350 units sold. Maybe it's my auto background but to me that's super low production. It would be remarkable if there were no quality blips in the first lots. They probably threw that many out before they actually shipped the first one. I think most people would be surprised how much time and potentially cost is involved in developing a 'low cost supplier'. You can't just look in the Yellow pages in low cost countries under "cylinder supplier with equal quality to Mahle" and find 10 legitimate factories. So what do you do? You develop someone.
If cylinders isn't the new suppliers specialty, they can expect a pretty steep learning curve. It's easy to take it for granted that everyone knows the key characteristics involved in manufacturing and inspecting a product. Then you go to the factory and find that they are paying 6 people to ensure the cylinder fins are within x.xxx +/- 0.0001" thick. Focusing their resources on the wrong areas because the key characteristics of a good part are not well defined. Maybe the employees have never seen a chainsaw!
Throwing a guy on "Quality Control" to visually inspect parts will only get you so far. Seems easy. "This would have been caught with a visual inspection". But then what if the bore was tight? He'd miss it and someone would complain. Then you'd give that guy a bore gage and it would take even longer. What if the NiSi plating was thin? Destructively inspect one in 100 cylinders? Cut 1 in 10 up and have a qualified person inspect with an expensive scanning electron microscope? Where does it end?
IMHO, it can't be a low cost part and still have every feature 100% inspected. Even in a world class factory they don't 100% inspect every part.
