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Great Lakes Darts case study
InTouch and Great Lakes Darts
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For over 30 years, Great Lakes Darts (GLD) Products has been an industry leader in family gaming products; consistently bringing to market the latest innovations in darts, billiards, table games and home casino products. In order to continue pursuing growth opportunities in their industry, GLD sought to take advantage of China’s massive manufacturing sector.
While pursuing these opportunities, GLD knew it would also have to take steps to guarantee that its reputation of delivering quality products was upheld. GLD’s management decided that the best way to effectively harness China’s production power was to hire a third-party quality assurance firm and began what would grow into a highly valuable relationship with InTouch Manufacturing Services.
GLD’s product line consists of many large and complex items, such as table-tennis, foosball, and air hockey tables, and even combination tables that can function as multiple games. The materials and manufacturing processes used in creating these table games are complex and varied, including plastic molding, metal stamping, woodworking, lamination, and color printing. In addition to this, a finished table game could be comprised of over 1000 individual components – from simple screws and washers, to moving parts, as well as wiring and electronics for scoreboards. Taken together these issues pose serious quality concerns when manufacturing a product in China, and in GLD’s case these concerns were compounded by the use of a very wide vendor base to source their products.
InTouch Standardizes QualityIn order to maximize the value of GLD’s Chinese manufacturing projects, InTouch performs a wide variety of services all aimed at standardizing the quality of their products across all models and vendors producing them. Initially, InTouch communicated extensively with GLD and their vendors to obtain BOMs as well as any testing documentation available for each item. After compiling and analyzing this information, InTouch was then able to advise GLD of what further testing should be conducted to ensure that all of their products – designed for use by families and children – are compliant with industry standards as well as the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
GLD has taken advantage of InTouch’s highly customizable services to design a quality assurance package that would guarantee the quality of their imports. The first stage of this package involves manufacturing consultations, which provide InTouch the opportunity work alongside vendors to identify and resolve known quality issues arising from inferior materials and incorrect processes.
In the second stage, InTouch conducts thorough sample inspections for GLD before mass production begins for complex items. The final stage of the package consists of during-production inspections that allow InTouch to identify and report quality concerns well before large orders are completed – possibly with a high-defect ratio. These services allow GLD to save weeks on lead times by eliminating unnecessary reworking and reshipment of defective goods. Because of this, GLD continues to bring the latest innovations in gaming products to market rapidly – a competitive advantage that distinguishes them from industry competitors.
