Why is Quality Control so low?

[henryp]

<blockquote>

<p>James Meketa , Apr 12, 2011; 12:41 a.m.<br /><em>Every time I return a defective lens to B&H or Adorama, I know that it will be repackaged and resold as new to someone who doesn't know any better.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>The silence is deafening, James.</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Alan, it is not a difficut concepts in manufacturing that if your quality is too low, you'll get a lot of returns, warranty repairs and unhappy customers so that eventually your company will fail. On the other hand, if your quality requirement is too high so that it is too expensive to achieve it and your products will not sell.</p>

<p>The Canon 1D and 1DS series cameras and the Nikon D3 family are all highly reliable, but they are all $5000 to $8000 each and they are big, heavy, and rugged. It would make no sense to make every camera as reliable as those. A lot of consumer prefer $500 DSLRs that are small and light, convenient to carry around; they can accept a 5% failure rate. A company that only produces very high-quality products will become a niche that is hard to survive.</p>

[William Michael]

<blockquote>

<p>The silence is deafening, James.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The repercussions might be louder.<br>

I doubt that it is only you and I who await a response from Mr Meketa, to back up the statements he previously made.</p>

<p>WW</p>

[a._t._burke]

<p>Mr. Meketa....</p>

<p>1. How could you possibly have come across actual knowledge of what the internal return policies are for B&H and Adorama?</p>

<p>2. I've been in retail. In the retail business, where individual items are sold on a person to person basis, those items that the retailer accepts as a return for any reason, are in fact further returned to whomever supplied the retailer. One good reason for this is product liability. Why would I want to take a chance that a customer that I thought was all wet, might actually in fact be right, and I end up being sued for the harm done from the second sale of a defective product? I'd also lose my insurance, along with my reputation.</p>

<p>Another good reason to return the product is that I insisted on having that right with every supplier contract that I signed. I had a unilateral right to return any product that had received a customer complaint. For major products, where for instance, I was an or the authorized repair station, my crew might repair or rebuild the product to meet the specifications. That product was then sold as a used product at a used price, and my supplier contract credited my account with both the repair cost and the difference in sales price.</p>

<p>Additionally, most all suppliers not only credited the full value of the return, but added a fair fee for our handling and trouble.</p>

<p>3. I've corresponded with Mr. Posner many times, starting back before photonet. He's a bright and capable guy with an appropriately responsible position at B&H. He's been there a long time, so he's obviously following corporate policy when he supervises or authorizes returns and adjustments. Anyone who has been a photonet member for a number of years has seen where he's stepped in to make sure his company treats a customer right, but yet has not been a sucker for scam artists. It wouldn't make sense to me that a company that would hire and retain Mr. Posner and back his customer service decisions year after year would do an underhanded chiselly thing like putting a defective product back on the shelf. Heads of companies tend to hire people like themselves. Because of Mr. Posner's tenure, I presume that B&H ownership and top executives (which may now include Mr. Posner) think at least somewhat like Mr. Posner.</p>

<p>4. Ms. Oster is an unknown quantity to me except for her responses to my fellow photonet members. Her positive answers and followup speak well for her employer, Adorama.</p>

<p>5. Often criticized for it, back when in business, I was a vocal supporter that good morals was good business. If you look at an old photo magazine from 10-15 years ago, you see many, many multi-page advertisers. Most of them are now out of business, or now operating out of a mini-warehouse in the wrong end of town, and can barely finance a classified ad in the freebie local rags. B&H and Adorama remain major players in both the New York and world-wide markets.</p>

<p>Could there possibly be more than a coincidence between their survival and their business ethics?</p>

