bangeye,
Just a WAG, but my bet is that they, being a holding company, are big believers in ISO certification, which is great if you provide a service, such as accounting, or food service.
It relies on the individual worker to do their part correctly, according to a strict set of instructions. It doesn't matter if there is a defect before their part of the process, as long as they do their part, the rest is "not my problem".
There is no real accomodation in a pure ISO setup for a real QC department as the ISO process is supposed to save money and streamline production by eliminating that process.
In order to further streamline the process, i.e. save money, they will draw down their Repair Department and funnel any repairs through Manufacturing to be handled by the same people who worked on it to begin with. This is called "efficiency".
I don't believe it is an Engineering problem. It is a cultural problem.
It is showing up in all of the Freedom Group's operations, witnessed by all of the recent recalls.
Just my $0.02
Ed
ED ISO is just a just a set of principles that aim at standardization of your manufacturing process . I do agree that it requires the individual worker to perform their task correctly but it also requires strict SPC controls so that if the problems are just someone not giving a hoot they will be identified and removed. However it was my experience that most QC problems occurred because the process or tasks were not clearly defined or some process was not capable. For example if you have a cutting machine that cannot hold the runout spec for threading the barrel shank then that is a engineering problem that needs to be solved by new/better equipment that can pass the capability requirement or redesign of the product or component so that it can be capably produced on existing machinery. Otherwise you are going to get a bunch of crooked barrels because the line assembler is eventually going to get weary of weeding out every other barrel because it is out of spec and he is getting beat on for production #'s. I label it an engineering issue because it is the process/manufacturing engineer that has to insure the capability of the process and correct the problem. Now if the problem is an old worn out cutter then you either buy a new machine , outsource the threading process to to someone that is capable of meeting spec, or close up shop. As I said rifle making isn't that hard and the required spec usually are within a thousandth or maybe two which is quite large with todays precision machinery. My guess was Marlin had a large quantity of worn out equipment that had depended on shop floor tweaking by the line workers rather than repairing the source of the problem and that is the realm of the engineer to ultimately design and build a capable process. ISO is just a frame work under which they do this. Otherwise you have to have Gepetto out there hand building your rifle on a one off basis which makes the cost prohibitive.
