On Oct 6, 6:13 pm, Seth Vidal <skvi...@gmail.com> wrote: > I take it you > are confident that your manufacturers are playing fair on their > outsourcing.
I am confident because our engineer actually visited the companies and saw the machinery. He visits during the production process and makes sure that everything is going according to plan. We don't work with companies who sub-contract. That is why it takes us a long time to bring products to market, and why we cannot develop a huge product line all at once. Most small makers work through agents in Taiwan, who will find a company to make their components. The "manufacturer" never sees the factory. Our engineer had some surprising encounters - he visited a factory who was manufacturing aluminum cranks for a U.S. company, but the factory's entire equipment consisted of injection molding machines for plastics. Clearly, they had got the job somehow and were farming it out to somebody else... most likely in China. Regarding U.S. broaching houses: I have found that working with makers who have no experience with our product type is fraught with difficulty. I would not order a randonneur bike from a framebuilder who specializes in racing frames, and I would not work with a company to make bicycle cranks unless they have experience in making them. Even when working with companies who have made bicycle cranks, we find a lot of (small) bugs that need to be worked out. Our goal is to present a product that is perfect, not leave the R&D to the customers. Jan Heine Compass Bicycles Ltd. http://www.compasscycle.com Follow our blog at http://janheine.wordpress.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
