製作計画 | Seisaku Keikaku

Our pottery-making cycle does not begin at the wheel. It begins several days earlier, with a notebook, inventory numbers, customer requests, drawings, and a plan.

We normally spend about two to three days planning each monthly production cycle. In an average month, we make around 200 pieces. Before we begin forming, we decide what those 200 pieces should be: which forms, how many of each size, which clay bodies, which glazes, and which pieces need to be replenished.

 

Some of these decisions come from inventory and recent sales. Others come from custom orders, conversations with customers, upcoming projects, seasonal needs, or simply an idea we want to explore.

 

By the time we begin working with clay, much of the month's work has already been decided.

Our Process

Production Schedule

Deciding what to make before we need it

Everything we make is made by hand. Because our time at the wheel and workbench is limited, we try to eliminate as many unnecessary production decisions as possible before we begin. We want to save our attention for the decisions that actually require our hands, eyes, and judgment.

One complete production cycle at Arakawa Pottery takes about a month. This creates a problem: by the time we notice that we need a particular piece, it is often already too late to start making it.

 

For many years, we chased short-term demand. If ramen bowls suddenly sold well, we made more ramen bowls. By the time they were finished, something else was running low. Then we chased that instead.

 

We always felt behind.

 

Eventually we realized that this was not a good way for us to make pottery. A handmade production studio needs to look much farther ahead.

Today, our production plan begins before the year starts. We look at several years of sales and production records, not just the previous few weeks or months. We try to understand larger patterns—what consistently sells, how demand changes through the year, and how much inventory we need to carry.

 

In a way, we are trying to read the invisible hand of supply and demand through the traces it leaves in our own records. We cannot know exactly what someone will want six months from now, but years of data give us a much better guide than reacting to what happened last week.

 

From this information, we create a draft plan for the year and divide it into monthly production cycles. The plan is already largely in place before the year begins, and during the year we adjust it when necessary rather than starting over every month.

 

Each monthly production plan is kept in a spreadsheet. We record the forms we will make, quantities, clay bodies, glazes, and the work we expect to complete each day. Individual forms may also have specifications, measurements, process notes, ideas for improvement, diagrams, templates, or special tools that need to be prepared before we begin.

 

But numbers are only part of the plan.

 

We also have to plan around ourselves.

 

Over time, we have learned how much work is comfortable in a day, which parts of the production cycle require more energy, and when the workload should begin to taper down. A schedule that looks perfectly efficient on a spreadsheet is useless if Kathy and I cannot comfortably sustain it.

And we have another predictable problem:

 

Our eyes are always bigger than our stomachs. 😄

 

Kathy and I almost always think we can make more than we actually can. Years of planning have taught us that our own optimism has to be included in the calculation too.

 

Once production begins, however, the plan becomes very simple: we mostly follow it.

 

That is one of the greatest benefits of doing this work beforehand. When I sit down at the wheel, I do not want to spend my attention wondering whether we should make twelve bowls or eighteen, or which glaze they will eventually receive.

I want to look at the clay.

 

I want my attention on my fingers, the curve of the wall, the thickness of the rim, the movement of the form, and whether the piece in front of me is good.

A good production plan removes many of the decisions that do not need to be made at that moment, leaving more attention for the ones that do.

And when the plan works especially well—when inventory is healthy and we are caught up—it gives us something even more valuable:

 

creative days.

Those are days when we do not have to replenish anything. We can develop a new form, test an idea, make limited pieces, improve an old design, or simply see where the clay takes us.

 

For us, planning and creativity are not opposites.

 

Good planning creates room for creative work.

Inventory Planning

Keeping materials and finished work ready before we need them

A production plan only works if the materials needed to make the work are already here.

 

Because our production cycle takes about a month, we cannot wait until we run out of clay or glaze to think about ordering more. We keep inventory not only of finished pottery, but also of the raw materials that make production possible.

 

Clay Inventory

For clay, we track how many bags of each clay body we have on hand and estimate how much upcoming production cycles will require.

