The Good and the Bad

The good (maybe great) news is that our product has appeared in more locations. The Philadelphia Inquirer showed it on May 26th. It looks like the Miami Herald picked up the same content and put it on their website. Unfortunately, both of the web sites require registration and the content isn't really that interesting.

However, we also received a fax today showing that Consumer Reports has a 1/4 page discussion of the ball in their July 2005 issue. It's not yet on the newstands or available online so I'm not sure how our Good Samaritan found it. Still, we're thrilled! The fax is unreadable but apparently the only complaint was that the kids were bored after 10 minutes. We think that CR has to find a problem to appear fair and that they really just totally loved it!

The bad: a long letter from a customer who tried to use the ball to teach a group of kids about uses for dairy products. It seems their ball is missing the O-rings that seal the caps so the kids had ice cream mix leaking onto their clothes. Not good. We'll see if we can do something to make it right, but right now this is an unhappy customer.

I comfort myself with the reminder that we've sold many thousands of these and we get very few complaints.

Also, I drove the forklift again today! Fourteen pallets from two locations loaded onto one truck. No damaged products or property, although I did miss a car by two inches and a wall by one inch. "A miss is as good as a mile," I was told.

Label printing

Today is a very quiet day here in the factory. It's Saturday and I've got the place to myself. During the week it feels like I make 2 steps forward, then 1 or 2 or 3 steps backward. It's not a bad thing, but the issue of the moment requires attention and it's hard to make progress on things that require some prolonged attention. Today all my steps are forward.

The most interesting thing I did today was print labels. We need barcode labels for our various colors of ice cream ball. In an attempt to get ahead of the curve, I printed enough for a few months today. All told, 22,000 labels in a couple of hours. I used the new label printing machine on loan from a salesman. If he can get the machine to do a couple of other tricks I'll buy it from him.

Amazon.com

Our product on Amazon.com continues to produce a few sales each week. This week the ice cream ball reappeared on a list of ice cream makers at Amazon.com. That's nice and all, but my favorite part is watching our ranking on the Kitchen and Housewares sales list. A few weeks ago we were #12,000-ish. Today we're #7,155. I'm sure in no time at all we'll be all the way at the top of list. Look out, "Calphalon Commercial Nonstick 10-Inch International Griddle/Crepe Pan", we're coming to get you! We just have to get past "Pomerantz Wine Wizard Tabletop Wine Opener, Black/Chrome," "KitchenAid K45WSSWH Classic Series 4-1/2-Quart Stand Mixer with Spatula, White", and 7,151 other items!

Ice Cream Ball in the New York Post (May 25, 2005)

Ice Cream Ball in the New York Post (May 25, 2005)

Product of the Month!

Hey, we're the Product of the Month at Productivity!

Of course, that would be a lot more impressive if we hadn't hired them to help us promote the ball.

Our product in the New York Post. Nice picture!

happy customer

Nice note from a customer...

I purchased your UCO play n freeze recently and I love it. I had seen it in a catalog and looked for it online but never got around to ordering it then I saw it in a toy store and just had to get it. We used it that same day and my daughters enjoyed it so did my husband. I took it to work at the elementary school and the kids enjoyed it too.

Candle Lantern display area

Display wall for candle lanterns

Over the years candle lanterns have been painted in a dazzling variety of ways. We've got a bunch of them on display in our office.

A wonderful photo from a series a customer sent us showing her two dogs helping make ice cream!

New York Post and Good Morning America

The ice cream ball showed up in today's New York Post. This wasn't entirely a surprise since they contacted us last week to ask for a sample. We rushed it to NY.

A real milkshake

Make ice cream the wacky way with a Play & Freeze Ball. Fill the blue plastic orb with ice, rock salt and ice cream ingredients. Then shake, toss and roll for 20 minutes until your pint's ready. ($34.95 at icecreamrevolution.com)

Even better, the people at Good Morning America read the paper and now they want to see it. They'll check it out and it may appear on their show some time soon.

Plus (this was a very good day), we got two new orders from brand new customers for the ball. Hundreds of balls each for dozens of stores!

Our Alaska rep tells us that Alaskans eat more ice cream per capita than any other Americans. Hmmm.

