of 4,000 ZANO Whites (Including 3000 already dispatched)
- January 29th: Complete dispatch of 5,000 ZANO Whites (Including 4000 already dispatched)
- February 2nd: Complete dispatch of 5,427 ZANO Whites (Including 5000 already dispatched). White Zano’s finished shipping.
- February 5th: Complete dispatch of 767 Glow In The Dark ZANO’s. GITD Zano’s finished shipping.
- February 12th: Complete dispatch of 1000 Zano Reds
- February 16th Complete dispatch of 1,191 ZANO Reds (Including 1000 already dispatched). Red Zano’s finished shipping.
- February 19th: Complete dispatch of 813 ZANO CAMOUFLAGE. Camouflage Zano’s finished shipping.
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