<p>A. T. Burke</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>A.T.: You missed my point, or I didn't make it well enough. That was not an excuse, it was an illustration of a problem... but a problem well downstream from the factory. The point is that the problem (with the expensive, knocked-around studio microphones) wasn't that the factory shipped poorly made or roughly handled products. The problem was that people working for a distributor/retailer (my company) were beating up the products. This was discovered (late) and eventually stopped.<br /><br />The manufacturer clearly came to understand that their products were being roughly handled somewhere along the line between the factory door, the several trucks/docks that handled them, the air cargo system that then processed them, customs, the several more trucks and intermmediate warehousing that again touched them, the distribution and retail chain (more hands, more trucks) that then handled them, and the more packers, drivers and dock workers involved in the final shipment getting them to the end-user engineers who ordered the products. It's very difficult to isolate which of those dozens of third-party hands didn't treat a delicate product with appropriate care.<br /><br />QA at the factory (which is the kind of QA that a typical lens complaint forum post seems to have in mind) doesn't have much <em>immediate</em> influence over the long tail end of that distribution chain. I cited that anecdote to point out not that the warehouse management at the time was doing its job (it wasn't), but that the manufacturer still has to mop up after a lot of things that it can only indirectly influence (say, through termination of dealer agreements when a retailer refuses to clean up its act). Having spent many years in businesses selling things that people like to talk about in web forums, I'm comfortable saying that most consumers think "bad lens, factory touched it last," and truly don't understand how far away in miles, hours, trucks, packers, and modestly paid workers that factory actually is.</p>

[mike_hitchen]

<blockquote>

<p> At one point the manufacturer blamed the shipping company, and that hypothesis was reasonable in some cases. However, the bottom line is that some of the instruments didn't work right, and when defective units came in the door it made for an unhappy customer, regardless of whether the problem was on the factory floor or part of the distribution channel. It was up to the vendor to improve their processes, including the distribution channel.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Alan - does that not make CaNikon's acceptance of errors beyond their control to be even more admirable and evidence of great customer care, even of rissues beyond their QC (which, after all, was the ponit behind the OP)?</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p> Customer feedback can be a useful indicator.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Agreed, and what sounds and acceptable theoretical limit of quality can turn out to be a pin in the neck in the real world, and the manufacturer will adapt accordingly or go out of business.<br>

But following yor analogy, scientific instrumentation either measures known standards or it does not ( I spent years in a research labs so ahve seen this myself) - it is largely an objective assessment. But this thread has two important differences: firstly we are talking here about a subjective definition of whether a lens meets the end user's <em>visual</em> expectations. Secondly, a scentific instrument as you describe is in many cases designed to work as a standalone unit whereas a lens has to work with any one of millions of other units (namely, a body of any age and any model).<br>

Add to that, 'acceptably sharp' to some are 'total crap' to others, and others have totally unrealistic expectations when viewing images at 100% on a computer screen (equivalent to a 6-foot print from a 35mm sensor). But you seem to be ignoring that inconvenient fact.</p>

[helen_oster]

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=174501">@A. T. Burke</a><br>

Thank you for your kind words, which are very much appreciated.</p>

[gary_singh]

<p>I sent my 17-40L lens to the Canon Service Center as i was not getting good results with it. They wrote back saying they had to do some adjustments and when i got the lens back it was much better with IQ noticeably improved. I havnt had to do this for any of my other canon lenses.</p>

[a._t._burke]

<p>Mr. Laur. <br>

<br />Thank you for your well-thought-out response. You did indeed illustrate the problem well. In your case, odds are that your company's personnel did the majority of the damage to what would have otherwise been a quality product. However the question still remains: why was the problem not caught and corrected due to the efforts of supervision, management, and ownership in your company? Your company only found out because some third party told you. I grant that the reaction was apparently appropriate and that the damaging behavior was stopped. <br>

<br />Additionally, you say other quality products you sold made by top brand companies were also exhibiting similar troubles at the same time. Why would a competent group of supervisors and managers presume it must be the fault of all these top name companies and none of their own? If the owner of the company was called in for a parent/principal meeting regarding his child, would his answer be "not my little Johnny, he'd never do that."? <br>

<br />I'm not trying to infer you are in a chain of responsibility, either directly or indirectly. Maybe you were the bookkeeper. But to your employer, I still say, "No excuses." <br>

<br />As to the manufacturers, depending upon the jurisdiction, they probably had little or no product or mercantile liability. They might well have even been excluded by the judge if named as one of the parties in a lawsuit by a dissatisfied customer. However, these top companies are saying, directly or indirectly, to their customers, "Buy our product so you can own, use, and benefit from our high quality gear." That wasn't happening. <br>

