Do China Lionels Get ADEQUATE TESTING Before Packaging?

In the postwar period Lionel and AC Gilbert test ran all the engines & accessories when they came off the line.  Too bad that's history.

For anybody who has ever had dealings overseas when it comes to Manufacting. Any product that is made will have a failure rate no matter how much you test it before delivery. 

 

The failure rate is always built into what you manufacture and you prepare for it. 

 

I believe if the trains were made right here in the USA the failure rate would be the same. 

You know no matter the name lionel,mth,kline,wbb,atlaso.No matter the hobby you are gonna get a dude.I think every body has had a locomotive that didn,t preform like it should.I myself had gotten a mth impearial railking santa fe northern.Talk about a headace the now tetherless locomotive.Had to send it away to have it fixed.Came back with a note saying factory defect it was now fixed.I thought about sending mike wolf a note saying."You know mike your company makes great trains.Old saying if its note broke don,t fix it.You don,t have to try to compete with lionel on every thing.I not bothered by the tether one bit.This wirelss thing is to fragle for my taste.As the lion in foodlion ads says"Thats just my 2 cents."

You're not the only one in the camp. There was a bad battery(ies) in one of my Legacy controllers. Never had a problem with a Legacy engine.

Looks like there are two of us then, we are gaining in numbers! I have had a couple of minor things, but never had to return anything or send anything back for repair that I have purchased new. Now, the used items I have purchased are a different story, got a couple of those I wish I hadn't purchased.

After General Mills took over Lionel in 1985, production was moved to Mexico for a brief time where workers there worked cheaper.  The output left much to be desired in terms of quality.  Production left Mexico not long afterward, also based on the back-lash from pro-American manufacturing advocates.  Comparing the failure rate there with China and also U.S. would be extremely interesting--not from the standpoint of any chauvinistic attitudes as some have suggested, but rather to see what was the reason for those differences, if any.  It seems to me that Lionel wouldn't leave Mexico and go to China if it was just a question of the pro-American advocates.  There must be quality control issues involved here.  So I don't think failure rates are irrelevant in Lionel's decision to move its production to different countries. Nor do I think they would be the same regardless of where Lionel made trains; otherwise, they would have stayed in Mexico.  But then again, maybe the Chinese labor is cheaper than Mexican labor which could be a motivation to shift production there, regardless of quality control. 

 

 

GG-1fan,

 

To be clear, General Mills took over Lionel train production in 1970 through their MPC division, not in 1985.  Also, the year production moved to Mexico happened in 1983, with production being phased back as part of the negotiations with Richard Kughn in 1985.

Based on my experience, no.

 

Neither do MTHs.  

 

I think 3rd Rail's do.

John is correct!  Production was moved in 1983 and not 1985 as I had stated.  The comma in my posting should have been placed after the word Lionel in the first sentence rather than after 1985 as well.  I believe that General Mills took over in 1969 when the so-called golden era of Lionel ended.  I think Kughn bought out General Mills in 1985.  In the interim, during the latter part of General Mills reign, Mexico had the production briefly. Thanks.

Hell no mth and lionel just push them out as fast as they can.. Quality is a thing of the past .. Go to lowes and buy something everything made is so cheep. Being in the custom cabinet business and people bring me  press board cabinets to cut down to fit over there fridge and there fronts falling off and asking us to fix.. Then they look at our real wood cabinets and say we should of bought from us. 

I can only post my experiences, and they speak for themselves:

 

MADE IN USA: NO ISSUES-

 

Lionel Century Club S-2 Turbine

Lionel PW 2343

Lionel PW 2353

Lionel 212 Santa Fe Alco AA passenger set

Lionel Erie Alco AA's

Lionel UP Alco AA's

Lionel Texas Special Alco AAs

Lionel Scout Set

 

MADE IN CHINA: ISSUES-

 

MTH LIRR MU Set #1

MTH PS3 LIRR MU Set #2

Lionel Legacy WP F3 AB

Lionel TMCC NYC S-2

Lionel PWC TMCC Texas Special AB

MTH PS2 Premier LIRR DD-1

MTH PS2 RK NYC Hudson

Lionel PWC GG-1 Congressional

Lionel TMCC SP SD40-2

MTH PS2 RK NYC Rectifier

 

MADE IN CHINA: NO ISSUES-

Williams GG1

Williams B&O F3

MTH PS3 LIRR RS1

Lionel PWC Southern F3 ABA

MTH PS2 Premiere NYC 4-4-0

Lionel Legacy NYSS PRR F3 AA

MTH PS2 RK NYC 0-4-0

MTH LocoSound NYC Box Cab Electric

 

Summary:

My MADE IN CHINA Trains have a 60%+ ISSUE rate.

My MADE IN USA Trains have 100% NO ISSUES.

