We thought we'd better respond to Bill's original post, so here goes..
'One…Blaming the caster seems like a bit of spin to me.
According to this the caster tried something and it didn't work. Fine. His fault. But you still sold the products anyway knowing (or at least the caster knew) that his "trial" was faulty and he was providing miscast figures to be sold to the public.'
Quite right they shouldn't have got that far but we didn't realize.
This would normally be spotted but wasn't for some reason………. We can't supervise every pack personally. We have taken the responsibility and have offered restitution, which is all we can do for the packs that have gone out.
'Where is the quality control? When your name is on the package, it's your responsibility to see that the product sold is the best it can be. Period.'
Yes, but when you have around 1500 packs (9000 figures/horses) going out a week it's tough for us to personally check each box. We work from home and are always busy.
'Who packs these little boxes? Could they not see what they were
packing? And why didn't they say something?'
Well, she does normally spot anything like this.
'Second. Alan states that he spot checked 11 boxes and found that he
could bend the legs back into the correct shape 2 or 3 seconds. I would love to see him do that with what I got. Or what 45 thDiv got. It took me quite some time, with 2 pair of pliers, just to get the horses to stand up straight. I'm having a very hard time accepting that one.'
I am telling the truth, it took 2-3 seconds on the horses with the ‘wavey' legs, I'm not talking about the crumped ones.
'Third Worms. Alan states that worms are necessary to the casting process. Really, because I just received AWI Cavalry from Fife and Drum and
there's not a worm to be found anywhere. TMP'ers buy all kinds of lead. Are they all loaded with worms? Please advise.'
As I pointed out in the email the metal we use is different from most other manufacturer's it has different properties (having under 4% lead content) and is more durable (and, as mentioned before, is more expensive) but because of the amount we produce (see above) it does need venting(i.e. worms) otherwise you'll have parts that don't fill. It's a bit of a catch 22 predicament. If we didn't produce the amount we do, we could go to Griffin or the German company (who are fantastic), but I don't think they could keep up with our new releases and the stock………although I may be wrong.
Now if we tried to remove the worms before sending them out, your order would be late and that would have a knock on effect down the line to all the other orders when you consider the amount we're dealing with. I don't think customers would be happy.
'And finally. The blame appears to be shifted squarely on the shoulders
of the caster. "He threw up his hands……"'
If you would like to read the technical bit again, I blamed myself and the mould maker. He did literally hold his hands up and he did want me to mention it, honestly. After our conversation with him, it's something he won't do again.
'Again, easy to blame him, but you accepted his miscast pieces and sold them. Who's looking out for quality? A question that begs to be answered. What about the guy who unpacked the castings after they arrived from
the casting house? He didn't notice, either? He didn't say anything to anyone? Again, why not?'
I think we might have covered this before. In any delegated job, you can't deal with a problem until it surfaces- it's surfaced, now we're dealing with it.
'When I was working in my former life, I had more that 60 people to supervise. I knew what everyone of them was doing everyday. I never signed anything without reading it. I often bounced paperwork back as unacceptable, because I would not sign my name to a document with
spelling, grammar or content errors. In short, I supervised. Now, I accept the fact that the twins are crazy busy and can't do everything or be everywhere. That's why you hire a supervisor to run the day to day operation. Perhaps that's the answer. And if you already have one, well, he let you down, didn't he/she?'
We are a tiny firm, we have no full time staff. We out-source the metal and plastic casting and moulding. We have had no business/management training and I'm proud to say we never will. We're doing it for the love of it, not for world domination. We like to keep our prices affordable for the general public (one of the main reasons for starting the plastic side of the business) so we have a minimal staff. Until this summer this was a hobby for us. We are still busy with loads of other things so we want to keep a ‘cap' on the company. So investing in more staff is not the on the cards. However everyone at the moulding and packing end of the things are on their toes now. Out of the orders going out over two months we get less than 1% returns though miscasts.
'But, in the end, it's your name on that box and it's your reputation that takes the hit when something like this happens.'
Don't we know it!
