Sunday, November 09, 2014

Sunday again...

In the office again, our accountant is down from Delhi....still inching our way through getting all our books absolutely ship shape, tedious but necessary. other pending paperwork expeditions like the Fair Trade registration and the library registration are just lurking on the hopeful list.

Being quite I also have time to work on getting proper inventories up to date with Ranjit.

All so anal, details, details, details yet I can see as we grow into being a proper business, it will enable us to know what is happening, be able to estimate production times and let clients know when they can expect delivery, being able to calculate this info will mean a lot less sleepless nights for me.

Already I can see how much hand stitching we can do in a month,  how much is waiting to be done and that we can comfortably increase our Stitching Ladies gang by 50%+ and still be sure of keeping the work up to everyone. Previously we have been nervous of taking on more women because we see them as a big responsibility, they depend on the income.

Now refining our record keeping on which stitching is going where, so we know what to expect back in and so when it can go out to clients ....We have a record of what wages we paid per previous month, but trying to answer what is out now takes a lot of flicking through the Stitching Ladies book....a head ache.

Ranjit looks after this side of things and he has a good mind to understand systems. Bliss.

After that I have the cutting room. GGGGRRRRRRRRRR. Mr Pelad our cutting man makes very nice patterns, properly graded, nice fit.
He does not process instructions very well and really, watching him, he could not organize a piss up in a brewery.
So trying to get a system going so I know he understands our cutting programme, can find the right pattern etc, etc is sending me a bit nuts.
We are fiddling, trying to juggle people around, use the skills they do have and find who will fill the gap of thinking and record keeping.
Quietly we are grooming Ranjit to be workshop overseer in time. He is maturing nicely, his people skills are maturing and he has worked with us for 4 nearly 5 years now- we know what he is like.
 Amongst organizational headaches- growing pains when we look back on it in the future it has been a pleasing week as well,
22 visitors for a nuno felt taster....in the Studio... we sued cut up saris as the base fabric, some started to felt up fine....they needed to take them home and finish the kneading of them....some the saris were not co-operating so well. I can see ways to tweak if we are to do these tasters again.
we have been hit for more requests/orders for our hand stitch work than I ever dreamed of...hence a lot of flustering and REALLY working on our systems.

Another joy of rural India....internet connection is so patchy even with the expensive government service and the Camel Fair on top of it....no pictures for you today.

Off to do inventories......organize, organize, organize...our motto.
You know it is serious, even Praveen who is loath to do office work is on the band wagon. That man is a keeper. :)
 

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