Strategy Notes - 6 Month Plan of July 2011

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Strategic Summary

The focus shifts to the OSE Christmas Gift to the World 2011 - completion of infrastructure buildout at Factor e Farm - involving the construction of low-cost, super-insulated housing. The Kickstarter campaign is thus reorganized for the completion, extended field testing, and documentation of the Tractor, Soil Pulverizer, CEB Press, and Power Cube, providing a firm closure of our first main prototyping cycle of the base agriculture and construction infrastructures. To this end, we are recruiting a Fabrication Manager and Construction Manager, and producing a site survey and architectural plans - assuming a budget of up to $100k dedicated to construction. We are further securing a rental unit in Maysville to house 1-2 onsite participants. We further have a documentation team on site, consisting of 2 dedicaated people, who are working on full fabrication procedure documentation. We are currently securing our own server for video uploads, CiviCRM, and the ability to handle a large number of hits from Kickstarter. On video, we have almost 1TB of video footage from this production run, to be deployed to a remote video editing team - with a goal of professional quality instructionals on the CEB Press, Tractor, Soil Pulverizer, and Power Cube to be delivered as part of our Christmas Gift.

Immediate Action

  • Reorganize Kickstarter
  • Search for a rental unit in Maysville
  • Get Viveik in on the loop to secure architecture plans after July 20 survey
  • Secure baler/mower/rake
  • Recruit Fabrication Manager and Construction Manager - blog post
  • Transfer $60k donation
  • Define Job Descriptions for people desired on-site

On-Site Team Requirements

The basic team of 6 onsite at Factor e Farm includes these people:

  • Custom Fabricator
  • Master Builder - enables on-demand production of housing units on the time scale of 2 weeks for building a 200 sq foot basic living addition
  • CAD draftsperson
  • Project Manager
  • Open Source Agroecologist

Construction Manager

Requirements

  • General Contracting experience
  • Expertise in carpentry and basic proficiency in plumbing & electrical
  • Their own tools and a truck for transporting materials
  • Basic proficiency in cement work

Duties

Fabrication Manager

Requirements

  • Mastery of welding and custom fabrication operations
  • Familiarity with hydraulic fluid power
  • Ability to follow fabrication drawings

Duties

  • Buildout of workshop, living units, meeting room, kitchen, bathroom, and tornado shelter
  • Management and logistics guidance for the buildout

Open Source Agroecologist

Commonly known as an integrated farmer - with the addition of savvy in equipment operation and custom fabrication.

Requirements

  • Familiarity with tractors and their operation
  • Experience in hay baling operations
  • Experience in fruit tree propagation
  • Experience in forestry

Duties

  • Lumber production from on-site trees
  • Square bale production from on-site hay crop
  • Preparation

Intro

See also Factor_e_Farm_Infrastructure_Buildout_2011

Planning session with Viveik, results:

Using existing resources, we should focus now on infrastructure for the next 5 months until the OSE Christmas Gift to the World 2011: Tractor/Construction product releases + documentation; plus infrastructure build

Midcourse Correction

  • Kickstarter for Tractor, Pulverizer, Power Cube - Product Releases - for documentation
  • Do not focus on training as core competency - that can be done by anybody; we focus on prototypes and their documentation to enable such training
  • My primary job - identifying and grabbing people who are smarter than I, 3-4 hours per day
  • Development pace is defined now, could change any second
  • Leave production scaling to others, under the assumption that prototyping is funded otherwise
  • Definitely focus on product testing - field use in construction and agriculture duties.
    • CEB construction + soil pulverizer
    • Sawmilling
    • Baling
    • Trenching
    • Backhoeing
    • Cement mixing
  • Main addition - Sawmill of 3 day design + ousource to Sweiger?

Midcourse Expansion

Under the assumption that we identify a Fabrication Manager and a Construction Manager, I should be liberated to study baler/cutter/rake industry standards and outsource prototyping of the Sawmill - to largely complete the superinsulated housing option at minimal cost.

Timeline:

  • July 16 - completion of air-cooled Power Cube
  • July 20-21 - ETA for James Clark, surveyor, coming to Factor e Farm - Google Earth + USGS + Geological Samples
  • July 20 - ETA for Marshall Smith, construction logistics organizer
  • July 20 - Identify Construction Manager
  • August 1 - Complete Power Cubes and CEB Press
  • August 1-30 - Build of cement mixer (2 day), trencher (2 day), shakedown of backhoe; buy and shakedown baler,rake, haycutter; have Sweiger build Sawmill after 3 day design session ($4k + $5k labor)

Other

  • Texas Terry as fabricator lead

Construction Preparations

  • Shake down bucket

Team

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