<br />Manufacturers sales reps are the people who are supposed to look into problems like product quality control. Some of them and their supervisors and managers have lost sight of that in their quest to push sales numbers. Of course, when the manufacturer is blamed, whether directly responsible or not, it does not help produce sales increases. Few sales managers get it. No excuses. <br>

<br />If a company wants to maintain a good quality reputation, they've got to pick their employees, their suppliers, their shippers, their distributors, and their final sales outlets carefully. They must also monitor the chain to see that the customer gets the quality product in their hands, or they're going to lose sales. In tough times, they could lose the company. Yes, it might be a lot of work to trace quality control issues through all the various hands the product passes, but their reputation depends on it. If they don't do it, they lose customers, no excuses. <br>

<br />In addition, you're probably right that the two warehouse clowns were responsible for the multiple line quality control problems. But..in fact, neither one of us knows whether they were the sole contributor, or just the last contributor and the one that got caught. If I were a lawyer, I'd hate to take a case where I had to prove the condenser was centered when the warehouse clown kicked the box. <br>

<br />My point is simple: the customer's responsibility is to pay with good funds and to not blame his own mishandling of the product on the supplier. Everything that happens to the product before it safely reaches the customer's hands is the responsibility of all the people in the design, production, and distribution chain. I hold them all responsible, no excuses. <br>

<br />The engineers you referred to might have blamed the manufacturer. Other engineers might blame the shippers. Other engineers might blame the custom houses. Other engineers might blame the outfit that actually sold them the product. In different circumstances, one or more of the different groups of engineers will be right. But that's immaterial. It isn't their job to figure out who's to blame. All they have to do is find a new source of a similar product. It's the responsiblity of and to the financial benefit of the manufacturer to see that a product of expected and promised quality ends up in the engineer's hands. The manufacturer must do whatever it takes, which may even include terminating dealer agreements that would cause your former employer to no longer carry the product. But in any event, the manufacturer has no valid excuse. <br>

<br />Thank you again for your thoughtful answer. This is not a personal attack against you or your opinion. It is just an old-fashioned, outdated statement concerning quality control. Actually, I expect very few entities from manufacture to final seller to make a proper effort to see the customer gets a quality product handed to him. All the more reason to value and continue to do business with those few companies that do meet quality control standards and take responsibility for the few errors that are going to happen despite their best reasonable efforts. <br>

<br />A. T. Burke</p>

[alan_rockwood]

<p>A quick note or two: Where I do my work we have a "quality assurance" (QA) department whose responsibility includes all aspects of making sure we do quality work. One part of QA is "quality control" (QC), which includes testing of units and interpretation of test results (Shewhart charts and the like, though in my business we call these charts by a different name) and corrective action is taken when testing indicates that a process is out of control. The QC process is primarily applied to dummy units that go through the whole process. In the part of the operation for which I have responsibilities we also apply certain tests to each and every unit produced, and each unit has to pass certain criteria or be rejected. This is in addition to that part of QC used to produce Shewhart charts.</p>

<p>One might guess that it is very expensive to test every unit. However, in the context of my work it is not particularly expensive, probably of the order of a few cents per unit, but certainly well under a dollar per unit.</p>

<p>In addition, there is a report that accompanies each unit. This report has to be double verified, which basically means it has to be checked by at least two individuals. The financial cost of doing the double verification is process is less well under a dollar per unit as well.</p>

<p>There are additional measures we take as well. For example, we have monthly meetings where quality indicators for all departments in our section are reviewed and discussed.</p>

<p>We also undergo external checking of our ability to do quality work, and we are also regularly inspected by outside agencies to make sure we are doing quality work. (These two things may sound the same, but they are not.) If these processes turn up persistent problems then there is the possibility that the operation may be shut down, either temporarily or permanently, and there is even the very real possibility that managers could go to jail.</p>

<p>All this may sound expensive and fanatical, but it is not too expensive because the quality program is built in an made highly routine, and furthermore, the consequences (both financial and other) of a quality breakdown can be very serious and potentially affect the well being of of many people. You can believe me when I say that you should be glad we pay fanatical attention to doing quality work.</p>

