After having mastered the challenge of organizing the whole prototyping phase from a distance due to COVID-19, the conception phase of Osmose is completed since the end of September 2020.
Back in October 2020, we hoped that the situation would start to normalize, but due to the renewed lockdown in France and the borders remaining closed, we weren’t able to send our engineers to oversee the industrial production at the factory in Shanghai.
Therefore, we took the decision to set up a mirrored parallel production line locally in France. While production of the units will still take place at our industrial partner exclusively, the mirrored production line in France allows us to remotely oversee and manage all the quality-control processes despite the circumstances.
We received all the parts of the first industrially manufactured Osmoses in January 2021. We then had to work on final industrial adjustments, a phase that is crucial to ensure that all parts of the mass production product will work together seamlessly. Unfortunately, with still no possibility to send our engineers to the factory for giving real-time feedback on-site, each iteration of components needed to be shipped from China to France in order to be surveyed in person, causing several week-long delays.
In June 2021, despite the global market of electronic components still being severely disrupted. we were happy to announce that after months of negotiations and sourcing inquiries, enough components could be secured to guarantee the production of all Osmose units that had been reserved back at the end of 2019.
As of August 2021, we are now working on the "final industrial Osmose series" phase - the ultimate test production that precedes the launch of the mass production. The quality control of this final step has shown that in order to guarantee an impeccable first mass production run, there will need to be minor readjustments and optimizations made in the production line. Find the current production planning below:
(as of August 12th 2021)
factory preparation:
- manufacturing of injection molds and industrial tools (completed)
first industrial Osmose series:
- complete review and quality control of the first industrial series. (completed)
final industrial adjustments:
- managing the sourcing of electronic components. (completed)
- preparation of the assembly line (completed)
final industrial Osmose series (in process):
- final quality checks
- operator training
launch of mass production and first shipments to our backers:
- according to the ramp-up of production: progressive shipments by sea from China factory