I’m skeptical that they have well established quality processes across the business, particularly supplier quality flow down. The Quality Department can provide direction and tools, but senior management has to drive the necessary cultural change across every part of the company, not just the shop floor. Hopefully the Quality Director will be able to influence their mindset, starting with how to handle the playfield issues, but it will take time.

Seems like Design, Engineering and Marketing have equal roles to play along with Production at both JJP and Stern. They rush certain titles to market likely compressing time for testing and debugging, and some of the design and engineering decisions leave little or no room for variation in parts or assembly. I just got a JJP POTC and while I'm sure the design works perfect on paper, basically everything needs to be put together perfect. I was responsible for some pretty complicated manufacturing operations, and the tendency is to point the finger at the guy on the shop -floor. Gary says that Stern is a "manufacturing company" but from the outside it seems like the Commercial and Design Groups call the shots. Hopefully that's not the case, and the EVP of Operations has a big seat at the table.