<p>QA is a comprehensive program which aims, among other things, to minimize the number of repeats. It includes, for example, measures to build processes that minimize the chance for human error or other sources of error that can cause QC failure. In the long run this saves money because if there is a QC failure we have to send units back through the process, which incurs additional cost. One example of a QA measure is to upgrade processes to be robot based rather than human based. There are many other aspects to it as well.</p>

[mike_hitchen]

<p>Alan - The process you describe if pretty standard QC stuff for any premium brand company and I am extremely confident that Canon have a similar QC process to the one you describe. I think I remember that you work in an analytical lab - but even there the quality and reproducibility of the results will depend on what you are measuring, what the client wants the results for and how much they are willing to pay. If they want highly accurate results reproducible opver long periods of time then they kno they will have to pay to get them. If they want semi-quantitive results it is much cheaper. The client has a choice. The same thing goes for cameras - if I walk into a camera shop and want a lens that I am guaranteed will produce absolutely pin-sharp plane-of-focus results with any body I care to put it on, then I had better be prepared to pay for the higher manufacturing costs that will entail (including the far higher QC rejection rate). Or do I accept there will occasionally be lens-body mismatches due to the QC range that Canon define?<br />I have worked at different times in labs and in manufacturing and although the process of QC can be very similar, the application in practice can vary quite a lot. In the quality meetings you mentioned, I bet there have been several where the general theme has been 'we have received two complaints, nothing to worry about so we will not act yet but we will keep and eye on it'. If that is the case then you too are setting a trigger as to when you will act - just like Canon, Nikon or whoever.<br />You referred previously to the acid test of client satisfation and I think it is there in their market standing. Let us set this nightmare scenario: Canon get complaints from their clients about poor quality but to keep manufacturing costs down Canon decide to do nothing - do you <em>really believe</em> they would maintain their position of one of the top two companies in the world? In this sort of field, once you get a bad reputation among people who need your goods to earn a living, doubt and insecurity are absolute killers and they start to drop you like a hot potato and you slide down the rankings pretty damned quickly.</p>

[alan_rockwood]

<p>Mike,</p>

<p>Thanks for the comments. Just one comment in return. When we receive a client complaint it normally triggers an investigation, and the results of the investigation are reported at the monthly meeting. It is taken very seriously and I don't recall seeing a case where the attitude of "nothing to worry about so we will not act yet but we will keep and eye on it" prevailed. Although I have not worked at our competitors, I think their approach to client complaints would likely be taken similarly seriously.</p>

[henryp]

<blockquote>

<p>When we receive a client complaint it normally triggers an investigation, and the results of the investigation are reported at the monthly meeting. It is taken very seriously and I don't recall seeing a case where the attitude of "nothing to worry about so we will not act yet but we will keep and eye on it" prevailed. Although I have not worked at our competitors, I think their approach to client complaints would likely be taken similarly seriously.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>+1!</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

[helen_oster]

<p>Us too!</p>

<p><strong>Helen Oster </strong>☺<strong><br /> Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador</strong><br>

<a href="mailto:HelenO@adorama.com">Helen@adorama.com</a> </p>

[mike_hitchen]

<blockquote>

<p>When we receive a client complaint it normally triggers an investigation, and the results of the investigation are reported at the monthly meeting</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You correctly review and investigate complaints and you then make a decision whether or not to take action. So my (poorly described) point was do you take remedial action every time you receive a complaint. Do you change process every time you receive a complaint - and that is the intimation behind comments about Canon's QC. .</p>

 

[james_meketa]

<p>My earlier post (April 12) about returns being recycled was based on what I was told <em>explicitly</em> by the owner of a large, east coast camera store when I asked him what would happen to a brand new, but badly decentered, prime lens I was returning. I assumed from his reply that this practice was standard. I am glad to learn that it may not be.<br>

As far as Adorama and B&H are concerned, I have purchased large amounts of equipment from them over the past two decades. Both are fine retailers, and I have never had a single problem with either one. I can recommend both highly.</p>

[William Michael]

<p>Thank you for answering my question.</p>

<p>I think it was either an unfortunate mistake, or gross misjudgement, to assume that what any one business does, is applicable to all businesses.</p>

