The Batches Production Schedule

EU-Pi/NA-Rho

EU-Pi Air freight orders went out. We expect sea freight to arrive between 27 September and 4 October. And then will start shipments on those.

If you are in EU-Pi, you can still upgrade to Air freight in the Wooting hub and have your order shipped the next day. (we air freighted more than required, see previous update).

NA-Rho will arrive around 23 September. Shipments will start no earlier than the 27 September (there's a weekend in between). You can now track the vessel towards the USA in the Discord stock_update channel.

All the other batches

In the previous update I mentioned we had a target date of 28 September, an ambitious date that we could or couldn't make. The date was too ambitious... but that's how we planned production with the manufacturer, so that we could get an as early as possible schedule running.

That schedule is now known to me, meaning that I have insight in the daily output and a production completion date on the 28th of October. Then all the batches will ship to our warehouse(s) with Air and Sea freight, after which it ships to you.

I also mentioned in the previous update that if it would end up too ambitious, that I would try to get some quantities out first, so we can fulfill orders earlier and not batch everything together on that single date.

I managed to get an amount completed earlier, on the 17th of October. I'll send this entire amount by Air freight to our warehouse(s), this also means that I will only fulfill orders from batches with the Air freight upgrade in their order sorted by batch.

• This means NA-Haze and EU-Boter orders with the Air freight upgrade will all go out first.
• Whatever quantity is left, is allocated to Air freight orders in batch NA-Thunder/EU-Bliksem sorted by earliest order date. I don't think it'll make it to another batch.

Everything else in these batches and all other batches, including the regular orders, will complete on the 28th of October and then ship with Air and Sea freight to our warehouse(s).

I have posted estimated shipment dates for each region, batch, and freight method on the Discord stock_updates channel and at the bottom of this update.

Expectations

I know it sucks when there is a delay and that it's often difficult to understand how to read these estimates, what to expect, and when you will receive your order. Especially if you were anticipating a certain date and then it changes all the sudden to a different date.

I'm sorry for this. It's something we can do better, it's something we will do better.

My goal is to create as much as possible transparency with the progress and processes involved, and keep you closely updated. These monthly updates aren’t adequate to achieve all of it.

That’s why we had built automatic systems that give insight to our internal production batches, stock, and timeline. These are the shown on the Product page, Product status page, and the Wooting Hub.

However, I can feel and see from Discord that these pages are not fulfilling their complete purpose, are (still) very confusing, and we need to drastically improve them.

The dates on these pages been too vague by showing a month, not an exact date, causing expectations to land at the start of the month while the reality might be at the end. 1-2 week delay in the backend, then results into a month for the frontend. In addition, there is no context to the estimate. Especially when there is a change in the estimate, you’d want there to be an acknowledgement of the change and reason for the change that is directly available at the place you consume the information or make the realization.

Calder's estimates... suck?

After reading this, you might ask why didn't Calder already take all of this into account with his estimates before. In short, I was cramping up a large production in a short time frame with zero feedback from factory while ensuring that the ball keeps rolling.

The long tail reason.
My short term estimate was off because I didn't expect to get bottlenecked by the factory's maximum daily output. The processes after procurement that have limited output are as followed:

• SMT, the assembly of IC parts on the PCB. This is by far the slowest process that runs at 50% the rate of keyboard assembly and packaging.
• PCBA (A stands for assembled with IC parts) goes to a sub-contractor for water resistant coating.
• PCBA is inspected for defects.
• Then PCBA goes into assembly and packaging. This is where it's put together as a keyboard and goes into a box.

What would otherwise take 2 weeks with an average production quantity, now takes at least 4-5 weeks and increasing with higher quantities. In addition there's a Chinese holiday (Golden week) from 5 to 10 October.

My long term estimates were off because once these sales started to sky-rocket it quickly surpassed my forecasts and planned productions. It didn't give me adequate time to adjust forecasts, planning, and budget accurately towards future demand. To make sure I could keep the ball rolling and not fall behind on demand, I had to frequently put in new production orders within a short time frame without any feedback from the factory. This is also why there are so many batches.

In the meanwhile, I was communicating with the factory to ensure we could pin dates, procure all the parts, and get something running as soon as possible. While also throwing more production orders to them😂. This also affected the already planned production, pushing it back to include a larger quantity.

Lastly, we had also squeezed in a few design and assembly improvement to lower down the defect rate at production. Something increasingly important at larger quantities but it also borderline pushed the deadlines. These are things that were hard to foresee and I should have decided earlier onto just add a month buffer.

Nonetheless, I feel it's quite an achievement and we're fortunate to even be able to produce these quantities in such a short time frame. It was quite the task to basically 5x an original production plan out of nowhere.

Wootility

The new Wootility update is out with the advanced Rapid trigger feature allowing you to separate the up- and downstroke sensitivity. What I had forgotten to mention is that this update also includes an additional function layer! You can now add function layer 3.

Oh and Simon heard your request on custom RGB per layer 😏 and will be part of a future update.

Timeline:

Phase 1: Mass production completion

• Interim: 17 October
       Reserved for Air freight NA-Haze/ EU-Boter and partial NA-Thunder / EU-Bliksem

• All other: 28 October
       EU-Boter / NA-Haze (sea freight), NA-Thunder / EU-Bliksem, NA-Behemoth / EU-Reus, NA-Curtain / EU-Bin.

Phase 2: Cross ocean transport with Air and Sea freight to warehouse

This is different per region and will impact estimated shipment dates below if any delay takes place. This takes a bit longer than only cross-ocean transit. It includes:

1. Scheduling vessel (often can't ship within the same week)
2. Origin shipment (factory to temporary warehouse)
3. Export documentation and cargo preparation (at temp. warehouse)
4. Vessel loading (warehouse loaded onto vessel)
5. Cross ocean transit (Air or Sea)
6. Vessel off-loading and Import documentation (vessel to temp. warehouse)
7. Destination shipment (temp warehouse to fulfillment warehouse)

Phase 3: Shipments from warehouse to your front-door

Estimated shipment dates:

NA-Haze / EU-Boter

• Air freight
       NA-Haze/ EU-Boter: 2 November
• Sea freight
       NA-Haze: 30 November
       EU-Boter: 7 December

NA-Thunder / EU-Bliksem / NA-Behemoth / EU-Reus / NA-Curtain / EU-Bin

Expect shipment dates:

• Air freight
       15 November

• Sea freight
       NA-x: 30 November
       EU-x: 7 December

Phase 4: Transit to your front door

This depends on the chosen shipping method and region. Below are the different shipping methods and transit time ranges:

• DHL - Parcel: 2-6 days
• DPD - International Parcel: 3-8 days
• Deutsche Post - Economy Postal/International Parcel: 14-40 days
• PostNL - International Parcel: 7-14 days
• GLS - Parcel: 3-6 days
• UPS - Standard: 2-4 days
• UPS - Express Saver: 3-6 days
• Standard shipping: 5-8 days
• 2-day Expedited: 2 business days

I hope this information helps, in the meanwhile, we're going to work on improving tailored information for each order with current status up to front-door delivery estimates.

‍

<3