Want to get an inside idea of how we help?

We think its important that you can see yourself benefiting from working with us, so we've decided to share an "inside look" every week or two to paint a clear picture of our day to day work.

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This week we will take a look at All Seasons Pontoon, Boat and RV Covers (www.allseasonspontooncovers.com).  "All Seasons" has a familiar backstory - the owner was fed up from paying to have his pontoon shrink wrapped each year for winter storage.  It was expensive, frequently caused damage and isn't environmentally friendly.  Knowing a better solution had to be out there, our client went to work in his garage inventing, patenting and selling a reusable, simple and effective pontoon cover. 

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Eskywell entered the story about a year ago.  We started a "hands on" consulting contract.  We spend 10 hours a month working with All Seasons to identify problems,trouble shoot and help implement solutions - these range from marketing strategy to sourcing issues. 

 

This month we've been tasked with finding ways to improving efficiency in the warehouse - sales are anticipated to increase substantially, but until they actually do, All Seasons can't justify a major investment in equipment or personnel.  So we have been working on short term, cost effective solutions that meet the client's budget constraints as well as insure he doesn't have to spend the next 6 months working 24/7 to cover the increased sales. 

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We started with an analysis of the current manufacturing and fulfillment process.  At the moment, everything is made by hand and per order.  We took a look at the physical layout of the facility as well.  Next we started drawing up ways to improve the physical processes, these included moving from individual workstations to more of an assembly line format.  The covers are "semi-custom", so not everything can be pre-made, but we isolated those key points and created a workflow that improved efficiency.  We spent about half of this month's hours in the facility, going through each point of the process and talking with the people actually making these covers to insure we created a feasible plan and making sure everyone had a chance to be heard. 

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With process changes being made, we now are taking  a look at two other factors - vendor agreements and shipping.  This week we spent time discussing how renegotiating terms on a few key parts could alleviate a lot of stress and allow for more "just in time" manufacturing without a large upfront investment.  We also took a look at how switching from shipping each order individually to a "two shipments a week format" would allow for improved costs and alleviate more stress and time from the manufacturing process. 

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All in all, as our client prepares for his biggest year of sales, we need to make sure that increased sales don't lead to increased financial risk and decreased time enjoying his family.  We've put a great plan in place and are in the midst of implementation.  We are confident that All Seasons Pontoon, Boat and RV Covers will find a new level of success and has improved processes that will last for years to come.