This is the EI Quazi UniBlog. I figured some of our customers might be interested in a little behind the scenes insight in to what is happening at EI. (Updated by Scott Ingham)
March 24, 2010
Brian is heading overseas to handle the coordination of a large spare parts acquisition. If all goes as planned it should take less than a month to coordinate the inventory and transfer to our warehouses in Belgium. Hopefully he can keep us updated as he goes through the warehouse.
March was busy. With large export shipments to Mexico, Africa, and Haiti we have been kept very busy. We have relaxed some of our webstore "rules" and are allowing more international transactions than in the past. With this comes some risk. If you have NOT done business with EI, we may require some order verification prior to shipment. If this is the case, please do not take it personally, it is just the process we must take to insure we are not dealing with fraudulent transactions. On the plus side, once we know who you are, the order process is very smooth.
A brief note about USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes. While these shipments are usually a little cheaper than standard Priority mail, THEY ARE NOT TRACKED in the same way as normal priority mail. Flat rate boxes are treated as normal bulk mail and we will not provide decent tracking information. For example "Billing Information Received" may be followed by nothing more until the package arrived in Australia 10 days later! (Actual case last week.) EI's default is NOT to use Flat Rate Priority Boxes.
This last weekend was a lot of fun at the Ingham household. We celebrated my sons 4th birthday. It's all about the trucks, Lego's, hotwheels, and pretty much anything that goes vroom! We set up an RC racetrack and everyone competed in the time trials.
On the Pinzgauer development side we had the manufacturer in to test fit the first fiberglass hardtops for the Pinzgauer. These tops ARE NICE! They have a little modding to do but we should be in full production within the next week or two.
On the Unimog 404 snorkel side, we received back the preliminary tooling quotes as well as the some feedback that we had posted up on the Benzworld and Pirate Sites. Unfortunately, the cost factor versus interest level is not viable on this project. Basic tooling was going to come in at $6000+ and it didn't appear that their was much interest. We will do a couple of prototypes for our own trucks, but will NOT be going into production on this item.
February 26, 2010
Holly Smokes, time flies. We have been adding a quite a few products to the store. Business is good, and we are staying busy. We've been working with a Hollywood studio on a Pinzgauer project. Filming has begun and we hope to see the results on the big screen next year. From the sounds of it...the Pinzgauers may actually get some significant screen time. There are also some SWEET development that has come out of the project.
Quite unexpectedly, we may be spending some time in March overseas. I will update the site as this develops.
January 18, 2010
Just returned from the long MLK weekend with the family. Barely beat the storms out of Donner Lake, prior to the 6-10 feet of snow expected this week. Had a great time and both my 3yr old and 6yr old can now claim to be snowboarders!
January 3, 2010
We took a much needed break over the Holidays. Spent lots of time with the family as well as spent a LOT of time working on inventory and organization here at the warehouse. Had not clue that I even had some of the parts that we found! We have a lot of product to get added into the store. We will continue on with our filming on a number of service bulletins later this week.
Considering the state of the economy for 2009, we feel blessed. A warm hearted thanks to our customer base. That being said we are hoping that things will turn the corner and start to come back in 2010. We know a lot of our tour operators have been hit especially hard, and are hoping for the best in 2010.
I sat down at my desk this morning to 60 voice mails, and a lot of web orders. As is customary when we are closed for holidays/vacation it will take us a couple of days to get caught back up. Remember, orders are not billed until they ship, and if we have your email address you will receive a shipping notification within hours of the package shipping.
In a nutshell - I'm ready to rock and roll in 2010!
Cheers,
Scott
December 2, 2009
Buried does not even begin to describe it..... It's only Kathy and I holding down the shop this week. Working on my call list, down to about 30 VM's to go. Not even looking at the emails right know. The first 40 replacement coils have shipped. Web orders are lagging about 3-5 days right know. Hoping to be caught back up by Friday.
November 30, 2009
Nothing like coming in from a relaxing holiday and getting hit in the face with orders/emails/voicemails! What, you all decided to wait until the Holiday to put in your orders and ask your questions?! As much as we get to bitch about it, we appreciate it very much. :)
The Petronix Coil Recall got underway today and it makes for a LOOONNNNGGGG week.
Currently running transports back from Colorado via Arizona, and outbound down to the LAX area this week. If you want to get free pickup/delivery on truck freight items give us a call and we can see if we can fit it in.
November 27, 2009
Wowza, as I sit here in my post Thanksgiving turkey induced bloat I'm looking forward to spending 3 more days with the wife and kids. In fact I promised them that when I left the shop Wednesday afternoon I wouldn't go back until Monday morning. Well the best laid plans. It took a call from an orphanage in Haiti to get me back to the shop today to overnight out some parts.
For reference the M180 cylinder head has three sizes of shim under the rockers...2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 millimeters. Crated cylinder heads DO NOT come with these shims or the rocker arms.
November 25, 2009
Brian headed for Phoenix for Thanksgiving. On the way he dropped #3 of 4 vehicles at the Studios. Do the math..he left EI in Vallejo at 1:00pm on the 25th, and calls me the 26th at 10am to tell me he is home safe for Thanksgiving...in Phoenix! The guy is a machine.
November 23, 2009
We broke out the video camera and I pulled myself away from everything else to film a new service bulletin on replacing the transmission output seals. We have a little more filming, some editing, and we should be good to get it up on the site.
November 2009
So the plan had been we would unload the containers and start updating the site with some of the new inventory and work the month of November getting things a little more organized. The best laid plans seemed to go up in smoke when EI was approached by a Hollywood studio to supply vehicles for a major motion picture. I'd be lying if I told you that vehicles have been selling in this economy, and more than likely you would know I was lying. So when an opportunity arises and it involves numerous trucks.....well most everything else started to take a second seat.
As Brian drove through the LAX area he dropped off another vehicle at the studio on his way home to Phoenix for Thanksgiving. We have one more vehicle and some support work, but we are close to handing this over to the movie makers. We are hoping to see some of our vehicles in an upcoming film.
October 26th. 2009
Let the fun begin. I just received notification that both containers would undergo a VACIS examine. No problem, this is simply an exam where the container is driven through a large X-ray machine. Pretty much standard procedure. However, after 3-4 days of no notice Scott was finally notified that 1 of the 2 containers had been flagged for a classification examination. The Inspector wanted to see 1 of the 6 New Old Stock cylinder heads listed on the bill of lading.
For those of you not familiar with this process, let me give you a little insight. Bonded Warehouse......Longshoreman Labor......$$$$$ Not only was I not allowed to point out the wood crate that said "ZylinderKopf" on the side, or give suggestions on the unloading and re-loading, I simply got the satisfaction of an Inspector stating "Yes, looks like an engine part!" But it gets better. When we had loaded the containers in Belgium we had loaded them in such a way that 1-2 people with a pallet dolly could easily pick up a stack of parts and move it to the door where a forklift could pick it up and unload it. Well the good ol'boys at the warehouse were using forklifts to drive into the container to load and unload. When crate combinations were just a little too tall, it was no problem to use a little hydraulic force to make the stack fit with the forklift! Upon arrival at EI for the final unloading the real fun began. All I can say is I am glad my pastor was not standing outside the doors of that container as he might have gotten a bit of a jaded viewpoint of one of his constituents....Scott was not happy.
September 2009
In Late September EI successfully completed a Military order into Africa providing parts for the Steyr 680, and Pinzgauer. This was our first exposure to the Letter of Credit process used by many foreign military's. The order was completed and EI received very positive feedback in regards to our very high order accuracy. Needless to say Scott was on edge as we had a substantial amount of money on the line.
At the same time EI's stateside inventory was running thin on many of our mainstay parts and needed to be updated. Scott, Brian, Charlie, and Michael headed to Belgium to work in the EI warehouses and pull parts. (We inventory most of our spare parts in Belgium as the overall warehousing costs are significantly cheaper than the Bay Area.) Scott and Brian have made numerous trips overseas for auctions and warehouse work. This year we had the opportunity of bringing along two local customers to join in the fun! Charlie and Michael were both good sports and extremely helpful. We mixed it up a bit with a couple of side trips to a couple of Unimog boneyards and a few of Scotts vendors/customers.
Shutting EI down for a few weeks while necessary, is also a nightmare on the return. We spent some time trying to catch up and continuing to finish a couple of vehicle projects. We didn't have a lot of time before the containers that we had loaded arrived at the port of Oakland.