 

Nuff Said

 

 

1969 saw the Lionel Corporation's final production of O gauge trains.  General Mills' first Lionel catalog & product line was introduced in 1970.  Richard Kuhn started negotiations to purchase Lionel from Kenner-Parker in 1985, the deal wasn't completed until around April 1986. 

China is really having it's troubles with quality control. Petsmart and Petco are pulling all their Chinese produced pet products because they have killed, by their estimation, 1000 plus dogs and cats. The horror stories go on and on...

 

By the way, postwar Lionel had quality issues from time to time, but they usually were more of a cosmetic nature and did not affect the operation of the trains.

It is not where an item is being produced, but the manufacturer that is producing it.  Look at the quality items that 3rd Rail and GGD are making in China.  Apple makes MOST of their products in China.  How many times have you heard about problems with imac, ipad, ipod or iphone right out of the box.  I know lots of people including myself that own their products but I have NEVER know about any Q/A problems.  YES, Apple products are expensive but the old sayings "you get what you pay for" and "nobody ever regrets buying the best" certainly apply with Apple.

 

So... if you want better Q/A it comes with a price.

http://m.bbc.com/news/blogs-ne...m-elsewhere-30694663

Maybe this approach will help.

But on a more serious note. It isn't a matter of testing each unit and it isn't "china"and sadly, it isn't just model trains.
It's a decision that outsourcing is the answer. We have all been indoctrinated, as to why outsourcing is the answer. The problem is the question. The questions should be: Do I care enough about my product to own the process? Do I care enough to reclaim responsibility for the product? And finally, will the market support the investment needed to back away from a business practice that seems to improve shareholder value, while consumers are willing but inferior products and will overwhelmingly continue to buy the cheaper products of my competitor, while I blaze this path.
While the discussion here revolves mostly around a $2000 toy and wouldn't seem to fit this arguement, it does. Manufacturer X isn't set up to run a small specialty plant when they have cant share the overhead with the plant making my next "Peanuts" boxcar.
The biggest risk to companies outsourcing, is that when the change is made to own the whole process, who will that owner be? The suit in an office, in a foriegn country, or the suit in an office down the street from the manufacturing floor?
To end with the real question. Do I want to be have a company and a global economy in 50 years, or just this business cycle?
And now, back to work, before Im outsourced!

Good points, Marty R.

OK, John, I give up!!!!!!!

You are the professor emeritus of Lionel history.

Best wishes.......

As far as paying for good QC, I thought that we had done that in this high priced Big Boy.But it appears to be true that these matters will not soon be resolved. We just have to keep slugging away to correct defects as they appear.

 

I think that any owner of a Big Boy will agree that it is a marvel in most ways. It does take great effort to produce such a piece on a production line basis. I  was hoping that quality would be high on this high end Lionel item, however.

 

 

Bob C.

 

Bob C.

I think the forum needs a new topic: China
Alan

Thanks to all for all the good input.

 

Bob C.

Not near enough.

 

Two different Legacy controllers since October one received with broken plastic cradle component replacement unit had whistle slider break off from minimal use and not dropped.  Could go on but don't want to raise other's ire.

There is however a difference on how 3rd Rail and Lionel handle issues when the engines are in the hands on the customer.  If you call up 3rd Rail with a problem, Scott would likely say take off the shell and see if there's anything loose.  If you can't find anything wrong then send it back to us.  Lionel, on the other hand, would likely say if you take off the shell then you void the warranty.  This causes needless back and forth shipping of engines (and the shipping risks encountered) on what sometimes are simple fixes.

 

Jim

David, you are correct that the quality of a product (or the failure rate) is how something is produced and built. One of the things people throw around with quality are terms like QA and QC, and assume they mean the same thing. QC generally implies quality control as in inspection, which means visually looking at the product, testing it out, etc.....and as a means to quality, it inherently has a failure rate, that even if you tested every unit coming off the line, would still have failures (among other thing, such testing does not pick up marginal quality parts and assembly, like the solder joint that worked great at the factory, but by the time it got to you, had shorted out).  QA or quality assurance is not based on inspection, it is based on the process of designing and building it, and with QA you can get failure rates down very, very low, in part because the weak links in the process are continually analyzed and taken out. For example, 40 or 50 years ago the standard defect rate per 100 cars was probably in the neighborhood of 400 defects/100 cars, these days it on average is under 1, and most of that is do to to QA work, not inspections (to give you an idea, the US car industry used to take 50% of its floor space and time rebuilding cars coming off the line that failed inspection;companies like Toyota didn't have a rebuild area). 