Star Wars

We saw the new Star Wars movie tonight. Afterwards I asked, "Did you notice all the various swipes that George Lucas took at George Bush?" "Like what?" "Like 'Only the Sith speak in absolutes.'" "Really?" asked Rachael, "I thought those were about me." "Oh right, Rachael, George Lucas made this movie just to take a swipe at you."

Long pause...

then Rachael replies..."Yeah, that is sort of insulting."

Dogs Making Ice Cream

I'm looking forward to seeing these pictures!

My dogs are making the ice cream. Would you like to see pics? They're good!

Anne and Australian cattledog Anzac and Aussie Maggie

driving the forklift

Today was unbelievably busy. I didn't stop running from 7:00am until 5:00pm, when things finally quieted down. The pile of paper on my desk has grown quite a bit so I'll be here for a while digging through it. The checks are the best part!

So what happened today? We received two 250lb rolls of aluminum which will be turned into Candlelier heat shields tomorrow. We shipped a couple of hundred ice cream balls to the east coast (500 more are wrapped and ready to ship to another location tomorrow). We received about 15,000 candles, regular and citronella. This is truly "just in time" since we're down to about 30 citronella candles. One order we couldn't fill today will go out tomorrow since we've got the candles in hand. The label printer sales guy came for a visit. It ended up taking him four hours to finish his demonstration, and it still needs more work. He'll be back tomorrow.

And . . . and . . . and !!! I drove the forklift! Not just from one location to another! I used a chain to pull the pallets of candles (~2500lbs each) from the front of the truck to the back. Then I picked each of them up and put them in a nice row on the ground. No one got hurt and I didn't damage any of the product. That was some scary fun!

a good deed

Greg did a good deed (and I concurred). We gave an ice cream maker and a Candlelier to an elementary school for an auction. Today we received a nice note:

Thank you for donating to the Martin Sortun Elementary School PTA Raffle Basket. Thanks to generous donations from people like you, we were able to cover all field trips and purchase the Remo Drum Set for our music instructor.

Yeah, it's a form letter. Still, it made me feel good.

giving a tour

My friend Mike from Chicago is in town. This afternoon Mike and a couple of other friends came to the factory for a visit. I had a great time showing them around. Six years ago I dragged Mike around the city and the state to look at businesses for sale that we found in the newspaper and on the web. Today I own a business! It took a long time but I'm proud to have made it. Mike is happily ensconsced as a manager at Boeing.

You know, I'm much more prepared to own the business than I was to buy the business. My skills, experience, and training are all focused on running a business. Acquiring one was a whole different thing. So although I'm working more hours now, this part is in many ways easier for me than the purchase process.

Salt Lake Tribune

Here's a post from the Salt Lake Tribune in December of last year. Apparently at the time REI was selling the ice cream ball for just $22.50. It's simply not available at that price now.

Play and Freeze ice-cream maker: What could be better than tossing around a soccer-sized plastic ball that is making ice cream? This $22.50 device does exactly that.

More sales

I'm using various search engines with "Play and Freeze Ice Cream Maker" as the search term. Interesting results. Here's a nice one:

No longer do you have to leave the campsite to search out an ice cream shop, and on top of that, everyone has fun with "the ball" while the ice cream freezes. Just think of the memories you and your children can make while making an after dinner treat.

Right . . . I remember the time Dad had to hike eight miles out and back to bring ice cream to the campsite. And good thing, too! Might have been a rebellion otherwise.

The quote comes from a site, Wise Men Trading (motto: "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom."), which has the lowest price I've seen.

high quality problem

One of our biggest customers sent their latest forecasts to us. They're about twice the size of the previous forecast (which was much bigger than the one before that). We're going to have a real challenge meeting all the demand. This is just the sort of problem I want to have! Here's an excerpt from the note:

Here are the updated projections. I'm sorry for all of the changes. We normally are a little closer to our actual needs but every season some products surprise us. It's a good problem to have.

A nice article in the Sacramento Bee today...

Gearing up: I camp scream, you camp scream...

Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, May 19, 2005

Ice cream in camp sounds enticing - even better if you've made it from scratch. A fun option is the Camper's Dream Ice Cream Maker, a plexiglass sphere about the size of a soccer ball.

It offers a playful way to make dessert. But the process takes finesse. We asked Maurice Read and Mary Anne Moore of Sacramento to try it out with Moore's grandchildren, ages 5 and 7.

