Quote Originally Posted by warriorpoet View Post
gabe,

I love what your company does. Y'all innovate like mad, listen to your customers and adjust according to end-user feedback in a way few others do. I also appreciate the realities of the modern design and manufacturing business.

Here's the way I see the perceived quality issue: you operate in a unique, high-expectation marketplace where perception is reality. to compound the problem, most water-coolers do it as a hobby or view it as a luxury. The problem is, even if your micropin bases perform like crazy (and all testing I've seen confirms this), the visual flaws bring up quality concerns that may or may not be warranted from a performance standpoint.

Where far-East manufacturing is concerned, I've seen some AMAZING machining done, so the country of origin is absolutely a non-issue. I've seen about a dozen companies move to Korean or Chinese manufacturing, and they all start the same way- substandard visual defects. Where they go from there, and the level of success ultimately attained is generally directly related to the amount of defects the design firm is willing to accept. The successful ones I've seen solve the visual issue within one or two product shipments.

Best wishes to you and Swiftech on your transition. I hope to see the rapid improvement I'm sure you expect, and look forward to purchasing more product from you within the next generation.
you are right on the button. excellent comments. the human factor is the most critical. how many times do i have to tell ppl to pay attention to details? on the other hand, I push for high production to satisfy demand. so it's a balancing act.