 

As has been talked about ad infinitum on here, the way the trains are produced does not lend itself to QA work, they are using basically the same techniques they did in the 19th century, it is a low cost production based around low cost labor, and not to mention it is based in contract work which has a lot less incentive towards quality (basically, SLA's aren't worth the paper they are written on, if a company goes to the factory that makes their product and says "you are making bad units", they will smile, say "I am sorry, we'll do better" then laugh behind the guy's back, because they know darn well that shifting production to another factory would be so expensive, and disruptive, they won't do that, and if the company tries to enforce financial provisions of the SLA, the factory manager will basically tell them to pound sand...). 

 

"Finally, people talk about the cost of quality control but at the end of the day people do not pay for quality". That is a very simplistic statement, and it is not true, and has been proven time and again. People will pay for quality where they think it is important, and generally, it has to do with goods that are more expensive. People buying a cheap coffee pot from Walmart have the expectation that if it burns out, it was cheap enough they will buy another one, but if they bought a 200 dollar fancy coffee maker, they would be ****ed off if it burned out. 

 

Expectations of quality and people's reactions to it depend on the product and their need for it and how they see it. People buying a cheap car, like a Kia, have different expectations then buying something costing 60 grand, especially with quality (it is why Mercedes sweated bullets when Toyota and Nissan entered their domain with Lexus and Infiniti, because their quality was crap compared to those two, they knew they couldn't get away with what they had been getting away with, now that they had competition).  The answer there is kind of similar to what the O gauge manufacturers have, they don't worry about quality because there isn't any competition there, much as MB didn't worry about their build quality until they faced it.

 

I think with three rail trains people grumble and complain, but because if they want the units (which kind of remind me of MB cars 20+ years ago, nice looking, can drive well when working properly, but also could be a royal pain in the you know what) with the scale detail, neat paint, command control, etc, etc, it is the only game in town, and people apparently are not willing to vote with their wallets, so not a lot is going to be done on the quality front, for a lot of reasons.

 

On the other hand, this doesn't mean people don't care about quality. The big three, especially GM, had as one of their mantras that no one bought cars based on quality, and to a certain extent that was true, back in the so called good old days, they hyped the tail fins, or the big engines, or the great air conditioning, or the fancy roof, and none of them had particularly good quality. In the context of the times, it also was true that people didn't care, because people often traded in cars to get a new one before it started falling apart. The problem was, as the big three found out, is when people saw they had other options.Thanks to the 73 oil embargo, when the price of gas skyrocketed, people bought cars from Toyota, Honda and Nissan(nee Datsun),because they were fuel efficient primarily, and discovered that the cars often ran and ran and didn't have things falling off them and so forth (compared to today those 70's Japanese cars were not that great, but to the times they were).....and quality became an issue.

 

The analogy for the three rail trains we are buying is very much to me like the cars of the late 60's muscle car era, we might grumble about things on the cars, but if you were into them, you took the good with the bad because it was the only game in town. Given the kind of small runs we are talking about, here I am talking the expensive engines and such, between the factory and when they arrive here they probably are tested in significant sample sizes (lot easier to test 10% of a run of 2000 then 2000000), but it probably won't help much, because even with that a lot is going to slip through, and the inspection won't pick up the marginal stuff that is probably part and parcel to a lot of these failures, only process changes would pick those up, and with this market, not likely to  happen, given that the factories operate on a low cost model with basically no financial incentive to increase quality (the cost of improving quality being greater than the losses from bad quality), it isn't going to happen. 

 

I have to add that I find some of the posts that basically tell people complaining about issues with these engines and such to stop complaining is a bit ridiculous, they have a right to complain, if they buy something and it is defective they have every right to be irritated. If the people saying this have had great experiences with what they buy, say so, that is great, but on the other hand that doesn't mean others don't have a right to complain as well, if I spend a lot of money on something, I do expect it to work, and while I have no doubt that Lionel and MTH and Atlas and so forth do try and stand behind their product, it is a pain in the butt to have to go through the process of conta cting them, and either getting the parts to fix it myself or having to send it back, then waiting to hear if it can be fixed, then waiting for it to be repaired and sent back. Telling someone they don't have the right to be annoyed is basically telling them that as the customer, they should shut up because we should all be grateful that the companies are making trains, it is saying they are doing us a favor, when they are a money making business and in that model the customers are the ones doing them a favor, it isn't the old Vanderbilt "The customer be D***ed", it is McAdoo "The customer be pleased". 