To start the process, you load ice and rock salt in one end of the ball and ice cream ingredients (cream, sugar and half-and-half) into the interior cylinder. After 20 to 25 minutes of rolling the ball around - no kicking - you should have a pint of ice cream.

One experienced user who raved about the ball said it worked best when the ingredients were stirred every few minutes. Read followed the manufacturer's instructions, which recommend stirring after 10 minutes.

Read, a former restaurant owner, is a veteran with a hand-cranked ice cream maker, which has a dasher that stirs the ingredients constantly. When he opened the ball at 10 minutes into the process, he found that some liquid had frozen hard to the sides, but the center was still liquid. Also, the stirring process got some cream into the threads of the lid, which froze in place.

"Once you get the ice cream out, it's very good," Read said. "But I had to use a wrench to open it.

"The kids had a great time doing it."

The ball's stir stick is designed to fit into the lid and act as a wrench.

The Camper's Dream Ice Cream Maker is $29.95, and it is available at REI stores and online.

REI press release

Here's a nice mention of our product in REI's latest press release:

And after a day of climbing, paddling or hiking, treat the kids to homemade ice cream with the portable Camper's Dream Ice Cream Maker.

some relief

Well, we've made it through another week. It's been several days since I've been panicked about the cash situation, so I'm feeling better about that. I've accounted for the next few major expenditures (another shipment of ice cream makers, raw material replenishment for the factory, etc.). We should be okay for a while.

Steve is going to a toy show in Phoenix (???) this week. He's going to scope out the market and see who he bumps into. He'll be carrying an ice cream ball under his arm so I'm sure he'll attract some attention!

We got another great order from Canada yesterday. They've ordered so much stuff we don't have enough finished goods on hand. We should be able to ship by Wednesday if we have enough citronella candles. It'll be close but we've got more on the way so we should be okay.

Judy, our bookkeeper, is in Hawaii this week. It will be an interesting week since I'm not comfortable with the tasks she's been handling like writing checks (I've just been signing them) and making bank deposits. There's always more to learn.

picture test

Hey, I posted a picture! Click on the pic to see a bigger version. More will follow with future posts.

Cut and unformed candle tubes. April 2005.

the next improvement

Another great thing happened today. We all walked the shop floor to see the process to build the three-legged part of the Original Candle Lantern (this is the part that slides closed). We put a kanban system in place to control the flow of parts through the process. After bouncing several ideas back and forth the shop manager got a clear idea of what he wanted and went off to build it. With help from another employee, three hours later they had a completed cart. It's got four drawers, takes half the floor space of the old design, and completely eliminates one of the wasteful steps in the old process (namely using a bucket to scoop parts from one bin to another). It's a wonderful improvement and they took a vague idea and turned it into a product in just half a day! Miraculous and wonderful!

Safety

I suspect this is going to sound a little too idealistic, but I'm very serious about safety in our factory. It's critically important to me that everyone go home at night with the same number of fingers, the same number of eyes, and the same amount of blood, that they arrived with in the morning. I've told you how I've basically stopped a lot of production activities to allow us to burn off excess inventory. Today one of the machines ran for the first time since March. I watched the employee run the machine (which bends candle tubes into shape) without wearing safety glasses. Years of training at Boeing had me wanting to cover my eyes with my hands since I wasn't wearing safety glasses either. An hour later we held an all hands meeting and I put a safety glasses policy in place. Anyone running a machine must be wearing safety glasses. I'll pay for high quality comfortable ones, but everyone has to use them. No one raised a fuss and 15 minutes later the same machine was running with the employee wearing safety glasses.

Raw material

There's another little story that meshes nicely with my last post about reduced inventory levels. The production manager came to me worried about Candleliers. The level of inventory was worrisome to him since getting more tubing takes 8-10 weeks. He said we should order more immediately. I told him that while I certainly didn't want to run out, I also didn't want to order any sooner than necessary (with some buffer for all the uncertainties). He went back and did a more thorough inventory. Now he tells me we can order in July for delivery in September, and we'll be fine! That's great! He has been accustomed to ordering based on his gut feel for inventory levels. Not only did have I provided him with more supply information (like what the computer shows as the inventory level) but I've also given him demand data for the last few years so he knows how long the existing inventory will last. He's taken this information and run with it!

On another note, the rumour mill says another MIT/Boeing friend has left the company to pursue an opportunity in a small business. I look forward to hearing more.

the Lean Manufacturing payoff

I've told you that I'm having a cash crunch. Some of my customers have made payments which have provided some relief. However, I'm also starting to see the benefits of some of the changes on the factory floor propogate into my financial statements. In English, that means that the kanban system we put in place to control inventory on the shop floor seems to have resulted in an inventory reduction of about $20,000 so far. That's not additional profit but it is more cash in the bank which is something I need pretty bad right now!

Overall, it looks like the inventory level is dropping about $5,000 per week. That can't go on indefinitely but it's a great contribution to the financials right now. It will be interesting to see how long we can continue the trend. I suspect we can pull out another $50,000 without trying too hard.

Why UCO?

Uncle Norman asks: "I looked at your site and wondered . . . what does UCO stand for?" Good question!

Greg, the founder and seller of the company, told me the story a few months ago. When he and his partner first set up shop they decided to use the partner's plastics engineering expertise to become a supplier to Boeing. Specifically, they wanted to make urethane ducting for the 727. They jumped through numerous hoops to set themselves up as suppliers to Boeing but it was ultimately too difficult. They ended up making the bindings for K2 ski boots instead. They would later develop the wonderful candle lanterns that we're still selling decades later. So UCO, or Urethane Corporation, was the name they chose. I think it's wonderful that this long-lived company is named after a product they never sold!

link to Amazon

Hey, this is neat! Elise.com has a review of the ball and a link to our product page at Amazon.com. First, here's the flattering review (with five stars!)

Family fun - with delicious results
This item was great fun even just in the living room. Works just like advertised -- pack it with ingredients, roll it around for 20 minutes or so and you've got ice cream. Great for rainy days with the kids -- it gets them away from the video games for a while. It'll be great outdoors this summer too!

But the exciting part is the "Buy it now" option at the bottom of the page. The link goes to Amazon.com where the only purchasing option is to get the product from us! It's added hassle to ship one ball at a time, but we make more money per unit so we're trying it out.

into the 21st century

We're still in the process of bringing the office technology level past year 2000. We've tossed the Win-98 PCs. We've replaced the copier which left large marks on every copy. The copier replacement is also a fax machine so we've tossed the ancient fax (which, frankly, was working fine). The company was operating with a single email address (uco@ucocorp.com). We still are monitoring that but we've each got our own address now, keith@industrialrev.com, steve@industrialrev.com, kathy@industrialrev.com, etc. We're using MI8 to handle our Exchange server issues. We're backing up our crucial data every night to connected.com. We've even replaced the old fluorescent bulbs in the office area with full spectrum bulbs. Normally I would have guessed that "full spectrum" meant "higher price for the same light." However, we had two fixtures in the same room with the different bulbs. The old one was intensely yellow. The new one was a rich white. It added a whole new glow the offices!

There are a couple of more challenging situations. The PC which runs the CNC (computer numerical control) milling center is incredibly old, but it's got software on it that we can't easily move to another computer. The same thing goes for the decrepit PC in the shipping area. Those will require more careful attention.

We've also made a good start of getting the manufacturing out of the 1950's. We may already be up to the early 1960's!

Tactical ice cream maker (TICM)

It's not flattering, but I told you I'd give you the good and the bad. And even though it's not flattering, it is pretty damn funny.

UCO Play & Freeze Ice Cream Maker
[RETAIL: $28]
You're pinned down by sniper fire, waiting for an A-10 to light up the bogies. And you really, really want ice cream. You reach into your pack and pull out the UCO tactical ice cream maker, a pint of cream, some Tahitian vanilla, a couple handfuls of sugar, a few pounds of ice, and some rock salt (coincidentally, the same ingredients Captain Kirk used to defeat the Gorn). Ice and salt in one end; cream and the rest in the metal insert. Gently rotate the TICM. Do not throw or kick, warns the manual. The gaskets leak -- your hands get covered in frigid, salty, sticky goop. You don't give up. After 20 minutes, you crack open the top. And what do you get? Soft serve. Is this the kind of equipment that we want to send with our brave boys and girls into a combat zone? I don't think so. -- Adam Rogers
[RATING: 3/10] [ ucocorp.com ]

That's from Wired magazine at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/gadgetlab/20050301.html. And, I should add, the gaskets don't leak!

instant cash

My cash struggles were eased considerably today. I had hoped the bank would step in and offer me quick relief by increasing my line of credit. However, they didn't offer to provide much at all and it was going to take at least a couple of weeks. However, a savior appeared! For a 1% fee he purchased a receivable due to me in about 2-3 weeks. He'll make a tidy little sum for a very short term loan. At the same time, the cash injection gets me cleanly through another few weeks. Various receivable should start to arrive and provide a longer-term solution. Most importantly, I can make payroll next week! A win/win solution!

