Compromising quality to meet demand?

I should not have lumped Japan in with South Korea and China in regards to quality and face.

Japan actually has a much stronger goal of quality than the other Asian countries. In the 1950's Dr. W. Edwards Deming consulted and lectured in Japan and taught the Japanese new methods of testing, quality, design, global sales and marketing. Japanese engineering and business embraced his methods and it revolutionized their whole business model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

If you look at Deming's 14 points in the articles, #2 is "Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. We can no longer live with commonly accepted levels of delays, mistakes, defective materials, and defective workmanship."

Unfortunately, I think only two of the BJD companies are in Japan!

Carolyn

 

I like your idea, Carolyn - but I would like to see it with something that tracks the user putting in the information so that there can't be one person with a grudge posting seventeen negatives for one company. I was thinking post your order number but it doesn't show on the results, so that you still have some confidentiality but posts can be checked. But I'm not sure if that isn't too personal. Logging the IP it comes from wouldn't stop someone from posting from multiple computers. Is there some other way that I'm not seeing that would help to keep it clean?

bta

 

I totally agree with the idea of having a poll or survey. DoA is global. People can login and see who's doing a good job and who isn't. If there is a cost involved, maybe it could be like a "consumer reports" thing, and if you're seriously considering making a purchase, you spring for a report.....
Anyway, my sister just got her Unoa. After how many months of waiting and excitement, she was very disappointed. Her Unoa was sanded poorly, so much so that there were large portions of "extra" resin that should have been removed, but was still there.
If the doll manufacturers know that someone is keeping score, the ones that care may take notice....

 

I guess some people don't research what's involved in assembling a Unoa kit. I think most of us who ordered Unoa kits knew that Unoas are shipped that way. Unoas aren't sanded poorly - they aren't sanded at all. It's part of what you have to deal with if you get a Unoa kit. You have to remove the sprue (the extra resin where the mold was filled) and you have to sand the seams. I was surprised by the difficulty of removing the sprue from the backs of the heels and the thigh ball, but not disappointed at all. It's unfortunate that the instructions are only in Japanese, but the first instruction has arrows pointing to the pieces that have to be removed, and we helped each other figure it all out. One DoA member (Kittywolf13) did a nice tutorial this time while she assembled her Unoa so next time people will have an easier time figuring it out.

I am perfectly happy with the service provided by Alchemic Labo and Crescent Shop. Gentaro Araki provides a quality product and he also delivered them on time - they said 6 months and we got them a week early, by Christmas.

Carolyn

 

I wouid be wary of prejudging a company's quality and customer service based on country of origin. Companies should be judged as individual entities--each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Also, I doubt there is a company out there that hasn't had some kind of customer complaints, even the Japanese companies. Volks, although rated very highly in the customer service and quality department, has still had their share of issues and there's lots of happy customers from Korean and Chinese companies.

Another thing to remember when looking at over all customer service records is that people will often report a problem, but many people won't bother randomly posting about a perfectly normal customer experience. If someone asks about a specific company you get people talking about their good experiences, but overall, the bad experiences people talk about on DoA probably stand out in memory more than the multitudes of happy customers.

This isn't to say that there aren't customer service/quality problems, but that it's good to pause for a moment and put things into perspective. I don't know how accurate a snapshot we always get of companies (unless someone is really crashing and burning).

 

I am not saying that every Korean or Chinese company is more interested in saving face than providing a quality product. That is obviously not the case. I am saying that I think face plays a big role in why some companies won't own up to shoddy merchandise and/or don't admit delays. I have dealt with some very helpful people from Dollmore, Leekeworld, Bobobie, Elfdoll, DIM, and some other companies.

When the first Banjis from Dollmore had the worst knees ever, I dealt with Lemonday. Dollmore modified the sculpt of the leg parts and provided replacement legs free to everyone who had ordered the first Banjis and shipped them free in any other package, even with someone else's order if you made arrangements to do that. That is service.

Carolyn

 

That's very true. I've seen it in all sorts of hobbies- a person or store has 1 or 2 bad transactions and hundreds of good ones, but the 1 or 2 bad transactions become common knowledge and really tint everyone's perception of that company... Even here, I can think of several "bad" Luts experiences people have posted, like the mismolded MNF leg piece and some incorrect faceups, etc. But think of how many hundreds of Luts dolls are on this forum! I'd say the large majority of Luts dolls seem to show up totally fine, but the company has a problematic reputation because there are SO many of their dolls owned by DoA members that more of these problem dolls pop up, and people usually make a bigger deal of a problem than they do of a smooth transaction. It's just human nature. : /

 

There are major issues with simply saying "Well, why don't they just hire more people?" beyond just the fact of having to pay more wages.

This is skilled labor. It takes time to train new workers in your company's specific techniques to get the results expected of your company. This is time your other employees have to spend on the training and supervising of the new employees (beyond the time the new employee spends being trained). The experienced employees need to spend more time doing quality control of items produced by the new employees, as well. (And this is assuming that you can find potential employees with a base set of skills that are relevant to what you're doing.)

Also, there is the matter of space and equipment. I'm not sure what sort of equipment the doll companies are using, so I'll use an example from my own job (sewing): We only have a finite number of sewing machines. When we bring in other workers, we still only have the same number of machines, but we now have more people needing to use them. So we have to schedule projects so not everybody needs the same machine at the same time. If a machine breaks (which they do. And especially when you've got a lot of deadlines coming up) we end up having to find other things for people to do that don't require the machines, even though the other projects may not have as soon of a deadline.

