Airfix quality control

[PhoenixII]

On 11/21/2021 at 1:37 PM, alt-92 said:

Don't get me wrong, I agree that QC should improve. 
I do however have my doubts it is all that easy as some of you assert - after all, if it was that easy it'd be done by now.

 

Most QC procedures should check an average of 10% of production. With the short shoting of the relatively old 24th Hurricane I'd be surprised to find there is any being checked.

It's very easy, provided its put in place from the start and the checks are carried out, not so much when the grass has been allowed to grow.

 

On 11/21/2021 at 1:37 PM, alt-92 said:

That will come at a cost again, and no guarantees it's perfect from the start. We have plenty of members on here griping about price increases, already.

Possible, but by no means certain that prices would rise, because you offset the transportation costs. You can then reduce the number of problems, which will in turn give a better perception of the company and product. Customers will always complain about something! If you, the seller have well placed faith in what your selling, price is very definitely at the bottom of the list, it may not even enter into the conversation. The one thing to remember is: 'you can please all the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time but never all of the people all of the time!' 

[Black Knight]

Airfix' poor QC is nothing new.

Any one remember the wee paper slips that came in every plastic bag or kit box in the 1960s to 1980s?

I had that Haldane Place address learnt almost better than my own home address. At the time I was sending maybe 4 or 5 of those slips away every week or so

So many kits came with broken or missing parts, even mis-moulded parts were common enough in the 1960s & '70s

[Ratch]

I build on average thirty or so Airfix models per year. I’ve never had a short shot and the last time I had missing parts was twelve years ago – exhaust stubs in a 1/24 Spitfire, quickly replaced by Airfix. I must be incredibly lucky in comparison to all of you.

[treker_ed]

I don't have an extravagantly large stash (not got the room in the house for it, for a start) only 150 kits, but of those 150, a third of them are Airfix kits. Every time I buy one, either direct, or from a retailer, it gets checked for any damaged, or short-shot parts. Not a single one has any damaged or short-shot parts! The last one I had was the Sea Fury about 4 years ago (that was pretty wide spread and was on the initial production run only from what I remember). No other kit since has had any problems. Have I been lucky? Possibly! But when you consider in that collection are a wide range of 1/24, 1/48 & 1/72 kits, ranging from the 1/24 Typhoon (x 3), to 1/72 Provost T4 and everything in-between (with wings!) I would say that I have been extremely fortunate. Or it could be that Airfix QC/QA could be getting better at catching things? 

 

From what I understand, they may be pressed in India/China, but boxed in the UK, so this could be where they have additional QC/QA to catch anything extra that is not caught in the factory. However, not everything is checked only a percentage is checked. I have worked in distribution & goods in. We would only check the whole of a consignment if we found a certain percentage of the goods being checked were found damaged above a certain baseline. Anything above that, and the whole of it would get checked for quality control. 

[Ratch]

My current Airfix build did have some parts missing

but I knew that when I bought it

[Paul Thompson]

Maybe it's a geographical thing. Until 1976, in Birmingham, I used the slip three times, once for a broken bit, twice for missing bits. Then in North Wales until 1992, never, in the Netherlands until 2012, twice (both decal sheets), and since then in Scotland 5 or 6 times, once for a missing part, once for a cold shunt riddled canopy, and the rest for decal sheets. The decal sheet over the years have been too out of register to use (1/48th Hawk) (they sent three replacements, none useable but at least free), disintegration when wet (1/48th EE Lightning, replaced for free, once the kit had the wrong decals, new ones sent free, and twiced I asked if they'd sell me a set I needed for a kit not theirs. One was sent free, the other (recently for the AEW Shackleton to use on a Frog conversion) sent for postage. On 3 other occassions I had new kits with cold shunted parts but replacements were out of stock.

 

On the whole I've been happy with the service, the only thing I'd complain about (if I was of a mind) has been the increasing requirement to provide evidence, but thinking back that is easier now back than it was in the Haldane Place days. Never had a serious short shot like some of the horror stories here, so just lucky I guess. OTOH I've often had minor short shots or broken parts, but nothing a few minutes messing about couldn't fix. The same is true from every other manufacturer I've bought, except Tamiya and Hasegawa.

 

Having said all that, I suppose my next Airfix purchase will be entirely short shot, leaving me with some nice sprues to stretch and the knowlege that balance has been restored to the universe.

 

Paul.

[lasermonkey]

Over the years, I’ve bought over five hundred Airfix kits and in my experience, the quality has got worse over the past ten years or so. The most common complaint is unsightly swirl marks in the transparent parts ( which I never had in the past), closely followed by short-shots. The case of the undersized B-17 tail turret in some kits but not others is most peculiar. 
 

Airfix once had the best customer care I have experienced. Nowadays they don’t seem to want to accept responsibility. It’s not exactly encouraging. 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Does anyone here actually work in injection moulding?

 

I don't, but I wonder what the Quality Assurance and Quality Control (they're not the same thing) processes actually are. I would have thought it could be a relatively cheap and reliable thing to QC using AI optically comparing a silhouette of each runner against a silhouette derived from the tooling 3D model which should catch 99% of Airfix's fairly common short-shots.

