PLAN B analog blog

In the past few weeks there has been some talk on the waves about
quality issues related to our products.  While I must comment that
most of these were posted by four or five individuals, it does not
disqualify their issues as invalid and has launched me personally into
a companywide Quality Assurance review which has resulted in
significant improvements to our standard processes.

The basic problem came up when we introduced the seven ELF modules. 
It taxed our employees and in the process of shipping over 148 of them
in three weeks, along with 60 or so of our standard products during
the same period,  we rushed a bit too much and this resulted in defect
escapes which should not have left the plant.

I keep trends of our defects and the top five during that period were:

1) bad cables
2) Loose hardware
3) Faceplate mares (very small mind you) due to over correction of the
loose hardware issue
4) Intermittant connection
5) Functional problems with the Model 10 self-cycle.

Let me address the corrective action put in play for each:

Bad cables.  We used to use a $20 hand crimper for making our power
cables.  We now use a $300 Panavise Panapress system which not only
assures equal crimp tension across the entire connector, it holds the
cable at a perfect 90 angle from it.  Since we've incorporated thisnew tool our cables issues have been eliminated.

Loose Hardware:  Cliff jacks....they're going to be the death of all
of us someday, I am convinced. One is the connection issue which I'll
address in a second.  The second is the fact that they do not have a
washer in their hardware stack.  They say it's not a problem because
the plastic shaft is slightly oversized to produce a firmer than usual
hold on the nut.  Sounds good on paper, but what I'm finding is when a
module ships by air, the ambient temperature in the baggage
compartment of the plane is cold enough to cause the plastic to shrink
slightly and the vibrations in transit at that point enough to shake
the nuts loose. To avoid putting marks on the faceplates from spin
tights (again, there's not washer to produce the gap required so that
won't happen), we only tighten the Cliff jacks by hand.  Usually
that's fine.  Sometimes however it's not.  TO fix this problem,
effectgive three weeks ago Plan B has made the expense of now shipping
modules in individual boxes, which allows us to pack then a bit
tighter, reducing the effect of shipping vibrations so when the
plastic shrinks the vibrations are dampened enough to keep the nuts in
place.  This one is hard to test.  Sometimes you've got to put
corrective action out there and wait for customer comments to show you
is it was effective or not.  So far, so good.  We've received only one
complaint about this sinc instituting this change and it was on a
shipment in which the modules were not in individual boxes.

Faceplate mares:  After giving my guys the word that people are
receiving product with loose hardware, they tightened them....too
much.  Sometimes this created small annular ring marks on the faceplates around the hardware which was over tightened. Ive now addressed that issue.  If you've received a product with this condition, let me know.  We WILL send you a replacement.

Now, the material we use for facplates is soft as far as aluminum
alloy goes.  When the faceplates are sheared to size by our
manufacture, sometimes small (I mean VERY small) surface lines which look like veins, appear on the surface of the faceplate.  You'll need a very storng light and a 10x loop or better to see these.  That's the nature of the beast and we cannot do anything about this.  Again... a very storng light and a 10x loop or better.  I tend to want to put this one into the 'NEXT!" file...but we have received comments from one individual on how shameful this is.  If it's any consolation,  give a good look at faceplates by any other manufacturer who incorporates spot annodized aluminum faceplates (this includes Livewire, Harvestman and Serge) and you will see these marking as well.  Again, the nature of the beast. 

Bottom line, the benefits of using spot anodized aluminum greatly outweigh this minutia of this particular issue (IMHO).  

Intermittent Connections (Cliff Jacks):  There are those two words
again.  There are volumes of information on this and other blogs about
the problem associated with Cliff Jacks.  As a corrective action, after pounding them for months the Cliff USA office has pledged they will no longer ship the jacks which have this potential problem and only ship the types which were desinged to integrate with cables other than those made by Cliff.  I'll go into more detqil on this in another letter, but this is the long and the short of it.  I've placed an 18,000 piece order with Cliff USA for these universal jacks to be delivered in 1500 piece monthly increments.  

There is an easy fix for these older jacks.  Use a small flat blade
screwdriver and press in at the detent on the outer band
ver-so-slightly and little by little until the intermittancy goes
away.  Please note:  the cheaper of the two Doepfer patchcords are
really bad.  It stems from the shape of the tip of the cables v. the
profile of the detent on the Cliff jack.  

Functional Problems Associated with the Model 10 Self Cycle:  This one
is more an operator issue. but here's the facts:  If you're running in
self-cycle mode, do not insert an external trigger.  If the module
that's producing that external trigger conforms to Doepfer's
electrical specs (ours do), it'll be fine.  However some products
currently available in Euro format do not, a matter of fct some are as
high as 12 volts (Doepfer spec is 5) and if those happen to run into
the Model 10s self trigger signal D4 blows up.

If you're unsure of the amplitude of the external trigger, the best
policy would be to not use an external trigger if you're self cycling
your Model 10. 

I want to go into more detail on the quaity issues, but I need to get
to work its a shipping day).  There were some other problems charged
to us recently though in which I must defend our innocence, including
a recent thread on the upper and lower gates of Model 13's not
responding identically, which is due to the way vactrols work. If you
want us to elikminate this problem, we have to start using another
means of opening the gate other than vac's and if we do tha, the Modle
13 will loose the wonderful ringing which profiles it's sound.

More when I'm able and thank you for being patient and continuing your
support of our products while we punch through our growing pangs..

- P