<p>Personally, I believe that my many of my Customers view our competition’s practices and that is why they choose to do business with us. I would expect that most Customers do – that’s one main reason as to how they choose with whom they do business.</p>

<p>I hope that your Customers do not look at your Competition - and then judge your business by your competitions practices or what your Competition’s CEO tells them: that would be just unfair, wouldn’t it?</p>

<p>WW</p>

<p> </p>

[helen_oster]

<p> James</p>

<p>I'm delighted to read that you've never experienced problems with purchases from Adorama, but your response highlights how reputable retailers can be adversely affected by others.<br>

The retailer you spoke to may well be one of those who would in fact return poorly performing units to the manufacturer as overstock - rather than as faulty.<br>

These same units could so very easily end up in our inventory with our next shipment from the manufacturer. As we don’t open and check units prior to despatching them to the customer, it would appear that we were sending pre-owned goods to our customers, intentionally!<br>

<strong>Helen Oster <br /> Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador</strong><br>

<a href="http://twitter.com/HelenOster">http://twitter.com/HelenOster</a></p>

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p>My earlier post (April 12) about returns being recycled was based on what I was told <em>explicitly</em> by the owner of a large, east coast camera store when I asked him what would happen to a brand new, but badly decentered, prime lens I was returning. I assumed from his reply that this practice was standard. I am glad to learn that it may not be.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>James, could you share the name of that "large, East Coast camera store"? Apparntely that is neither Adorama nor B&H.</p>

<p>If that is true, as we pointed out before, it is a very stupid way to do business. The chance is that the next customer will discover the same problem and will return that same item. Every time an item is returned due to defects, it generates more overhead that costs the store as well as Canon/Nikon. The only companies that may be benefitted would be UPS or FedEx if we are talking about mail ordering. I certainly wouldn't take my chances with such stores; therefore, I am sure a lot of members here would like to know which store that is.</p>

<p>I have bought 40+ new Nikon lenses in the last 3 decades plus some more new ones I received from Nikon through photo.net for testing. So far I have had exactly 1 that required warranty repair within the first year (that was back in 1990) and none defective out of the box. Recently a friend and I both purchased refurbished Nikon 70-300mm AF-S VR lenses from B&H, and both refurbished lenses were defective. In both cases B&H paid for return shipping and promptly refunded us. I only have personal experience with those 2 samples among, but according to Henry Posner, that is uncommon for refurbished lenses.</p>

<p>However, I have seen a few people here on photo.net. For any item they purchase, regardless of whether it is Canon or Nikon, camera bodies or lenses, they have to return everything once or twice, sometimes more, before they are happy. In one case one of those people posted image samples of his "defective" lens to the forum, complaining that one side was unsharp, and everybody else thought the lens was perfectly fine. Those who keep on coming up with those non-existing "problems" merely jack up the cost for all of us. Fortunately, as far as I can tell, there are very few of such folks.</p>

<p> </p>

[alan_rockwood]

<p>One problem with the discussion so far is the lack of actual data on defect rates for new photographic equipment. Some estimates have been given, and it has also been pointed out that the manufacturers do not publicly disclose defect rate data, but no real data has been given.</p>

<p>To help put the conversation on a more quantitative footing I have searched for defect data, and so far I have found one web page giving some survey results for defect rates for lenses, though not for all photographic equipment.</p>

<p>There are a number of limitations to the study, of which I won't go into in detail. The web page itself discussed study limitations in more detail. I will briefly summarize. The main limitation boils down to biased sampling. The survey probably over-represents users who received defective lenses. On the other hand the survey is limited to out-of-the-box defects and also excludes recalls. From the user point of view the latter groups of defects are little different from the defects that are covered in the survey, so in that sense the survey under-represents the defect rate.</p>

<p>Here is the link to the study and a summary of the primary findings.</p>

<p>http://www.lensplay.com/lenses/lens_defect_results.php</p>

<p>Here are the results as of today. I have converted the data from the probability of getting a good lens to the probability of getting a defective lens:</p>

