Blog post #8
Hi all,
Hope everyone’s year is going well so far. We are working to get your Osmas out to you to make the year even better.
We sent out 80 Osmas this week, and got another 50 back from the anodizer that we will assemble and ship out next week. Manufacturing and fulfillment is continuing apace per last week’s blog post.
I wanted to expand on something I’ve seen a few folks mention in the Discord; namely, the QC (quality control) of the Osmas. Now that we’ve been fulfilling Osmas for the last few months, we have had some issues come up. I want to walk through them here.
80% of the customer emails we’ve gotten about issues with the Osma were with the straws and quick disconnect. It is a tricky connection and some folks have experienced the issue where they think the straw is fully inserted, but it is not sucking up water or only a small amount of water. We are looking into some ways to ameliorate this, including a marker on the straws to show when they are fully inserted. But the straws and quick disconnect do work; to troubleshoot this issue please try the following: Depress the washer on the quick disconnect embedded in the front panel of the Osma. Pull out the elbow + straw. Then, pull the straw fully out of the elbow connector. To re-assemble, push the straw into the elbow connector firmly. There are small metal “teeth” that will pull on the straw and catch. Then push the elbow connector + straw firmly into the Osma until you hear a click. You will need to use a fair amount of force. The straw will not be flush with the panel; there will be about 1/8 in sticking out. If you are still having issues, try testing with the length of black tubing as a straw. That should help you determine if the connection is broken or if it’s a straw insertion issue. For the recirculation straw, you press firmly into the quick disconnect to insert; to pull it out you depress the washer and pull the straw straight out. Do not twist the straws or elbow around to try to get it out—pull straight out.
Otherwise, two customers had damage to their Osma in transit, which we are replacing with new units and they are sending back the damaged units which we will use for testing and to send to influencers. We are not sending out refurbished units to customers; every customer receives a new unit.
One customer had a faulty quick disconnect, which we are sending a new unit to him. One customer had an incorrect attachment part used during assembly, so his unit was leaking. We are sending him a replacement unit. Six customers had power supplies that died; we sent them new power supplies but unfortunately this is a 3rd party part so we do not have QC control beyond testing that they turn on before we ship. We also had four customers who got either an incomplete or faulty set of accessories, which we shipped the missing accessories to supplement fully.
These are the issues we have seen so far. But I want to talk a little more about our assembly line and process, and what QC means for us. We assemble all Osmas by hand, in our workshop in Oregon. There is no factory assembly line, and none of the assembly is mechanized. We made this choice because this is a new product, and we wanted to start with a smaller run and have complete control over every aspect of machining, finishing, and assembly. It is more expensive to make products this way, but it also means that every Osma a customer receives has been hand made and tested. There is value to this that we stand behind. However, a downside is human error. We have an assembly line process and we test each Osma to make sure it’s running water through correctly, before we package to ship. But as seen from above, sometime we make mistakes. As soon as a customer apprises us of the issue, we will replace or fix. No one will be left with a broken or incomplete unit. But because these are all hand assembled, we can’t guarantee that there will be zero mistakes.
I will continue to update here on the blog with further issues that come up, and share the fixes. I understand how disappointing it is to finally get your Osma and have any issues at all; we are sincerely sorry for that and are working hard to avoid any future errors. If you have an individual issue, please email support@drinkosma dot com.
Best,
Shannon
Hope everyone’s year is going well so far. We are working to get your Osmas out to you to make the year even better.
We sent out 80 Osmas this week, and got another 50 back from the anodizer that we will assemble and ship out next week. Manufacturing and fulfillment is continuing apace per last week’s blog post.
I wanted to expand on something I’ve seen a few folks mention in the Discord; namely, the QC (quality control) of the Osmas. Now that we’ve been fulfilling Osmas for the last few months, we have had some issues come up. I want to walk through them here.
80% of the customer emails we’ve gotten about issues with the Osma were with the straws and quick disconnect. It is a tricky connection and some folks have experienced the issue where they think the straw is fully inserted, but it is not sucking up water or only a small amount of water. We are looking into some ways to ameliorate this, including a marker on the straws to show when they are fully inserted. But the straws and quick disconnect do work; to troubleshoot this issue please try the following: Depress the washer on the quick disconnect embedded in the front panel of the Osma. Pull out the elbow + straw. Then, pull the straw fully out of the elbow connector. To re-assemble, push the straw into the elbow connector firmly. There are small metal “teeth” that will pull on the straw and catch. Then push the elbow connector + straw firmly into the Osma until you hear a click. You will need to use a fair amount of force. The straw will not be flush with the panel; there will be about 1/8 in sticking out. If you are still having issues, try testing with the length of black tubing as a straw. That should help you determine if the connection is broken or if it’s a straw insertion issue. For the recirculation straw, you press firmly into the quick disconnect to insert; to pull it out you depress the washer and pull the straw straight out. Do not twist the straws or elbow around to try to get it out—pull straight out.
Otherwise, two customers had damage to their Osma in transit, which we are replacing with new units and they are sending back the damaged units which we will use for testing and to send to influencers. We are not sending out refurbished units to customers; every customer receives a new unit.
One customer had a faulty quick disconnect, which we are sending a new unit to him. One customer had an incorrect attachment part used during assembly, so his unit was leaking. We are sending him a replacement unit. Six customers had power supplies that died; we sent them new power supplies but unfortunately this is a 3rd party part so we do not have QC control beyond testing that they turn on before we ship. We also had four customers who got either an incomplete or faulty set of accessories, which we shipped the missing accessories to supplement fully.
These are the issues we have seen so far. But I want to talk a little more about our assembly line and process, and what QC means for us. We assemble all Osmas by hand, in our workshop in Oregon. There is no factory assembly line, and none of the assembly is mechanized. We made this choice because this is a new product, and we wanted to start with a smaller run and have complete control over every aspect of machining, finishing, and assembly. It is more expensive to make products this way, but it also means that every Osma a customer receives has been hand made and tested. There is value to this that we stand behind. However, a downside is human error. We have an assembly line process and we test each Osma to make sure it’s running water through correctly, before we package to ship. But as seen from above, sometime we make mistakes. As soon as a customer apprises us of the issue, we will replace or fix. No one will be left with a broken or incomplete unit. But because these are all hand assembled, we can’t guarantee that there will be zero mistakes.
I will continue to update here on the blog with further issues that come up, and share the fixes. I understand how disappointing it is to finally get your Osma and have any issues at all; we are sincerely sorry for that and are working hard to avoid any future errors. If you have an individual issue, please email support@drinkosma dot com.
Best,
Shannon