Different months may focus on different clay bodies, so our needs are not always the same. We look ahead at the annual and monthly production plans and estimate how much clay each cycle will consume.

 

We also have to consider supplier lead times and leave enough margin for testing, unexpected use, changes in the production plan, and normal production loss.

The goal is to have enough clay available that production can continue according to plan without keeping an unnecessarily large amount of material in storage.

 

Dry and Wet Glaze Inventory

Glaze inventory requires a different kind of planning because we keep glaze in two stages: dry glaze and mixed wet glaze.

 

Our dry glazes are blended by our local clay supplier according to our recipes. Because the supplier needs time to prepare the materials, we communicate our approximate quantities and delivery schedule several months in advance.

 

This allows our supplier to plan ahead while we coordinate glaze deliveries with our own production schedule.

The dry glaze becomes our reserve inventory at the studio.

 

Before a glazing cycle begins, we mix the amount of glaze we expect to need with water and prepare it for use. The glaze must be thoroughly mixed, screened, adjusted to the proper consistency, and allowed to settle before glazing.

 

We therefore keep track of two different quantities:

 

How much dry glaze do we have available for future batches?

and

How much wet glaze is already mixed and ready to use?

 

Some glazes are used heavily and need to be replenished regularly, while others may last through several production cycles. By looking ahead at the forms, clay bodies, and glaze combinations in our production plan, we can estimate what will be needed before the glazing stage arrives.

The cycle looks roughly like this:

forecast our needs months ahead → communicate with our supplier → dry glaze is prepared and delivered → we mix it as needed → wet glaze is used in production → inventory is updated → future orders are adjusted

 

Finished Pottery Inventory

The same planning continues after the pottery is finished.

Because a piece that sells today cannot simply be replaced tomorrow, finished inventory acts as a buffer between our month-long production cycle and customer demand.

 

We want enough regular work on the shelf that customers can usually find what they are looking for while the next batch is still moving through forming, drying, bisque firing, glazing, and firing.

 

Too little inventory keeps us constantly reacting to shortages.

 

Too much inventory creates a different problem. It ties up our labor, clay, glaze, kiln space, shelf space, and money in work that may remain unsold for a long time.

Our goal is not maximum inventory or minimum inventory. It is to maintain enough inventory to give the studio time to work properly.

In that sense, finished inventory is time stored on the shelf.

 

A bowl sitting in the studio today represents work that was planned and completed weeks or months earlier so that it can be available when someone needs it.

One Connected Supply Chain

 

Clay, dry glaze, wet glaze, work in progress, finished pottery, back-orders, and customer demand are all connected.

 

A shortage at the beginning of that chain can eventually affect what is available at the other end. A production plan is therefore not only a list of pottery we want to make. It also has to account for the materials, supplier lead times, studio capacity, and finished inventory required to make that plan possible.

 

Good inventory planning keeps materials, production, and customer demand moving together without forcing the studio to constantly chase what it has already run out of.

Templates, Gauges & Tools

Remembering the design

When we develop a form that we want to make again, we need a way to remember it accurately.

 

It is surprisingly difficult to reproduce a form from memory alone. A small difference in height, width, angle, or proportion can change the character of a piece—and clay shrinkage makes those calculations even more important. Our clay shrinks by roughly 12% from forming to the final firing, so every dimension has to be planned larger than the finished size. Because shrinkage happens in three dimensions, a finished piece can have roughly 30% less volume than the form we originally made in wet clay. When we return to a form several months later, memory alone is simply not precise enough.

 

For wheel-thrown work, Thomas uses gauges such as a tonbo to establish important dimensions. The gauge gives us a reference for height and diameter while throwing, so we do not have to continually stop and measure each piece.

 

For handbuilt work, Kathy uses templates, diagrams, forms, and other guides. A complicated slab-built piece may begin with paper or board patterns. For some forms, we make our own molds, supports, cutting guides, or simple tools specifically for that design.

 

We make many of these tools ourselves because the tool and the form often develop together. When we change the form, we may also need to change the template, gauge, or support used to make it.