<p><strong>Canon lenses</strong> - 13495 with 1051 defects<br /> Defect rate 8 %<br /> The probability of getting 5 good Canon lenses in a row is 67 %<br /> <strong>Sigma lenses</strong> - 3073 with 686 defects<br /> Defect rate 22 %<br /> The probability of getting 5 good Sigma lenses in a row is 28 %<br /> <strong>Tamron lenses</strong> - 1527 with 229 defects<br />Defect rate 15 %<br /> The probability of getting 5 good Tamron lenses in a row is 44 %<br /> <strong>Tokina lenses</strong> - 516 with 88 defects<br />Defect rate 17 %<br /> The probability of getting 5 good Tokina lenses in a row is 39 %<br /> <strong>Nikon lenses</strong> - 2470 with 204 defects<br /> Defect rate 8 %<br /> The probability of getting 5 good Nikon lenses in a row is 65 %<br /> <strong>Pentax lenses</strong> - 1688 with 109 defects<br /> Defect rate 6 %<br /> The probability of getting 5 good Pentax lenses in a row is 72 %<br /> <strong>Minolta/Konica/Sony lenses</strong> - 669 with 62 defects<br /> Defect rate 9 %<br /> The probability of getting 5 good Minolta/Sony lenses in a row is 61 %<br /> <strong>Other lenses</strong> - 1007 with 106 defects<br /> Defect rate 11 %<br /> The probability of getting 5 good Other lenses in a row is 57 %</p>

<p>The most striking thing about the study is that if the results are anywhere near representative of the true defect rates then quality assurance and quality control from the manufacturers ranges (in my opinion) from very bad to horrible, much worse in fact than the most pessimistic estimates given in the thread so far.</p>

<p>If the data in the survey are not representative of the true defect rate then it would be very helpful if the manufacturers would release their data to the public.</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p><em>"if the results are anywhere near representative of the true defect rates"</em></p>

<p>That has been my point all along, I am sure that lenses people say are defective are not, and very high volume users experiences back that up. LensRentals suggest their <a href="http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2010/11/how-to-test-a-lens">return rate across all lens manufacturers is 2%</a>. And they admit that they won't stock many Sigma lenses because of unacceptable failure and quality rates.</p>

<p><em>" But after opening some 8,000 shiny new lens boxes I can assure not all of them are. Whether its quality control at the factory or getting knocked around in shipping our experience is about 2% of new lenses need to be exchanged"</em></p>

<p>I give a lot more credibility to professionals who rent lenses out for a living and have owned over 8,000 of them, than some random internet user.</p>

<p>Furthermore, their experience is</p>

<p>"<em>if you send a lens in to factory repair with “This lens is soft” as the only description of the problem, chances are extremely high that it won’t be fixed. Trust me on this. We have 20 lenses a week go in to factory service. We’ve learned."</em></p>

<p>Twenty lenses per week, that is more than most of us will do in our lives! Nobody has addressed my earlier comments about different kinds of failure either, if QC is so bad why don't IS units fail as often, or aperture units? It just doesn't make sense. Indeed I would say the lack of failure comments other than focus points to the truth being that QC is very good and most complainers are just wrong. </p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>If the data in the survey are not representative of the true defect rate then it would be very helpful if the manufacturers would release their data to the public.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>There is no statistical validity to the tests. In addition, it ignores all the post-manufacturing issues. No controls, no good data, no value.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Alan, that lensplay.com article openly admits that they did not sample random users. As soon as you see that, you might as well stop reading the rest of the article since it is not a statistically valid survey.</p>

<p>I have been buying Nikon lenses since 1977. Their results totally contradict my experience over 3 decades. Just within the last 7 months, I have bought 5 new Nikon lenses; in fact I received 6 since I accidentally double ordered the TC-20e iii teleconverter. All 6 lenses are fine. I carefully compared the two teleconverter smaples (from different stores), and they were practically identical. In that period I also bought a refurbished lens that was unsharp on the long end, and I returned it.</p>

<p>However, I am a bit surprised by the 2% reported by LensRental. That sounds low to me.</p>

<p>Again, Consumer Reports publishes repair records for a lot of products, not only limited to cameras and lenses.</p>

[alan_rockwood]