Victory from the jaws of defeat

I decided to use the fact that I'm the new guy as a negotiating tool with one of my major suppliers. At the moment they are a sole source for that particular item. Gently and politely I acted somewhat crazy, asking for price reductions, improvements in terms, free engineering changes, and so on. Give me the world! The first response was a firm "NO". This was somewhat understandable since being the new guy also means I don't have any record of paying my bills. So, I tossed out more requests for help. I'd like to think that this was a clever and well-thought-out negotiation, but it was actually rather ad hoc.

Today something very interesting happened. I received an email I shouldn't have received. In essence it told me that the supplier was having the very reaction I hoped. They were willing to make adjustments because they feared losing me as a customer. "He's not the same as [the previous owner]," they said. Yeah! So, the end result? Although I only got about 50% of what I asked for, it's about 100% of what I hoped for. Absolute victory! It's good for both sides because I'll maintain the exclusive relationship as long as they continue to adjust the terms and price as I've asked. We'll both benefit in the long run. Anyway, I'm happy! Especially because I was terrified that they would continue to stonewall and I really would have to shop for an alternate supplier.

Also, we got another big order today. Go, magic fax machine!

answer to the math problem

The anwer to the math problem I posted a few days ago is about 41 ft. I can't remember the exact answer and I don't want to redo the math so I leave determining the exact answer as an exercise for the reader.

Isn't it great that a one-foot addition to the distance across the river can make a bridge rise by so much? I think it's amazing, mostly because it's so counter-intuitive.

Here's the basic approach. Build two formulas with two variables, r and theta. r is the radius of the circle which contains the arc which is our bridge. We don't know much, but we know r is a big number! Theta is the angle within the same circle between (1) a line drawn between the center of the circle and the middle of the bridge and (2) a line drawn between the center of the circle and one shoreline.

The first equation can be developed by looking for the relationship between sin(theta) and the right triangle formed by (1) the center of the circle (2) the surface of the water directly under the bridge and (3) the shoreline.

sin(theta) = 2640/r

The second equation compares ratios. theta is a percentage of the whole circle (2*pi). Half of the bridge is the same percentage of the circumference of the circle (2*pi*r). So...

theta/(2*pi) = 2640.5/(2*pi*r)

So, there you have it. Two equations with two variables. Unfortunately, solving the two equations is a bear. I used Excel and it still took a while. Don't forget to use radians, not degrees, when measuring theta. And good luck!

Cash is King

We shipped another enormous order today. I love watching those trucks pull away! However, although the business is very successful, I'm facing a serious short term problem. I'm almost out of cash. It happens that this coincides nicely with the first big batch of accounts receivable coming due. By the end of this week I should be out of the woods. However, it's not a certainty. There are more big cash outlays directly in front of me (payroll, deposits on future purchases, etc.) and most of our customers haven't figured out to send the checks to Industrial Revolution instead of UCO. It'll all get sorted out one way or another but I might end up loaning the company some money to make it through the short term. I'm also lobbying the bank to increase my line of credit. Fingers are crossed!

Cleaning your lantern

Gary's buddy kicked over his Original Candle Lantern spreading wax all over the inside. Gary called for some advice about how to clean it. There are two things to try:

• Put the lantern in the freezer for 30 minutes. This should harden the wax and make it easier to remove.
• Get some Goof-Off. Take apart the lantern and the Goof-Off should work to remove the excess wax.

Two milestones

Well, we've completed our first month. We've shipped everything we were supposed to ship and don't seem to have any uphappy customers. Our total sales were outstanding (70% above target). Our profitability was lousy, but that's predictable since we're absorbing a bunch of one-time costs associated with the purchase. Overall, an excellent month!

Yesterday was the first Saturday we didn't go to the factory since we took over. Not that I didn't spend all day thinking about work, but it was still more relaxing to do it from home.