I may very well be wrong.
But, after 10 years as a QC inspector in various industries, I think TE just can’t really make anything of that « bad fader batch » but to use them.
It’s a simple operation, really. The time it would take to QC all their batch (which is probably at their sub-contractor site) for the little insurance that these QCd faders will eventually not break is not a good financial operation by no means. Insurances are a way better medium to take care of issues like these.
Ultimately, it means customers are gonna have to go through RMAs. And that will put a dent in your brand if you don’t carefully but quickly address the issue with resellers/direct customers.
I truly think that’s what happened with the OP-Z and, basically, all their QC issues.
Part of TE’s genius ideas are their out-dated designs with a hint of minimalism modernity : old keyboards, old calculators, old simple BoomBox…but all with the modern twists of software innovations.
But they probably need to make up for development costs and purchase by-the-bulk quantities.
And when you end-up with a bad batch of something like, say, a fader…then it’s too costly to throw these away and purchase a new batch. You end up losing way too much money.
Now. The packaging story is something else. That’s just bad design that wasn’t carefully tested out. This should be changed as soon as possible. You can upgrade the package, just like @te-david said. But upgrading the fader quality is a no-go, I’d say.
Don’t wait up for new development. We would need to have access to their batch quantities - ain’t gonna happen.
But the fact that there is no communication already is the common strategy when the stock is way too huge for any recall to be financially sustainable.
And then, there is the matter of stock. Not having enough stock to cover potential RMAs is a great strategy when your product is on its mark 2 or higher. But on a mark 1 product, it is common to ensure a sufficient stock so you can cover up to 30 to 50% RMAs if needed. That’s a risk you gotta take on a first iteration product so you don’t end up in the situation we are in today : loads of RMAs, no stock to send units back asap.
The way manufacturing works nowadays just makes a « second batch revision » unlikely. It would take way too many hours of redesign, testing and back/forth with subcontractors. If a new batch is out in the following weeks, be assured that it’s the same process and same components as the first batch. Way too much money and way too much time involved in this kind of processes.
Again, the best TE can do is update its packaging and account for enough stock as to cover potential future RMAs.
Cause that’s the name of the game, here. If TE operates logically (and not in panic), they are gathering data and calculating how much stock they need to cover their next batch issues.
They could issue a DIY fix if the issue is way too problematic. SSL had to do this on its first BigSIX batch. And that’s just one example off the top of my head.
But here, it means desoldering. So probably not an easy fix by no means.
All in all, TE just needs to own the mess and communicate a bit better than it used to do. But that is just my very personal and humble opinion.
This post is speculative at best, based on my experiences and (a bit) biased since I’m in the fadergate debacle at the moment.
I do love TE. And I’m pretty sure they know how frustrating the whole thing is for their customers. And, if anything, I’m pretty sure they will do right by everyone. Just gotta be patient. Their CS is probably both under-staffed and under a lot of CS requests right now.
And if this was off topic, my bad!
Oh.
And I have to specify that TE is cool enough to take direct RMAs when it could say no.
At the moment, they don’t exactly do - they just say they will. But the fact that they have their own store and the way they operate make this a cool feature of the TE experience.
Look at other brands, it’s not always the case. You usually have to go through your reseller in order to get the RMAs. Many brands will own hardware failure only because of hazardous risks (Line6, for instance), because the issue is on all the stock (SSL) or because resellers just stop selling when too many RMAs go out of nowhere.
So I’d say, apart from a bad communication towards resellers, TE is at least trying to make up for the defects and can’t really own the issue without being too financially technical about it.
Again. Just my opinion. Not aiming at anyone or anything. And I might just be wrong.