[Ratch]

1 hour ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Does anyone here actually work in injection moulding?

I used to. Most QC was carried out at the setting stage. It became less frequent when we were happy with the product coming off.

[airfixpeter]

I got my second kit and it was perfect and I have finished said kit so once I have the parts I am owed I will have a complete second kit which I either build or more than likely sell on. 

[IanC]

20 hours ago, Black Knight said:

Airfix' poor QC is nothing new.

Any one remember the wee paper slips that came in every plastic bag or kit box in the 1960s to 1980s?

I had that Haldane Place address learnt almost better than my own home address. At the time I was sending maybe 4 or 5 of those slips away every week or so

So many kits came with broken or missing parts, even mis-moulded parts were common enough in the 1960s & '70s

 

I remember a few missing bits, which was always a disappointment. I wonder though if occasionally it wasn't down to my ripping open the blister pack in my excitement and something pinging off into the carpet. But it had its upside, because sometimes my dad bought me another series 1 kit to make while we were waiting for the replacement part. 😀

[MrB17]

5 hours ago, lasermonkey said:

The case of the undersized B-17 tail turret in some kits but not others is most peculiar. 
 

Airfix once had the best customer care I have experienced. Nowadays they don’t seem to want to accept responsibility. It’s not exactly encouraging. 

Ah yes, a suggestion for their type face…AirFIX.  

 I have both the first issue B-17G and the Fortress III, I recently desprued both kits and examined for short shots and neither is flawed. My biggest gripe on the B-17, is the T joint on the top of the tail turret glazing! There’s supposed to be a pear shaped window there! I would hate to be a tail gunner in the first place, but not being able to see above you would make it even more terrifying!

I’m not to keen on grinding the proper shaped opening in the clear parts, and I haven’t seen any vacform corrections yet. I think if I carefully remove the top part and replace it with clear sheet, is probably best.
An easy fix for another Airfix mistake, is the little decals they give you for the access panels on the forward part of the rudder, for hinge access. They show the 5 panels on both sides of the rudder, correct for the port side, but the starboard side should only have the bottom one. Leave the other 4 off and keep them for spares.

 I checked my Dakota and it has a short shot undercarriage leg, easy fix but annoying nonetheless.

Both of my He-111’s are ok.

 I have an Airfix B-25, Shackleton AEW.2 coming, I’ll be checking those.

I contacted Airfix recently to see if I could order the transparent parts for the vintage release of the P-61. Not available, try contacting us later next year to see if we have any! I think if I were repopping a kit like that, there would be a lot of modellers that would benefit from the spare parts for an older issue, they have in their stash. I am using the old P-61 as a clothes horse to hone my skills with Radu’s exquisite riveting tools. I am going to try to make the outside of my newer Airfix kits look as spectacular as the inside (the parts you can’t see). Fill the trenches and rivet away! Especially the Shackleton.

 

Jeff

[Circloy]

On 21/11/2021 at 13:37, alt-92 said:

I do however have my doubts it is all that easy as some of you assert - after all, if it was that easy it'd be done by now.

QC is based on statistics and does not call for a fixed rate of sampling which by itself is only part of the story.

 

Instead the sampling rate is determined by a number of factors based upon the size of the production run (the larger the run the smaller the % sampled and inspected), the severity of the defect, the cost of inspection and the economics of dealing with complaints and providing replacement parts. This information is used to determine both a minimum and a maximum Acceptable Quality Level (AQL). If, during inspection of the determined sample size, the number of defective parts found fall below the minimum the whole batch is accepted, if above the max the whole batch is rejected and if between usually additional sampling is undertaken.

 

I can virtually guarantee that, as consumers, our inspection rate (100% ?) and AQL (zero defects ?) and that of Airfix, as manufacturer, who's figures are unknown, will differ.

 

So what's the solution 100% inspection, sadly that's not the answer, 100% manual inspection will only correctly identify around 87% of defective items, not as good as the statistical method. Some defective items will pass as good & some good items rejected as defective. 300% manual inspection gets to correctly identifying just above 99% of defective items, similar to the statistical method. The rates for automated inspection will be substantially better but it is not 100% infallable as stories of foreign objects in food show. Either way it introduces added costs.

 

 

Do Airfix really have a quality control issue? I guess that depends on which side of the fence you're on. 

     As an individual with a faulty kit,  or as an 'onlooker' weighing up the posted quality complaints against posted quality compliments (do they exist?)  then yes they do.

     As a manufacturer as long as my return's/complaints don't exceed the number I've made provision for then I don't have an issue. If they do then yes I have an issue that needs assessing.

 

My own assessment: Like others in this thread have also pointed out I've too have a long history of building kits, 40+ years, the majority being Airfix and can recall only three incidents, one a missing part, promptly supplied against the Haldane place slip, one kit short shot, dealt with by a bit of filler & modelling skills, the third a badly warped piece which, upon closer inspection, looked more caused by a previous owner than any producton issue.     On balance I don't see Airfix have a qualty issue.

 

I've also had issues in the past with Italeri, Revell, Hasegawa and Tamiya each with a similar number of issues as I've experienced with Airfix but a lower build number do they too have quality control issues?