"Willing to pay extra for castings with better QA?" Topic

After spending the better part of the morning cleaning up six figures, I would definitely be willing to pay the cost to have someone check each casting, redo old molds, etc.--whatever it takes to minimize the time I spend before priming. Anyone else?

As they do at GHQ…

That's a terrible misunderstanding that quality adds to the price/cost of a thing.
It does not.
Post manufacturing inspection is the second-last refuge of a poorly run manufacturing process.
The last refuge of course is an "efficient system" to deal with customer complaints. Or a crappy system.

The first step is analysis of what causes the problem, and fixing it so it does not occur.
In the end quality pays for itself.

No, I am not a pie in the sky theorist on quality.
I worked for a company that applied these principles and had a run of 2 years with Zero defects. That was 2.5 million parts. Die cut and sewn parts for the automotive industry.

It is an excuse to say that "MY manufacturing process is DIFFERENT!"
Wrong. In the end, all manufacturing is the same.
And in the end, quality pays for itself in all kinds of ways.

We have had debates a few months or weeks back about the casting quality of certain manufacturers. Both are the highest priced manufacturers in their field, and both have had many threads on TMP about the persistent casting quality defects. The same complaints have been aired for years, and they have not listened. All they do is give the same excuses, which oddly enough other companies do not have. All one can say for them is that they have a robust defect replacement policy. And, oh yes. The highest prices.
Guess what? Far less than 25% of defects, throughout the consumer manufacturing industry ever get reported and replaced. The rest put up with it, and vow to not buy from them again.
Guess what number two? Companies WITHOUT the notorious defects of the highest priced companies are cheaper!

Both companies, and you know who you are, need to take their heads out of the sand, invest in some quality manuals and fix things.
And I hardly ever buy from them, unless they have unique figures that I "need".

So, to answer your question, NO. I would not pay higher prices for Quatloo Enterprises if I have bought crap from them in the past.

:-) OFM, I couldn't agree more--fix the process and you fix the problem.

My reason for proposing this is that the discussions you refer to all end up with, "No, it'll cost more money to get better castings, and I don't want to pay extra." I agree we shouldn't have to in the first place, but there you are--I'm willing to pay extra to have clean castings that I can inspect quickly, wash and prime.

Unlike you, I'm stuck in that I have definite ideas about how my 28mm castings should look, and unfortunately, Quatloo Enterprises are the only ones who deliver on that score.

Don't set the OFM off like that. It's one of his favorite rants.
Mine too for that matter.

Well, actually, it would cost more… a spincaster does not always produce 100% perfect models, so the number of models produced in a given time will (on average) depend on what percentage you 'pass' – and that will cost money.

Post manufacturing inspection is most decidedly not part of a poorly run operation – it is part of a normal operation. A run of 2 years with zero defects is obviously possible in some manufacturing processes, I never managed it!

Sadly, some companies ignore QC, and fortunately for us, word is getting around.

They'll need to either improve, or see their sales drop, eventually.

Yes … and I think most wargame stuff is underpriced – especially 15mm. Quality should no longer be an optional extra …

Phil

I just cleaned up 12 Calpe Uhlans, took me all of 5 mins, maybe. Just a few little extra bits from injection sites. Otherwise perfect models.

I pay a little extra for good models and not a problem.

Now I just finished 12-28mm OG Hussars fora buddy and it took me over an hour to clean up, and glue 6 arms on.

So, GarrisonMiniatures. Are you saying that the casting process cannot be improved upon?
Consider the variables. That is what I am talking about.Suppose a manufactures has a mold with 18 cavities to fill 3 blisters of 6.
What is the defect percentage?
Do you normally get 2 good blisters and one bad one? How do you treat the bad cavity? Do you write it off and deal with it?

All I am saying is that there are NO processes that cannot be improved on.
ALL manufacturing is in essence identical.

Jeez OFM…whatta way to kill the conversation… :)

Just remember, he works for Comcast. Puts any idea of quality control in perspective. If his posts are any reflection of his true feelings that job must be killing him.

Actually I don't work for Comcast. I am an independent contractor.

The more relevant part of my cv is that for 27 years I worked in the manufacturing sector.

Anyone offended by the factual examples starting with "The Fact…" should stop and figure out why the manufacturer should get a free ride for "bad" figures.

With all due respect to GarrisonMiniatures (and I owned a lot of Garrison figures (2nd hand usually) Back In The Day when I collected 25mm armies) I have a simple policy, a company ships me crap figures and I stop buying. QA is judged by what I get.

The fact that I could never depend on Irregular Miniatures to be anywhere near the proclaimed sizes (6mm, 15mm, and 25mm SF figures all were grossly oversize for the proclaimed size in my case) is why I will never open an Irregular figure ever again. Is that QA? Yes, if you claim a figure is a certain size the figure should be relatively close to that size in height. Buy a freaking pair of calipers!

And bad casts should not be shipped. Ever! That is sheer laziness and is inexcusable. I have a Foundry figure for Colonial Africa/VSF gaming where there was/is a bubble of metal at the end of the gun bigger that the miniatures head. I don't care if they can send a replacement figure. Their quality control was ty. They don't deserve my money because that one was obvious to my wife across the room when I opened the shipping container. That NEVER should have made it out the door. IU have too many other choices to accept shoddy work.

'So, GarrisonMiniatures. Are you saying that the casting process cannot be improved upon?'

Of course they can. All it takes is a level of investment that a cottage industry such as ours doesn't have. Likewise, I'm not saying ship out bad castings. What I am saying is that you WILL produce bad castings and that if you don't have decent quality control you WILL ship out some bad castings.

And all manufacturing is not identical. Some things are easier to make than others, some things have more 'random' variables than others – talk to figure manufacturers and they will tell you it's an art rather than a science. Why? Well, I've been using a spin caster for, what, 9-10 years? – and I've learned that every mould has it's own characteristics. Plus I have things like temperature variations – moulds heat up the more you use them. With some moulds, hotter moulds produce better casts, some moulds the reverse… some days a particular figure just doesn't cast properly, next day it might be the only one on the mould that does!

'And bad casts should not be shipped. Ever!'

Even with a reasonable quality control setup the odd miscast is liable to get through. They checked by people, people make mistakes. So the idea that you will never ship out a bad casting is nice in theory…

And frankly comparing casting wargames figures on a spincaster with 'Die cut and sewn parts for the automotive industry.' where your manufacturing process has produced 2.5 million parts is not really relevant – I would hope that a simple die cutting process on that scale wouldn't produce many failures – though if you had no quality control I'm not sure that I would trust the product muyself.

To me, it depends. If I buy a bag of 50 dudes for cheap, like Old Glory, I am not really expecting wonders (though the Old Glory stuff I've bought have been generally great).

If I buy smaller packs of 8, then I do expect them to actually be usable figures.

The few times I've had an issue, it's been corrected quickly so never had a reason to be concerned.

If I noticed that every pack had miscasts, I'd switch to another company.