Van’s requires that within 30 days of receiving a kit, that you do inventory. Within that period, if you find missing parts, they will honor your checks and send parts out. I had been delaying our inventory check for as long as i could, and it was time to get going on the process. From the past inventory check of the wing kit, I knew that there were some things I wanted to do differently, but for the most part it was just about getting through the packing slip and verifying what they delivered. I had heard that the fuselage kit was much more diverse than the wing kit, so I decided to be specific about where the part ended up. I got a second shelf, and labeled each with their respective locations (Shelf 2, level 1 was S2-1).
Giacomo was on duty to help do the big unpacking. We decided to empty out the crate and lay things out so it would be easier to figure out how we were going to fit everything on the shelf. After a bit over an hour we were ready to actually start inventory.
With all the parts laid out, it was time for inventory of the big stuff. The new shelf was empty and ready to go! Nico and his friend Zoe joined for a very productive session where we went through all the major big parts. The next morning I started to tackle the small hardware. This is where the brutal counting starts. Sometimes needing to count hundreds of a single item. And if you lose count? Ugh. Unfortunately, I had to leave on Monday for LA so was thinikng that was it for this week.
But Wait! Uhhhh…the parts aren’t that big, and I’m going to be down in LA for a week…by myself. hmmmm…I’ll take it with me! So I packed it all up and off I went for many evenings of inventory counting. My previous use of a single (actually two) big parts boxes, with lots of different dividers started to break down with the number of different parts in the fuselage kit. Worse is that the kit had many parts where there were less than 10 items. I ordered a bunch of smaller parts bins. Ten to be exact, and each of them had 8 dividers. It worked quite well. I found that there were categories of parts that could be bundled together (such as AN365).
After completing the inventory check, I sent off an email to Van’s with the missing parts. All in all they did a good job and only a few parts missing. Looking forward to getting back to building the flaps! Until then… Happy Building!
2 comments
Good team work. It is much harder when you are 300 miles away. 😀. Extra points for Zoe. Giacomo and Nicco already have plenty of them 🤪.
I can help
Maybe ….in October !!