So... finally got a listen here.

First off, the Hotel didn't have a mini-bar, or even a bar or restaurant attached. The nearest hooch was a liquor store about 4 blocks away. It was frequented frequently.


My answer to the QC questions are...

First my definition of QC, derived from working in a factory and working as an inspector for civil construction jobs, is a random sampling of materials, assembly, and conditions to insure an acceptable final product. Unless something is of critical importance (bridge structural members come to mind) it is unfeesable and overly costly to check every component or condition for acceptable conditions. Instead you pick an interval (or for Indiana State jobs you have a "random chart") and check the conditions of that.

To take all of that and distill it into how I believe that toys may be handled I believe that any QC that occurs as a random toy being looked over for fit and quality before being packaged. It would be difficult to have every toy looked over, checked to make sure that it has one left and one right of everything, every paint app in the proper place, and every plastic sprue connect perfectly polished. The left and rights should be handled at assembly, but toys are put together by people, and people mess up. Get in a hurry and grab two fists from one bin instead one from each bin, that sort of thing.

Now, as it comes to me, I haven't had a terrible issue with quality. Sure I've got a swapped Blaster fist, and I've had some tolerance issues, but it isn't as if I am afraid of doing anything with a toy. Gog (or is it Aaron?) has it right that a lot of things that break or are twitchy are design issues not Quality Control issues. If the question really is Tolerance/Engineering issues not QC then I would have to say no to transferring money on both counts, if that can even be done.

Right now the "gimmick" line is PCC, and I think that the tolerance/engineering issues are the QC that you speak of. Something is a bit too large or a bit too small to get everything to work right. If anything it may need a bit more money from some other bucket to help shore that up. As far as individual toy gimmicks, I feel that those are what make the toy interesting. Drift having such a poseable upper body is a great "gimmick" to strip that down would lose a large portion of the draw for that toy.

Fewer figures for better Quality/Engineering? I would parallel Vang's answers on that one. With the success of the line(s) now I think that reducing the numbers of toys to increase some other factor would be counter productive. I think you would end up with more repaints, and that generally is a reviled option within our fandom. Sure Hasbro is planning ahead with alternate heads for repaints, but 3 for a mold would push wallets further, or genericize the toy so that they are close, not dead on toys.

tl;dr?

NO U

 

Quality and Design would both be good terms. QC just got a nitpicky reaction out of me because that is one of the facets of my job. Like calling a control yoke "the flyie stick" to a pilot.

Nope.

Yeah, those two specifically were borked toys. Scalpel's issue I think could well be a design durability issue.

Cheetor on the other hand I think is an example where the gimmick overrides a toy. I think that a Transformer is better received by fans when it is an action figure with gimmick sprinkles, not a gimmick platform that happens to have a robot in it.

Yeah, often releases product individually at individual price points. So where stores in the US get a box with 8 different figures in it (or two copies of four, or three copies of two and two copies of one, or...) they will get a box with 8 copies of one toy. That can let them tweak prices to their liking. That's why Universe Hot Shot got the blasters in Japan and they were left out in the rest of the world. They can justify a higher price on the toy, and just charge the higher price, not have to match some production value set in stone. It's something that isn't as well known as I think it should be. Nothing to worry about Biotoakid.