December 2020
factory preparation:
- manufacturing of injection molds and industrial tools (completed)
January 2021
first industrial Osmose series:
- complete review and quality control of the first industrial series. (completed)
February to July 2021
final industrial adjustments:
- managing the sourcing of electronic components. (completed)
- preparation of the assembly line (completed)
August to November 2021
- final quality checks (completed)
- final esthetic adjustments (completed)
December 2021
- pilot production run/golden sample (completed)
January to March 2022
- first dry run and thorough tests under real-world conditions (completed)
- in parallel: operator training (completed)
- production launch (completed)
End of March to beginning of June 2022
- complete lockdown of our workers and factory in Shanghai (ended)
June to July 2022
- assessment of the situation after the Shanghai lockdown (completed)
- relaunch of mass production (completed)
August to November 2022
- quality control of the first pallet received via air freight (completed)
- ramp-up of mass production (completed)
- first shipments by sea from the Shanghai factory to France (completed)
Starting December 2022
- reception of the first container in France (completed)
- quality control of every single unit & announcement of individual ETAs for every backer (completed)
- first shipments to our Early Bird backers, gradual shipping of all reserved units in chronological order. (processing)
After having mastered the challenge of organizing the whole prototyping phase from a distance due to COVID-19, the conception phase of Osmose had been completed by 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 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.
In August 2021, we began to work 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 had shown that in order to guarantee an impeccable first mass production run, there would need to be minor readjustments and optimizations made in the production line.
At the end of 2021, the pilot production run was successfully completed and the first photos of the finished hardware with final esthetics were made available to our backers. At the beginning of 2022, the production of an initial batch with a small number of units underwent comprehensive real-world tests in our offices and studios. After minor adjustments, the production was finally launched at the End of February 2022.
Unfortunately, a new upsurge of COVID-19 in China, particularly in the Shanghai region, blocked our plan to gradually ramp up the number of units produced every day until the first batch of products would be ready for shipment via boat containers. Our factory has been shut down by the government authorities on March 28th, 2022 and the port of Shanghai is meeting heavy congestion, most probably leading to knock-on effects around the world. Therefore, it was with sadness that we had to inform our backers that the first deliveries of Osmose cannot be fulfilled in June 2022 as previously announced.
On June 3rd, 2022, we got the authorization to reopen the factory. After a post-lockdown phase of reassessing the situation and re-establishing the assembly line (tools and factory employees), the mass production could be relaunched in July. End of July 2022, the first pallet of products was imported by air freight to France for a detailed quality check during August, before slowly ramping up the production volumes in September and October. For the first time, our engineers are allowed to oversee the process on-site in Shanghai.
As of December 21st, 2022, the production is running steadily and the first batch of Osmose has arrived in France for first deliveries to backers. Backers living in the USA, Canada, and Mexico need to be served from a different batch that is expected to arrive in our US warehouse in February 2023. Step by step, we will be in touch with every backer in chronological order to collect the remaining balances before shipping from our warehouses in France and the US. To serve both Early Bird and Second Chance supporters, deliveries will carry on until May 2023 in North America and until June 2023 in the rest of the world.