Re: Z-Plating Kudos

Thank you Ronald for being candid. In light of your recent post
regarding the quality of our products, I took the liberty of
contacting our like customer personally this morning. He seems to be
quite satisfied with the outcome regarding the processing we provided
for him. He also mentioned that if there's any further work that he
needs to have processed, that we will be doing the processing for him.
However, you make some valid points. I would like the opportunity to
shed some light on them.

I have been involved with pinball for many years. I have learned and
personally experienced times where vendors have lied, cheated, and
stolen from me and others for personal gain and with complete
disregard for any 'Fall-out' that may occur in the following years.
Misinformation, telling one person one thing and telling another
something completely different. Zplating chooses to operate along a
different axis; honesty. The mission of Zplating is to provide the
best quality surface finishing available in the industry, to push the
limits of technology and chemistry as it relates to tribology, and to
keep the customer completely satisfied and willing to return to us for
future work. No gimmicks, no misinformation, be credible and develop
a reputation of excellence.

Base Metals: Diecast aluminum and zinc, stainless steel, and cold
rolled steel all have different molecular composition and physical
properties. It must be understood that the marquee pieces of the
pinball machine(lockbar, side rails, lift trim, legs, coin door etc.)
were not originally designed for the home user for purely aesthetic
reasons. Thus, the quality of the steel or diecast form was obtained
through aggressive price negotiation (least cost). What I'm trying to
say here is that the lock bars, side rails, legs, coin doors and
diecast products are of lower quality regarding the base metal. This
fact alone has huge implications as it relates to surface finishing.

Surface Finishing: Zinc Diecast product development such as the gun
handles for Indiana Jones and Demolition Man as well as the coin door
brackets can have imperfections and impurities throughout the entire
piece. Thus, polishing and buffing these pieces to obtain a mirror
finish can be an arduous task if imperfections and impurities run
through and through,...., you just polish through the impurities until
you don't have a piece left to polish. Therein lies the rub. Also,
some parts are delivered to us that have paint coatings which have to
be chemically stripped prior to polishing. Sometimes these chemically
based paints etch the metal in different ways; sometimes superficially
and other times deep into the metal. So how perfect is perfect? We
push the limits to the best of our abilities to provide the finest
surface finishing before we chemically plate any part. However, as
mentioned above, if there are impurities throughout the steel or
diecast material, you can polish for an entire year and the
imperfections will still be apparent in the finished product. You are
correct, some parts are definitely more difficult to process than
others.

Part handling protocols, time, and waste: I am quite sure that every
small business owner understands the necessity for running their
company efficiently. I'm also quite sure that good companies are able
to realize areas of weakness and put in to action the necessary steps
to rectify them. Some projects take longer than others. Coin doors,
lock bars, and side rails in particular pass through many hands and
undergo many processes prior to completion. Any mistakes along the
way place the part at jeopardy regarding imperfection, fingerprints,
scratches etc. Some imperfections can be rectified with color buffing
techniques while others are beyond salvage and must return to the
beginning of the line. This time, effort, and waste costs money. The
money is absorbed by our company and not passed along to the consumer.
However, our employees have come to understand our mission statement.
We demand excellence in every job that we do. We try to get it right
the first time, every time, but this does not always happen. Sometimes
we process a single part 2-3 times before they are able to pass my
personal quality control stipulations. They have to be the best that
they can possibly be before they are packed and shipped to our
customers. Also, my customers are notified ahead of time
approximately how long the process will be and we tell them up front
that we will do the best that we can. I don't know what else we can
do.

Pushing the envelope: I would like everyone to know that I follow
every part very closely throughout all aspects of processing. We
utilize our people that have the smarts, passion, and focus to get the
job done correctly. We are always looking to develop new products, a
better surface,...., to change and improve. We work with high energy,
high horsepower people that we believe can get the job done. You
can't get to the moon on low octane fuel. Without sounding too much
like Jerry McGuire, I will leave this topic here.

Robert
Zplating Inc

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The alternative Delphi roadmap to success
    ... It does not contain support for Unicode ... Win64 and quality are big themes for Highlander. ... in this case the 'customer is always right' and your point is ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: My new neighbors
    ... We now have a good drive-through and a large enough menu so we are moving away from just concentrating on excellent coffee. ... I figure if I match the speed of a national chain and exceed their quality I'll not lose too much ground. ... I deal with the ever increasing competition by maintaining my standards, improving customer service and sticking with the traditional Italian espresso menu. ... In an area where just about every retail operation has a superauto or other espresso machine, or sells a "latte", sometimes for as low as 60p I can't hope to compete on price. ...
    (alt.coffee)
  • Re: Better quality can be a bad thing....(long but important)
    ... However, since everything is relative, quality is really hard to define...so ISO9000 shows up in our lives. ... At first we think everyone wants a mercedes but some cant afford it, so they settle for the pinto. ... That is very bad thinking and a good way to really piss off your customer. ... If you go ahead and make him a mercedeshe will be MAJORLY pissed off, because HE PAID FOR A CHEAP CAR DAMNIT!. ...
    (alt.machines.cnc)
  • Re: ****Re: ****Re: [OT] HELP!!! mail attack
    ... certain emails about customer relations and ongoing projects. ... approximately 70% of that junk mail off the top via greylisting, ... It is a quality issue, ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Rock into Rap??? Possible?
    ... It is particularly common in music videos. ... It seems to me that cheap and easy is more important than polish and ... quality now. ... And, paraphrasing the saying, a polished and quality turd is ...
    (rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic)