PLAN B analog blog

and on a positive side:
 
i have had many modules from Plan B and i never had any problem with them! 
all worked fine and sounded great.
and i am sure Peter is doing his best to deliver great modules to us.


Bakis Sirros - Parallel Worlds / Interconnected / Memory Geist
[Doepfer_a100] group owner
www. parallel - worlds - music. com
www. myspace. com/ parallelworldsmusic
www. myspace. com/ interconnectedmusic
www. myspace. com/ memorygeist
www. DiN. org. uk
www. musicamaximamagnetica. com
www. shimarecords. co. uk
www. rubberrecords. gr
Athens - Greece

--- On Sat, 12/6/08, (i think you can figure that out) <peter@buzzclick-music.com> wrote:

From: (i think you can figure that out) <peter@buzzclick-music.com>
Subject: [PLAN_B_analog_blog] Plan B pride
To: PLAN_B_analog_blog@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, December 6, 2008, 6:45 PM






I just posted tthe following comment on Muff Wiggler. It stems form a
rather pointed remark made sighting the best part of the new box we're
using is it wil allow for easy transport form and to when modules have
to be returned several times to fix a problem. I feel it's pertainent
here as well only because this is the first place most go to get info
on Plan B goods.

My response follows:

I'l let that one slide (saved yourself with the love thing at the
end!), but really...this is a supremely unfair remark you're making
which is potentially hazardous to the reputation I personally spend my
life trying to uphold.

You must remember something... in the Spring of 2008 I hired six
people, some of which had no previous experience with electronics. We
went from about 28 modules every two weeks to our current average of
50 modules A WEEK in four months time. There was a slight learning
curve. While some of the defects which got out there were bullshit and
should not have been shipped, some where ridiculously silly (slightly
loose nuts on jacks, knobs which weren't perfectly aligned with the
markers). I mean...pull the f'ing knob off and put it on right.
Understand we are human and therefore privy to all the behavioral
miswires the species enjoys and these things will escape from time to
time that possibly shouldn't have. 50 units a week...sometimes this
will happen.

As far as the other issues, some were what I call serious and I've put
MANY QA steps in our system - some coming a quite an expense - to make
them go away. QA stamps, separately boxed modules, and now a dedicated
QA inspector in our assembly process. Deopfer doesn't put his products
in boxes when they ship them, we do. I'm not going to go into all the
corrective actions we've undertaken.. .anyone is free to join the Plan
B blog (yahoo) to get that breakdown, they've been listed, but what
bothers me personally is while I've seen a bunch of gripes, I've not
seen many people speak about the corrective actions which have removed
these problems.

WhIie I completely encourage peaole to use blogs for these types of
things, making points about them BEFORE EVEN CONTACTING US ABOUT IT I
see a a bit cowardly and completely counterproductive to the problem
at hand - getting the issue solved. It does wonders for ruining
reputations, granted..so if this is your intent you're on the right track.

Ive had public complaints about our rework methodology although we
incorporate standards used by NASA. When I was the QA Manager at
Western Digital for their US PCBA manufacturing division I wrote the
companywide workmanship standards for printed through hole PCBAs which
were approved by both ATT and IBM Boca Raton before it went into circ.
These are the two companies that introduced zero defect acceptance
policies in commercial electronics. If it was good enough for them, I
feel it's good enough for Plan B.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was a guy who wrote me
about his M13 response, got my reply which listed the technical
reasons behind this (again...it' s the VACTROLS), posted his complaint
to the net, but at no time did he amend his comments with the reason
why this was happening. This left me the rather daunting task of
trying to hunt all these down and commenting myself. What ever.

There was another guy who didn't like the way my M10 worked and cut
components out when he returned them to make a point it was us, not
him. Weird solution as I really don't care if someone doesn't share my
vision so to speak, this is to be expected with the wide range of
applications musicians have, but to damage something to make a point
is strange. OK, he did it...fine (but creepy) but he went on the net
and complained about it as if he had received them in this state which
he hadn't.

What I'm trying to get to here, and admittedly I'm trying to find the
magic words to make people understand what it's like to be on this
side of the desk, is that we did realize there was a few
problems...but we did something about them and they all but went away.
Yes, there will still be defect escapes from time to time, again...we
are as human as you are, but they are no longer trends, they are
exceptions.

So yeah, I read these blogs. and yeah it effects my pride when a point
is made of something we've successfully addressed. Please (try to)
understand our side of the issues here. If my diatribe here went well
with you feel free to take that into consideration when ripping us a
new butt on blogs.

respectfully submitted,

- P