Quote:
Originally Posted by Solicitous
So how is this Astak's problem? If they are having these units manufactured by another company and shipped to Astak, should the manufacturing company not have some form of quality control in place to ensure there are no defects? Is that not part of the manufacturing process? I know if I bought a new car I'd want it to come out of the factory in perfect order and not require the car yard to perform a full test to make sure it was built correctly. I'm just asking your opinion being a business owner in warehousing and shipping, I'm not trying to start a flamewar or anything.
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It's Astak's problem because we're buying from Astak, not Jinke.
I'm not saying that Astak won't (behind the scenes) be having stern words with the factory. I'm sure that they will push hard to get some sort of compensation or credit for everything they have to do to remediate the problem. I'm equally sure that Jinke will push back -- they'll "compromise" in the interest of maintaining good relations, but it probably won't be anything simple like deducting dollar for dollar off the invoice.
We know that Astak was under tremendous pressure to get those colored units shipped. They were probably calling or emailing the factory every day to check on them and push things along. The factory could very well have done some sort of inspection but the units probably looked ok when they were packed. Of course, appearances are deceiving. A lot of the paint issues (including mine) seem to be appearing with time and/or handling -- neither of which would've been available in this case as they wanted to get the units shipped as fast as possible.
I think your car analogy is a good one, but keep in mind that even with new cars, people drive off the dealer lot with "lemons." That's why so many states have so-called "lemon laws" to protect consumers against getting stuck with defective new cars. And that's with a highly-mass-produced product that costs tens of thousands of dollars per unit instead of $200. Certainly you *can* have design and quality control that minimizes those problems, but you can only minimize them. There's always going to be a chance of problems cropping up anyway. (And, honestly, if you're designing for the low-cost entry-level end of the market, you're probably *not* going to invest as heavily in the design and quality control!)
For what it's worth, by the way, I've worked with factories in China and Israel. None were perfect, but I'd say that the ones in China were certainly not as bad as some people make them out to be! There are certainly companies here in the US that don't fill me with pride in US business, and I would not want to be prejudged based on their example...
Sorry for the loooong post!
