BreezeBlog

With the New Year squarely behind us the team are busy producing components for the first batch of SleepBreeze Personal Coolers. Some of the completed units will be going for safety and EMC testing at Intertek, others will be going on display at exhbitions in San Diego and Geneva. The rest - assuming the tests go according to plan - will be going into our online store for anyone who'd like to own one! Well, that's the plan.

Of course after so many months of patient and hard work it was something special to take a call from Neil Campbell at BEC telling me that the first batch of moulds were in production.

"Erm, Neil...any chance of a photo for the family album?".
"Sure, kiddo!"

So, here it is.

Of course alongside the larger plastic, electronic and fabric components there are a host of smaller bits and pieces that also need sourcing. String being one of them. Drawstring for the carrying pouch, to be precise.

This was one of the jobs on last Friday - find a drawstring supplier. Now most of us thought the big question about string was "How long is a piece of it". However, one supplier managed to come up with a new twist....."How expensive can it be!"

Having Googled we found a suitable roll of string and got a price per roll. Instead of the usual "Add to basket" or "Buy now" button we were directed to a webpage telling us how the supplier was trying to avoid fraud. So to avoid fraud we should apply for a "Purchase Form", which, when completed and either posted or faxed, would result in the supplier returning a 2nd form for us to fill in our credit card details.

With me so far? Think you've solved the mystery of "whatever happened to all those Soviet shop assistants after the wall came down?"

Time being of the essence I managed to cut out one or two steps by phoning the supplier. They obligingly emailed me back a completed proforma with a price. And not quite the price on their website.

First of all they had added a "Small order surcharge" of 60% of the value of the string.
Then a fee for processing our credit card - about 10% of the value of the string.
Then there was a "Handling charge". 100% of the value of the string.
Of course, there was VAT to pay. Fair enough.
But this string was starting to look expensive after all!

Of course to make the invoice look bigger, the whole number was converted to Euros. Of course this made sense. After all both their business and mine are based in the UK, famous for using GBP.

Well, at least they raised a laugh in the office.

But many, many thanks to the gentleman I spoke to this morning from a string supplier on the Wirral who had the item in stock and despatched it to us within an hour.

Through our on-going support of the STAR-TIDES project we're extremely pleased to have been invited to display one of the SleepBreeze personal coolers at AFCEA West 2008

AFCEA West 2008 also marks, for us, a major goal fulfilled in that we have been able to provide a production line version of the cooler.

So, why are we there? Well, STAR-TIDES - short for Sustainable Technologies, Accelerated Research - Transportable Infrastructures for Development and Emergency Support (STAR-TIDES) is about sharing information and knowledge.

The major lesson learned post-Iraq is that taking territory is one thing. Holding it and reconstruction are something else entirely. So, in the future as much focus needs to be put in to stabilising populations post invasion as goes in to the taking of territory. Housing and utilities are one aspect of this.

Technologies, like the SleepBreeze personal cooler, like fuel efficient stoves, and like easily constructed shelters, are relevant to STAR-TIDES because they are affordable, low power, effective and transportable.

We also have to recognise that the logistics and the cost of providing accommodation for military personnel is expensive, complex and in many cases dangerous things to provide. Shelters need cooling. This takes fuel. Fuel has to be transported and paid for. Fuel supplies are often targeted by insurgents, costing casualties. So, cooling techniques that can actually save fuel have the potential for releasing cost savings and reducing casualties.

At a time when the UK population is being urged to renew it's covenant with their military forces we are proud to be offering a piece of technology which will go some small way to improving the lot of our service personnel when serving in hot climates.

AFCEA International, established in 1946, is a non-profit membership association serving the military, government, industry, and academia as an ethical forum for advancing professional knowledge and relationships in the fields of communications, information technology, intelligence, and global security.

We'd like to thank Coating Applications Group for their invitation to display one of the finished SleepBreeze personal coolers at Textiles at Work 08 - an event organised by the Performance Textiles Association.

The event takes place at:

Bournemouth International Centre
Solent Hall
March 4th and 5th 2008

Many thanks to all the team throughout our supplier base for their efforts getting the first batch of coolers in to production.

The first examples have now been sent for product safety testing at an independent test house. Understanding the precise requirement for these tests has been no small feat, so thanks especially to Jill and Tim Waterman and Morten Pedersen at Intertek for tackling this.

We look forward to hearing the results of these tests in about a month - 6 weeks time.

Some of our suppliers may be getting the distinct impression that they've seen the cardboard boxes that arrive in their offices before.

I think that my Dad and one of my uncles can claim to be among the first adherents to the phrase "Reduce, Re-use and Recycle". During the war - asking "which one?" can result in a clip round the ear - they used to send each other a Christmas card. The same one. First one of them would sign it, put it in an envelope and hand it to the other. Then...yep, you've guessed it, the other one would sign the same card, put it back in the envelope and hand it back.

So, sticking to the family tradition boxes of components arriving at our office are often piled in a corner, then, a few days later, pressed in to service once more.

I think our "most travelled" box to date will have been the one that went to NDU and The Pentagon, was FedEx'd to Thailand, the cooler taken out and replaced with Christmas presents by our intrepid field tester and sent back to us!

With the day approaching when we can finally begin shipping to customers (subject to satisfactory product safety test results) we've started working with our local packaging company - The Packaging Factory - to develop an environmentally friendly, cost effective box. Their original design drew praise during the assessment and judging of our entry in the Sustainable Business Awards. Now we have the "real" components to design the packaging around they'll be updating the design.