Model Forum / General / Railroads / September 2007

Its not just China that has these problems. I used to work in Quality
Control for an American company based in the UK. We were put under a lot of
pressure to pass things which really weren't satisfactory. Management's idea
was the best Quality Controllers were the customers and if the product was
wrong they would send it back. Really it was a cost cutting exercise. They
even gave us the job of supervising the manufacturing process as well as
checking the final product so if there were complaints we would get the
blame. A chance of voluntary redundancy came up and I took it .

John

I seem to have missed this. What sparked the post?

Adrian

Unless of course its on the Thomas range.

Quite right. It could never happen in a British supermarket.

(kim)

I assume you are talking about the withdrawal of over 19million toys by
Mattel and the way that the media have not let the facts get in the way of
a good Chinese bashing story.

Mattel have now admitted that the recall of 18.2 million toys in the last
few days and the 4.4 million toys last november was not due to the Chinese
manufacturer which followed the specifications but to Mattel's American
designers who designed toys that "can shed small, powerful magnets that
when swallowed by children can connect across intestines and rip through a
child's bowels like a gunshot". This problem was known about before last
November as their statement says "the decision was an acknowledgment that
a previous solution -- adding glue to the toys -- did not fix the flaw
disclosed last November when Mattel recalled 4.4 million Polly Pocket toys
sold worldwide" Initially a spokesperson for Mattel had implied lead in
the paint was to blame for the withdrawals thus implicating the Chinese
manufacturers. However there now seems to be some doubt about this and
even the Daily Mail is now only claiming that a batch of 49000 toys were
involved.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=4753
91&in_page_id=1770

This batch came to the UK where the EU regulations allow zero lead in
paint for toys. Other parts of the world have different regulations and it
may well be that Mattel specified this cheaper lead based paint for those
countries and this batch was shipped to the UK in error. Even so
remembering that those of us who grew up in the 1950s would have had toys,
beds, cots etc with much higher levels of lead in the paint and would also
have injested higher levels of lead from exhaust fumes than in this batch
of toys was it such a big deal even if the manufacturers were in error
compared to the serious intestinal damage that has been caused by the
magnets as specified by Mattel.

I am not saying that there are not major problems including quality
control with the moving of the Wests manufacturing base to China which is
exaserbated by the great shame a Chinese feels by the loss of face by
admitting that he cannot do something. What I am saying is that this story
is not a good example as it shows the West's ability to design and specify
a safe product for children in a very poor light.

Alan

Modern manufacturing process are sufficiently accurate that "quality" is
almost automatic given adequate design. ie 99.9% of any product is of
marketable quality. A bad product is more likely to be caused by bad
design.

What the Chinese might be questioned on is in their material usage and
standards. ie such things as brass where phosphor bronze is required,
lead based paint where non-lead paints are specified and antibiotics etc
in food production.

Regards,
Greg.P.
NZ

Your information is out of date.

I work for a company that is very concerned with ethical sourcing and China
has a very good employment regime and generally high production standards.

Counterfeiting is far worse in other parts of the world.

That sounds like a rather biased and bigoted attitude.  One the latter point
alone one has to accept unreservedly that the quality of Hornby products
improved no end when production was shifted from the UK to China, and the
same was also true when Bachmann moved from Hong Kong to the Chinese
mainland.

I'm afraid with the Chinese you get what you ask for (so I've been told).
If you ask for something to be painted red - then it will be painted any
shade of red, using any type of paint.  However if you specificy a
particular shade of red, and state that lead-free paint is to be used then
that again is what you get.

John.

It's called Capitalism.

I used to work for a major UK communications hardware company, analysing
manufacturing test failures.  I figgered out what was the one common
cause of a *lot* of failures, so wrote a proposal for manglement on how
to fix it.  It was rejected.  Not because I was wrong, but because it
would have cost a small amount of money now to save a large amount of
money in the future.

Unfortunately, having share-holders seems to normally mean pursuit of
short-term goals (cut costs! release a new product!) instead of long-
term ones like ensuring product quality and encouraging the customer to
come back and buy more stuff in a few years time.

The truth is out and it gives the lie to your post. From the BBC
website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7006599.stm

"Mattel says it was mainly to blame

Mattel has admitted that most of the toys recalled in recent safety
scares had "design flaws" and that Chinese manufacturers were not to
blame"

MBQ