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Stocktaking dog beds

The year is just about over for another round of producing great dog beds. It is amazing how much “stuff” that is gathered here during a year of production. We have thousands of meters of fabrics sitting in rolls and mountains of stuffing. So that’s the basics, but once you start counting all the little bits, you end up with a big total. 15,000 labels, 13,000 leaflets, 5,000 poppers, miles and miles of overlocker thread etc etc. One doesn’t get used to the fact that in an ever growing business, the stuff gets bigger and larger each year.

It’s not my favourite pass time doing the stock take each year, but it has to be done and we always learn something along the way. I am far too tied to the office and this is one of the wide number of ways for me to spend time in the workshop discussing the quality dog beds etc. Handling the dog beds during this process is good because I am the closest person to this company, but at the same time I am a little distant from the products these days. When I take stock of all the luxury dog beds and the great fleece covers that come with them, I am able to cast a more critical eye on them as I don’t handle them every day. I see little things that can be improved whereas in the old days I would be too hands on to recognise that something could be improved on. Everyone in the workshop is a little bit in a hurry everyday to take that step back and assess the details of the waterproof dog beds. Sometimes I mention a small detail that could be improved and most of the time everyone, who makes the dog beds go “Oh yeah, that might be nice”. We try lots of new things and some work really well, while others are not good enough for our quality dog beds.

Everyone who makes dog beds here are very close to Tuffies. Apart from a steady addition of new staff over the years, everyone has been here for AGES. We are like a family at Tuffies and hence everyone knows the company and the products inside out. When new people are added, it is important to get the right person, so we all take part in finding the right next addition to the workshop or office. The chemistry basically has to be right and then the skills of making our top quality dog beds come along with that too. I think I can honestly say that we all look forward to going to work every day.