Subject:
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Re: LEGO Quality Control
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.ambassadors
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Date:
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Thu, 4 Sep 2008 04:55:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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17546 times
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I actually had a pretty long and very interesting discussion with Bjarke
Schønwandt at BrickFair about the whole color issue. I am pretty much of an
expert in color quality control-it was my job for many many years to make sure
batch to batch color cosistancy of color in the paint we produced was good. And
our small factory achieved some very excellent results. In paint, it is much
more important than in say a plastic toy and thousands of hours of paid labor
are involved when colors drift and are inconsistant.
From what I gather, and this has been discussed before-probably by me, but the
general gist of the problem occurred when a paradigm shift in the coloration of
the parts was made. The way it was explained to me, and this is from a bit
muddled memory, was that now LEGO essentially mixes the colorant at the machine.
There are, if I understood him correctly, three hoppers --one with the clear
“base” ABS, one with ABS infused with concentrated colorant, and the third
hopper is composed of the scrap that occurs when the pieces are cut from the
molded piece. Essentially plastic necessary to create the piece but not part of
it.
Color variation can creep into the process from all these places. The ABS base
can have slightly different color dispersion characteristics, the concentrated
colored plastic will vary and because of the huge quantities TLG uses they are
bought from multiple vendors. If one did not do that, you would have all your
eggs in one basket and if one of the supplier’s factories went down, your entire
production would be compromised. The “scrap” will of course will be only as
consistant as the batches that produced it. One then weighs an appropriate
amount of base, concentrated colored plastic, and “scrap”. There is a word for
the “scrap” that I cannot recall. One needs to add enough colorant to insure
opacity and saturation of color. But the colorant portion is the expensive part
of the mix.So one needs to add just enough but not too much. If one adds too
much the strength and stability of the molded part is compromised. This is very
analogous to paint--one wants to add enough colorant to achieve good coverage in
the paint--but too much will weaken the film because of the plasticizers and
dispersants in the colorant.
In the past TLG bought huge quantities of pre-mixed ABS of a certain color. The
new system is much more flexible in that one only has to stock much smaller
quantites of the colored component and has only huge quantities of the base.
Again analogous to the paint store in which one has a base and can mix an almost
unlimited number of colors from that base.
I did ask him if they mixed various colors at the site of production to achieve
the desired color like is done in paint and he said no. In other words they do
not take a certain weight of one pellet say red, and a certain weight of another
pellet, say yellow and come out with orange. In their process this is not
possible and therefore the concentrate is one hue made for one specific end
color. But from multiple vendors.
The human eye can discern millions of different colors--it being far more
sensitive than the finest machine. And very small changes in any step of the
process will be detected by an observing eye.
To make matters even more conplicated, parts in kits come from many different
factories made from different supplier’s feed stocks so coordination of quality
across the entire company is necessary. They must all be on the same page and
having the same qc standards, etc. etc.
He insured me that they are acutely aware of this and have made great strides
addressing all these problems. But I know,there will always be problems in an
enterprise this large and with a process that is this critical and more
importantly easily discernable. The variables simply cannot be turned into
constants. He also insured me that when the fiasco of translucent pieces became
apparrent they went back and lookd at the whole broad range of problems
inherrent in this very difficult production process and reaccessed what LEGO
quality was.
I myself applaud TLC for achieving the quality that they do acheive in the vast
quantities that they deal with and with the thousands of parts that they
produce. I dare say few other companies do as good a job--and for sure no other
toy company of thier scale does.
Perfection with anything that has to do with color is simply not possible, and
one just strives to achieve a level of quality that in a great percentage of
situations is sufficient to achieve the goal. I really honestly think TLG has
done this for many, many years and has no intention sucumbing to lesser
standards. They did screw up a while back, but part of that is attributable to a
completely different way of production and perhaps the temptation to try and cut
a few colorant costs when economic times were dire. They know they screwed up
and are IMO well on the way to avoiding them in the future.
This whole color thing is really an incredibly complex task and most people
simply do not know how truly complex it is. Especially on the scale of TLG.
tommy Armstrong
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: LEGO Quality Control
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| (...) Yes, that was what they announced sometime in the past couple years. I can't remember when the change took place, but I do know that they had inconsistent shading in the dark-purple bricks that they used to make the Knight Bus in 2004. There (...) (16 years ago, 4-Sep-08, to lugnet.ambassadors, FTX)
| | | Re: LEGO Quality Control
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| (...) Tommy, The term for the scrap is more or less known as "regrind". I've got some injection molding plastics manufacturing in my background. When molding at the machine, the material that's not in the mold cavity that consists of the part itself (...) (16 years ago, 4-Sep-08, to lugnet.ambassadors, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: LEGO Quality Control
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| (...) Here's my thing. The Flextronics deal was (URL) announced> just over two years ago, in 2006. Jake (URL) responded> to issues raised over part quality just over four years ago, in 2004. That says to me that while Flextronics might be largely (...) (16 years ago, 2-Sep-08, to lugnet.events, lugnet.ambassadors, FTX)
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