Please forgive me for this, but I am writing this for both my business and hobby, but I’m getting to the end of my tether and I feel I need to voice my frustrations, whether it will do anything, who knows, but at the very least I hope it starts some conversation.
You may have noticed lately that my blogs have been a little more exasperated than usual.
Yeah, I know I can be a bit of a cynic at times, and this can come out in my writing, but when I started I made an agreement with myself that I would be honest and true to who I am.
This means being the change you want to see and sharing the good times when life is going well, but it also means speaking up when things are hard, when I’m struggling or when I need a bit of help. It means not pretending everything is fine when it isn’t.
Because I am a huge advocate of men talking about what is going on in the old noggin instead of bottling it up and carrying on regardless. So, if I’m going to encourage others to do it, I better be prepared to lead from the front.
Anyway….
We at JFW Ltd are currently producing work for a large number of projects. We are juggling these as best we can and working hard to keep all the plates spinning.
Recently we had been given a date to work towards for some furniture. Not a suggested date or a preferred date. A date that apparently cannot move under any circumstances.
So, like we always do, we pull out all the stops. We move work around. We reshuffle the production schedule. We work longer hours. We call in favours. We ask a lot from good people who trust us and we squeeze every ounce of flexibility out of the business in order to hit the deadline’s we’re given. Then, once we’ve done exactly what was asked of us and delivered on our side of the bargain, I make the call to arrange installation…
“We’re not ready yet.”
Brilliant.
What frustrates me isn’t the delay itself. Construction projects get delayed, everyone understands that. It’s the fact that nobody seems to appreciate what it takes for a manufacturer to meet these accelerated programmes.
Every time a deadline is pulled forward, something else gets pushed back. Every promise made to one customer has a knock-on effect elsewhere. Workshop schedules don’t magically rearrange themselves and storage space doesn’t suddenly appear because a site isn’t ready.
The furniture doesn’t stop existing because the room isn’t finished.
It still has to be stored, protected, moved around and managed, often at our cost and inconvenience.
The thing that gets my goat is that the urgency is very often one-way traffic. When we’re asked to jump, we’re expected to ask how high. Yet when we deliver early, the same urgency somehow disappears.
It’s becoming a common theme and, if I’m honest, it’s frustrating.
Most manufacturers will bend over backwards to help if they’re treated fairly. But there is a difference between a genuine emergency and poor planning being passed down the supply chain.
One deserves support.
The other just creates stress for everyone involved.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this…
What is causing it?
Has it always been like this? Or am I just noticing it more?
One more thing, please reach out if you have any advise for this guy trying to navigate his way through. What would you do in my situation and how can I improve things.
Please get in touch.
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If you would like to read more “Thought Blogs” from Adam he has a dedicated website for these! Timbermane.co.uk
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