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Thread: Wood River plane recall?

  1. #1
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    Wood River plane recall?

    I went to Woodcraft yesterday,and asked to see one of these planes. They said that they didn't have any. I asked when they would. They didn't know,and said something was wrong with the steel blades.

  2. #2
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    No kidding...that is interesting. They haven't even rolled all the way out yet and problems already???
    Dewey

    "Everything is better with Inlay or Marquetry!"


  3. #3
    If true, that's a good sign - a sign they want the product the customer buys to be of a certain quality level or they're not going to sell it.

    Mike
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Henderson View Post
    If true, that's a good sign - a sign they want the product the customer buys to be of a certain quality level or they're not going to sell it.

    Mike
    Agreed. I see a recall as a good thing as the manufacturer has caught something that they feel shouldn't have happened and they are going to fix it.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


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  5. #5
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    I was at woodcraft yesterday also and they had all the woodriver planes. They looked pretty nice actually - they were not cheap planes (not priced super cheap either). I didn't try to buy any though. I'm interested if anyone gets more information on this.

  6. #6
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    Wonder why the stores aren't uniform on these planes? I didn't get much explanation beyond what I wrote above,as several customers were occupying the staff.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by george wilson View Post
    Wonder why the stores aren't uniform on these planes? I didn't get much explanation beyond what I wrote above,as several customers were occupying the staff.
    No idea, but it is common that recalls might only affect some batches of a product.

  8. #8
    The WC stores I've been to in NC (Matthews and Greensboro) had all of the plans on the shelf ready for sale. Wonder if it was a recall, or just a bad batch??? Sure would like to know.

    The planes do look nice, but I think I'll stick w/ LN or Veritas for now ... resell value is important and the WoodRiver name brand has already been ruined for me by some extremely low quality other tools they have released. Consistency is not there and they are ruining the name.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Henderson View Post
    If true, that's a good sign - a sign they want the product the customer buys to be of a certain quality level or they're not going to sell it.

    Mike
    A better sign would be a Quality System that allowed products to meet specifications before being shipped. I'll bet LV and TLN have a Quality system which ensures product integrity, but then again that does add to the cost.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Brad Patch View Post
    A better sign would be a Quality System that allowed products to meet specifications before being shipped. I'll bet LV and TLN have a Quality system which ensures product integrity, but then again that does add to the cost.
    You're absolutely correct. However, I bought an LN plane a while back that was defective. LN stepped up quickly and took care of it at no cost to me, including shipping both ways.

    So even the companies we consider "best" occasionally have problems.

    On another note, I was in Woodcraft today and they had WoodRiver planes on the shelf. The sales people said the planes were selling well - they had to keep getting stock from the back room to put on the shelves.

    Unfortunately, because of some demands on my time, I didn't have time to examine any of the planes in detail.

    Mike

    [Let me also add that the cost of correcting a problem goes up as the product moves down the chain. So if you find a problem in the design phase, it's not too expensive to correct. If you find it during prototyping, it's a bit more expensive to fix but reasonable. If you find it after you've started production but before any customers have bought the product, you have an expensive problem on your hands but you can deal with it. The most expensive problems are after the customer has purchased the product. Finding the customers, getting the product back from them and replacing it to the customer is expensive, and you take a hit to your reputation. No company ever wants to have a recall. Quality systems are cheap by comparison.]
    Last edited by Mike Henderson; 02-23-2009 at 12:35 AM.
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  11. #11
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    "Quality systems are cheap by comparison."

    Man, are you ever right about that. Too bad some business leaders don't understand this - think Peanut Corporation of America.

  12. #12
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    Quality systems are cheap by comparison,yes. BUT you leave out the GREED factor.When I started buying things from Woodcraft in about 1964,they were a whole different company as to what they offered. Everything was German,Swiss,or English.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by george wilson View Post
    Quality systems are cheap by comparison,yes. BUT you leave out the GREED factor.When I started buying things from Woodcraft in about 1964,they were a whole different company as to what they offered. Everything was German,Swiss,or English.
    Well, if you're greedy, you would use a quality system to avoid the cost of recalls so that you can make more money. A rational person (company) would not wish to endure the expense of a post sale recall.

    A company which is not concerned with quality and suffers the costs of recalls is poorly managed, not greedy. Companies with poor quality, both product and service quality, usually do not do well in the market. Business Week has an article on that in this week's issue.

    Mike
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  14. #14
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    Problem with quality is it's nearly impossible to measure. It's sort of like art, 'I don't know if it's art, but I like it". Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is all about the subject. I think the problem with many companies is they can't measure it, so they quit thinking about it. They aren't willing to make the leap of faith and commit time and effort regardless.

    Quote Originally Posted by David Keller NC View Post
    "Quality systems are cheap by comparison."

    Man, are you ever right about that. Too bad some business leaders don't understand this - think Peanut Corporation of America.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Jerome Hanby View Post
    Problem with quality is it's nearly impossible to measure. It's sort of like art, 'I don't know if it's art, but I like it". Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is all about the subject. I think the problem with many companies is they can't measure it, so they quit thinking about it. They aren't willing to make the leap of faith and commit time and effort regardless.
    Doing "quality" is a challenge because quality is a human defined attribute - there are no units of quality. The only way we can judge "quality" is to ask people what they think of a product.

    So then the question comes up, "Which people should we ask about the quality of a product?" The best people to ask are those who are about to make a purchase decision. Now you can't always do that so sometimes you ask some other people, such as the people who recently bought your product.

    The next best after that is probably the "opinion shapers", people who are interested in the product area and are vocal with their opinions, because someone might buy or not buy your product based on the opinion shaper's views.

    You also have to ask, "What is the definition of Quality?" For most companies, Quality is defined as meeting the needs of the customer. That definition includes all aspects of the product, including the cost, and allows any company to make a quality product - companies making lower cost goods as well as companies making higher cost goods.

    A lagging measure of quality is the success of the company in the marketplace. That's not a great measure because it's not forward looking.

    There's a lot more but the important point is that quality is not something you can measure with some physical instrument (like size). It's the opinion people hold of your product and/or service and you can measure that.

    Mike
    Last edited by Mike Henderson; 02-23-2009 at 12:09 PM.
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

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