<p>OK guys, I have tried to interject some real results into the conversation. If you don't like those results, then how about coming up with some alternative results. I mean some real data from some source, rather than just carping and complaining about the quality of results I pointed to.</p>

<p>The results from the Bob Atkins survey (might as well call it what it was, and by the way Bob, where are you... why not weigh in on the present conversation?) may have some weaknesses, which by the way were acknowledged in both the survey and in my post pointing to the survey, but at least they are real results, as opposed the the hypothetical speculations that have constituted most of the discussion in this thread.</p>

<p>I take as an example the unsupported speculation that most of the returns are from users who don't know the difference between a sound unit and a defective one. (Where is the data showing that those users don't know the difference between a good lens and a bad one?) No data=speculation, regardless of whether the speculation is true or not.</p>

<p>As to the comment that the Atkins data have no statistical validity, that is a rather extreme view. There certainly is some validity to the data, though the quality is not as high as in a well-controlled study. One thing is for sure, it is better quality than comments that are backed up by no data at all.</p>

<p>Scott at least has posted a link that at supplies some alternative data. That data could also be subject to some criticism. For example it says "about 2% of new lenses NEED to be exchanged." [emphasis added]. The problem here is the definition of the phrase "need to be exhanged." Does that refer to some minimal standard of acceptability for the purpose renting a lens to a relatively non-discriminating user, or does it refer to a higher level of quality? We don't know. In any case, let us take the value mentioned in that link (2% defects) at face value with respect to the rental agency.</p>

<p>My guess (yes, it is a guess) is that the true defect rate probably lies somewhere between the rates quoted by Scott's link (2%) and rates found in the Atkins survey (typically around 10%), which conveniently enough would put it roughly in the range that Shun suggested (which I think were roughly based on Consumer Reports).</p>

<p>However, let's assume the defect rate is at the low value (2%). Let me then submit a question for discussion. Is a 2% defect rate is acceptable for a consumer product? I can only speak for myself that it is about an order of magnitude greater than an acceptable defect rate. I can tell you this much. If defect rates were that high at the place where I do much of my work we would shortly be out of business.</p>

<p>Let me also point out another concept that has escaped discussion so far. It is the flip side of a concept that has been introduced, which is that most returns are allegedly made by users who do not know what they are doing. If this is indeed true, then consider also the flip side of this, which is that most users are also not likely to pay close enough attention to notice that a lens (or other product) is defective. In other words, most consumers will just use the product without further thought, and will not return a unit as defective unless it is very obviously malfunctioning. Thus, a lot of defects never generate a return, which would then bias the statistics (if one could ever find them) toward the low side.</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>Alan,</p>

<p>I have no affiliation with LensRentals, however I have both rented from them myself and used lenses that have been rented by others from them. I know there customer service is second to none, they are very accommodating and protective of their brand name.</p>

<p>I believe their figures, their reputation depends on it, their livelihood depends on it. They are also very aware of potential lens problems and are set up to test their inventory when they get it. They have nothing to lose by understating their figures, they have no axes to grind and having read most of the articles/posts on the site they come across as straight talkers. Indeed there is no advantage to them keeping even a questionable lens, it will cost them money and goodwill from unhappy customers and it costs them nothing, effectively, to return an unsatisfactory new lens. I remember having read in another post that the figures are seriously skewed by including Sigma lenses, so I believe the out of the box failure rate of new Canon lenses could be well lower than 2%. </p>

<p>Whether other failures are not observed by other owners is statistically irrelevant. LensRentals figures show that from 8,000 lenses around 2% across all manufacturers need to be returned, they are not missing bad lenses, even if others do. So we have an uninformed, untrained mass with inconsistent testing methods and opinions that might be complaining about 10% of lenses, or a lens <strong>business</strong> that consistently tests all their stock the same way with trained staff and acurate setups that reports an out of the box failure rate of 2%. I know which figures are easier to present as realistic.</p>

<p>So your new question is, if the Canon contingent of that 8,000 lenses is showing a 2% out of the box failure is that an acceptable rate? Well it seems to be inline with the other manufacturers, Canon are not reported as being worse than Zeiss or Nikon. So there would seem to be an industry standard, probably one that comes from a balance between manufacturing costs and sale price.</p>

<p> </p>