 

Specifications are kept with our production records. Along with dimensions, we may record process notes, diagrams, observations from previous production cycles, and ideas for improvement. This allows us to return to a form later without having to rediscover everything from the beginning.

 

The more complete our records become, the easier it is to estimate the time, materials, and tools needed when we develop a new form. Past production gives us a reference point, even when the next piece is something we have never made before.

 

Over time, these records become a kind of working memory for the studio. Knowledge that once existed only in our heads can be carried forward, compared, improved, and used again.

 

These tools and records are not intended to make every piece identical.

 

Their purpose is to preserve the important decisions we already made during the design stage.

 

Once the basic dimensions and proportions are established, our attention can return to the clay—the pressure of the hand, the curve of the wall, the edge, the balance, and the individual character of each piece.

 

The tool remembers the measurement. The record remembers the process. The maker makes the pot.

Custom Orders & Communication

Making room for other people's ideas

Custom work usually begins with a conversation, not with clay.

 

We take a limited number of custom projects, primarily for professionals such as chefs, restaurants, Ikebana artists, designers, and others who have a specific functional need. These projects often involve quantities, repeated use, or a problem that cannot be solved by one of our existing forms.

 

For customers who simply want an existing Arakawa Pottery piece that is temporarily out of stock, we can often take a back-order instead. If the form, size, clay, and glaze already exist in our production system, there is usually no reason to redesign the piece as a custom order.

 

The first step in a true custom project is understanding what the object needs to do.

 

A restaurant may be thinking about portion size, durability, stacking, storage, and how a dish works with the food. An Ikebana artist may be thinking about depth, balance, the opening, placement of a kenzan, or the angles at which stems need to enter the vessel.

 

The most difficult part is often not making the pottery. It is communicating the form before it exists.

 

Dimensions can be measured, but even size and proportion are surprisingly difficult to communicate. Most people do not naturally think, “This bowl should be 7 3/8 inches wide instead of 7 inches.” They usually know whether something feels too large, too small, too tall, or too heavy when they see and use it.

Curves and angles are even harder.

 

Words such as slightly rounder, more open, a softer curve, or a steeper wall can mean very different things to different people. A change of only a small amount can alter the entire character and function of a form.

 

For that reason, we often communicate through a combination of measurements, drawings, diagrams, photographs, existing pieces, and prototypes. Sometimes it is much easier for someone to point to an existing bowl and say, “This height is right, but I want the wall to open more,” than to describe the same curve in numbers.

Whenever possible, we begin with a form we already know and modify it. An existing form already has dimensions, shrinkage calculations, clay and glaze information, templates, firing history, and production experience behind it.

 

A completely new form requires much more development. We may need to calculate shrinkage, make drawings and templates, build molds or supports, create prototypes, test proportions, and revise the design after seeing the first fired piece.

 

What looks right on paper does not always feel right once it becomes a ceramic object.

 

We also establish the practical requirements early: quantity, dimensions, clay body, glaze, intended use, delivery timing, and which characteristics must remain consistent. Handmade production naturally includes variation, so it is important to distinguish between dimensions that are functionally critical and variations that can remain part of the work.

 

Custom projects also need to fit into our normal production schedule. Because a complete production cycle takes approximately one month, we try to incorporate custom work into an appropriate upcoming clay and glaze cycle rather than interrupting work already underway.

 

Communication continues throughout development. For more complicated projects, drawings, prototypes, or test pieces may go back and forth before full production begins.

 

This exchange is valuable to us as makers. Professionals often understand their own field at a level we do not. A chef understands how food needs to sit on a plate. An Ikebana artist understands how stems need to move through a vessel. Their knowledge can reveal possibilities that we would not discover working alone.

 

Some custom projects remain specific to one customer.

 

Others teach us something that eventually finds its way into our regular work.

 

A successful custom piece comes from translating the customer's knowledge of how the object will be used into our knowledge of clay, form, glaze, and firing.

Explore Each Stage in Detail


製作計画 [Seisaku Keikaku]
Planning

成形 [Seikei]
Forming

加飾 [Kashoku] 
Surface & Decoration
 

焼成 [Shōsei]
Firing

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