Unfortunately, like flying these days, the reality is we have no choice, and if we like what they are producing we'll have to live with it, but doesn't mean we have to put a false smile on our face and say nothing, either, it is people's right as a consumer to express dissatisfaction with what they are getting......and despite what some posts I have read on this over the years have said, Lionel, MTH, Atlas and so forth are not going to stop making trains because people grumble about the quality, they aren't doing this as a labor of love or a favor to us, they are doing it as a business to make money. I think it is also good that people understand that the stuff we are buying, as expensive as it is, is complicated, it has a lot of small parts, complicated control and sound systems, that are a lot more likely to break then more simple units of years gone by (put it this way, the operating reliability of some of the great Lionel operating accessories is a pretty good analogy, they were these wonderful Rube Goldberg contraptions that often, let's be nice, didn't quite meet the expectations their marketing people put out, and were prone to needing to be tweaked, configured, jiggled, and so forth, to get them to work). In a perfect world these would be built to the quality levels we have come to expect with things like cars, and electronics and so forth, but the likelyhood is they won't, the engines and so forth will never have the levels of an Apple Iphone or Ipod or whatnot. 

 

 

The answer is really quite simple:  Don't buy seemingly inferior products.  I already have enough stuff to play with so that I don't have to buy something that is bad quality.  Or if I really "want" something, I may take a chance and buy it; but I certainly won't purchase other stuff that I don't need if I am that suspicious of quality issues with the company.  I've learned over time that a more judicious approach in buying things may make the company reduce output and concentrate on quality if everyone else does the same thing.  I don't think that competition between companies will improve quality--they're all cats in the same bag because they know that new engines and rolling stock sell rather than quality of existing products.  The fact that each year new catalogues come out is an indication that new stuff is what the train consumer wants.  Have you ever seen a company state in its catalogue that an "improved" version of a product is being offered?  They don't want to imply that the one you might have purchased last year is inferior.  I run old post-war stuff by Lionel, but all my newer engines are Williams--all conventional.  Digital is too problematical for me and would cause undue frustration for me if it didn't run right--so I don't buy it even though I like it.  Part of any hobby is enjoying it rather than being suspicious when you open the box with less anticipation of fun than dread of defects.  Why put yourself through that?  I like Williams because it makes a good engine in my opinion, although I am sure that others may have found some problems at times.  I figure that compared to larger companies that offer more selections, Williams (Bachman) can concentrate on making more reliable ones, albeit more limited in number.  The analogy to automobiles is apt.  All domestic car manufacturers were the same--they all made the same junk in the 1960's.  Only when foreign competition came to the fore with more innovations that were reliable in quality, then domestic car manufacturers tried to play catch-up.  The consumer voted for quality because there was another brand offering it.  Unfortunately, with toy trains there really is not the same competition because the product does not offer the same profit margin as cars to induce competition.  So the only recourse is to curtail purchases.

Nicely put, hit the nail on the head. 

As Marty nicely put it, the answer is not in where it is made, it is the business model that is directly involved in the issues we are talking about. When you stop being a manufacturer and outsource what you build to other companies on a contract basis, you lose control over much that if you do it in house you can do..everything from the suppliers to make the parts that go into the unit (nuts, screws, bolts, motors) to the fabrication process are generally chosen by the factory making them, when you sign an outsourcing contract you basically have them bid on the design, give them what you expect in terms of the SLA, negotiate with them on these and the price, and in the end you commit to the vendor. Once you have done that, the only control you have is in the SLA's (even with prices, vendors can and do jack up their prices and the vendor has little recourse), and those generally aren't worth the paper they are printed on, because in reality once you commit to someone, it is almost impossible to move production to someone else. 

 

There are outsourcing deals that work, but they are not the same as what we are talking about here. For example, when Bose makes the audio equipment for high end cars, they have all kinds of relationships with the car companies, for all intents and purposes the way they work Bose is considered part of the design team for the car and are actively involved both ways, they don't sign a contract with Bose, then simply get the boxes from them (this is typical of lean production relationships).....

 

likewise for years Sears Kenmore appliances were made by Whirlpool, and Sears had very tight control over what Whirlpool was making, they had their own engineers to oversee the production, and there were agreements about quality and such. That changed, Sears today does basically the same thing, their units are made by LG and it is all about cost, and it shows in the quality of what Sears sells under the Kenmore label. When stuff is done totally on a cost basis, quality generally flies out the window, it is considered 'too expensive' and the like, and when you are moving production to places with cheap, relatively uneducated labor, the quality improvement processes under things like lean production don't work, pure and simple, the factories that produce these trains hire unskilled labor that constantly changes..and it has nothing to do with what country it is.

 

When BMW and Mercedes shifted production to the US, as did many of the transplant companies, they spent a large amount of time and money on training the workers in their factories, partially because of the complexities of their systems, but also partially because the areas they were located tended to be areas where the labor costs were relatively cheap compared to back home, but where the education levels were also lacking in some ways (for example, in Germany many of the workers on their assembly line in the German education system come from trade high schools, where a lot of the skills they would need were taught, same with Japan, which is something the US generally has no comparable idea)

 

The kind of production you saw in Mexico in the 80's or today in China relies on relatively unskilled labor doing repetitive tasks (in a sense, human robots), and neither will make a quality product, nor would it if I built a plant in the US and did the same thing.