Why don't we just buy more sewing machines? Quite simply, we don't have any place to put them. The (giant) workplace has about as much equipment as it can safely fit. Also, it's only seasonally when we take on extra employees--the rest of the time the extra machines would just be sitting idle.

So those are other reasons why companies are reluctant to hire on extra employees.

And if you wonder "Why don't they just move to a larger space?" Larger spaces cost more in rent. Also moving is really expensive. Moving yourself from one apartment to another is expensive; it's even more expensive when it's a business with specialized equipment that needs special technicians to install it (ex. ventilation systems). And then, there would be a period of time where the company could not accept or fulfill orders because they were in the process of moving.

 

I just want to add one point, it is definitely more common to hear complaints or problems with companies that fill more orders vs the smaller ones which have less customers at this time.

This may not necessary because the smaller ones are "better"; but only because there are very few people who had dealt with them and you may not hear all the problems.

For example, if one of ten orders from the small companies went wrong you see one negative post here. And if you missed that post, it is like as if it never happened. But if 10 of 100 orders from big companies went wrong, you see ten threads and you would remember it.

I had bad experiences with small Chinese BJD company as well. I ordered twice and both times there were problems. They never took care it because it would cost them too much money to ship me replacement (they said so in the e-mail and asked me to fix the problems myself).

So for me, I rather try my luck with the more established company than new ones.

 

Might I ask what company it is, anavel?

I think the fact that there is a community of collectors sharing information about the quality of companies is a fantastic thing. Obviously, you have to take reports of problems with a grain of salt and you should research a company you want to deal with, not just write them off because of one bad report. But when people honestly communicate about issue they're having, even with bigger companies like Luts or Volks, it helps everyone to get an idea of where the company is going and how it is handling changes to the business.

 

I agree with the point that a few bad experiences impacts public opinion more than numerous good ones, but hey,
when you are spending hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars on a product, I think you should get reasonalble quality for the price you are paying, and expect excellent customer service if a problem occurs.

This isn'nt really a customer service issue, but instead a quality assurance or communication issue between the factory and the agent, but I will share a recent experience I had. I won't name the company, but recently submitted a preorder for a new release doll with a custom face-up 2 months ago. I just found out today the doll I ordered arrived with the default face-up and I would have to wait another 2 months to get another one. I opted to just take the default face-up and take a refund, which was fair enough, but since this company is not known for it's custom face-ups, I think I now know why. It is not heavily advertised or promoted by the agents that sell the brand, but nonetheless offered as a possible option.

Yes, this is the Christmas rush season, and this particular company has had tremendous response to it's Christmas promotion, and I understand mistakes happen...but this does leave a bad taste in my mouth for ordering custom face-ups with foreign companies in the future. I think I will opt to commission an English speaking custom artist vs. trying to communicate my desires through a middle person that obviously does'nt have a guarantee for being able to effectively communicate special order requests with the larger companies. Whether this was an isolated incident or not does'nt matter to me, what matters is I planned my purchase based on getting a unique, one of a kind product, and wound up not getting that. I have seen good reports about Bobobie and some other smaller companies that offer the custom face-up option and seem to have provided good results and satisfied customers, but wonder if that is the exception vs. the rule when trying to deviate from a default face-up order with most BJD companies.

 

It's actually probably a good idea- I know that differences in translation interpretations and poor understanding of other languages can be a really big hurdle when dealing with something as specific and personal as a custom faceup request. I'm actually in a way surprised that so many companies offer custom faceups when they've had so many problems with them.

 

LOL
I love this comment - you caught something a lot of people miss, which is that polite and helpful are not always the same thing. I remember discovering in Jamaica that "no problem" actually means "I don't have a problem so why should I care?" vs. "don't worry, we'll fix it." I've actually worked with some companies/people that I would consider brusque, but have had good results in the help I've gotten, while I've worked with other people (not in doll stuff thankfully) who speak wonderfully and carry a big stick to quietly smack me with if I complain.

Bekka the Alice

 

I dont know if this concerns the problem or is normal, but do most dolls have extra resin between there fingers, or is that considered shoddy work?

 

Depends on the doll - many BJDs (especially minis and smaller) have two or more attached fingers (fingers that are designed to be together) on one or both hands.

Carolyn

 

i think it's a case of some do, some don't. there are some tutorials around on separating fingers, if that's what you're talking about, or are you referring to big chunks of resin? XD if your doll came to you without the seams sanded i think you could expect resin between the fingers

i'm quite curious to see photos of how your doll's hands came to you actually, so i can compare to how completely/incompletely my own dolls hands were sanded ^_^ i'm new to this whole thing so i don't know what's considered normal quality.

 

Re fingers - You really need to ask people who have the same doll brand/size as you.

And one other note about the Japanese (which I unfortunately cannot find the reference to). One article I read said that many Japanese companies get around the problem of saving face vs good international customer support by pre-planning for every conceivable issue and having a response or action planned that will be acceptable to most customers. That reduces debate and saves face.

Carolyn

 

I would say as a general feel, that for the expense and effort that most of us put into aquiring our dolls, we have a right to expect higher quality even as they meet the larger demand.

Cheap, available, high quality. Pick Two.
In the BJD market we've pretty much chosen the availability and quality.