Final Assembly & QC

The first shipment of bags is here and they look great!  Even better than the production samples.

We divided the first production run into 2 shipments.  The first shipment (enough to fill pre-orders, about 1/3rd of the total) was sent via air, which took 5 days to reach Portland.  That’s what came in this week.  The other 2/3rds shipped via water, which takes about a month.  I was so excited that I headed to Portland on Monday afternoon as soon as the shipment landed.  But it turned out that it still needed to clear customs.  So I camped on the street in Portland Monday night and then headed straight to the warehouse on Tuesday.

We trust our factory.  They’ve hit every single milestone to date.  Nevertheless, i admit to feeling some nervous anticipation before inspecting this first shipment.  These bags are hard to make.  We know because we spent so much time cutting and sewing them ourselves with Chip.  There are hundreds of little parts, pieces, and patterns, and some tricky sewing required to connect them all together.  Andrew had wanted to be in HCMC for the first production run but the timing didn’t work.  So this was our first chance to inspect the finished bags off the production line.

Any sense of nervousness went away when we opened the first few boxes.  Huge thanks to David, Anton, Steve, & Steve, and the entire factory team for hitting the mark yet again.  So happy with the quality of the finished product.  In the 30-ish boxes we’ve inspected so far there has not been a single QC issue.  That’s amazing.  Steve was in Portland this week visiting Nike so we reviewed the bags with him in person.  Andrew had been in British Columbia over the weekend, so he got his first look at the bags in the car on the way to meetup with Steve.

We pulled some inventory and brought it back to the Gorge so we can assemble and pack the first few orders here at home.  We need to develop a process that can translate to assembly-line production for the rest of the bags next week.

Then we ran around Portland buying things like boxes, baggies, and tape.  And a tape gun.

At this point we have stuff tucked in every corner of our houses, cars, and sheds.  All the wedges and frames have been sitting at Andrew’s house since the work party to attach the latches and logos two weeks ago.

My storage unit is getting hard to move around in.

We had a handful of rush orders for customers with trips planned.  Those are going out first.  Then we’ll work through pre-orders in the order received.  Andrew and I are currently doing all the final assembly and packing work ourselves.  If you notice leaves, dust, or blood in your bag, that’s from us not the factory.  We’re doing the assembly work in my yard and learning as we go.  Cuts, burns, and all.

Putting these things together is no joke.  Yesterday we averaged 3 sets/hour not including boxing, invoicing, and shipping.  Hopefully today will be faster.

Our shipping department is my sofa until we can get the warehouse up and running.

Here’s the very first Mosko Moto order (for Scout 25sand a Backcountry 40) getting picked, packed, and shipped yesterday.

Lots to share on the new product development side of things as well, but that’s on the back burner for now as we focus on filling orders.  Thank you for your patience!

Some nice Mosko Moto pics in advmoto magazine this week.

That’s me in Honduras in the photo at the bottom left corner.