Consumer vs Industry Standards for Spyderco?

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Can you all explain this statement? It is very interesting. I was watching a video about Spyderco online and a statement was made that Spyderco tries to get industrial standards vs consumer standards.

Does this mean going for the best materials and mechanisms and workmanship vs just what "looks good" to people?

[crazywednesday]

SEF, can you expand on this? Maybe specifics?

[Marulaghost]

Could you post a link to the video?

[The Deacon]

Could mean anything, could mean nothing, depending on who's saying it and the context in which it's being said. As an example, which type of diamonds do you think most women would prefer to receive, industrial grade or consumer grade. As already noted, a link to the video would make determining the statement's meaning and/or value a lot easier.

[Accutron]

Sal says this in part 1 of the BHQ Spyderco shop tour, just after the 11:00 mark. I believe he was referring to machining tolerances and other manufacturing/QC standards.

https://youtu.be/JlsoX_Hkd1c

[Sumdumguy]

Can you all explain this statement? It is very interesting. I was watching a video about Spyderco online and a statement was made that Spyderco tries to get industrial standards vs consumer standards.

Does this mean going for the best materials and mechanisms and workmanship vs just what "looks good" to people?

I'm not directly involved in this, so I cant say with 100% certainty, but here goes.

It has to do with the reliability and tolerances of an item.

In industry, time is money(BIG money). If a machine goes down due to an inferior quality part, the manufacturer of said part may lose a contract. That contract is equal to thousands of customers.

In consumer products, quality can be lower. A customer is one purchase, that one purchase is insignificant(relatively).
Also, if there is an issue with the product it doesn't(usually) touch the consumers income.

Hypothetical example:
If 1 in 1000 products have an issue on the consumer side, it costs the consumer nothing over the cost of the part. The company can fix it and everybody's happy

If ONE part breaks on the industrial side, the machine that was spitting out 25 rolls of carpet an hour, is now producing NONE. each roll of carpet is worth $200. That's $5000 per hour or $120,000 per day, that machine isn't making.

Spyderco is one heck of a company, which is why they make all of my knives.

[tvenuto]

As stated, the comparison is not rigorous enough to declare true or false. There is not one set if standards for all “industry.” Whether it not they hold tighter tolerances than another company is unknown, or whether they are more reliable from a statistical standpoint.

It seems like they were referring in general to Spyderco’s approach to design, in that they look at a knife from a tool/use standpoint as opposed to a pure product standpoint.

[The Mastiff]

Isn't this referring to having positive control of quality and consistency from raw materials to final product with the ability to reach back and retest if needed products and what they were made from including different lots if applicable? There are better ways to explain it from what I just did but that is the general idea anyways.

Joe

[demoncase]

It's actually fairly easy to explain:

Industrial standards are about measurable repeatability, provable perfomance and quality as a verifiable quantity- Quantifiable
Consumer standards are about intangibles, how the product makes you feel and how desirable it is- Qualifiable

Industrial standards are measured with a micrometer
Consumer standards are measured with those surveys that ask you to rate things with a smiley face or a frowny face.

Spyderco are about that "performance first" philosophy- I think the phrase is 'Reliable high performance'.....Now, you can't begin to talk about reliability without some form of measurement-first process approach- hence industrial standards.

I'll leave you to make the value judgement on which I'd rather spend money on.....

[The Mastiff]

And if that isn't the right answer it should be. Thanks!

:)

Joe

[tvenuto]

Demoncase has put it well.

To Joe's point, spyderco doesn't actually control a ton of their upstream manufacturing compared to some others. I'm not saying they should, a handheld knife just doesn't demand that level of control.

My coworker used to work for YKK zipper, and they actually owned their own foundry to create the custom shaped barstock that got turned into the zipper teeth. They wanted to control the lead content so their zippers would be RoHS compliant. Fascinating stuff.

But just think of how many zipper teeth come out of a YKK factory vs how many knives come out of Golden. Also think of how infinitesimal dimensional differences in zipper teeth could stop a zipper from working. Sometimes the most mundane objects contain fascinating engineering problems and solutions.

[The Mastiff]

I know they wouldn't be producing steel, G10, etc. They do have exact compositions of every shipment batch of steel and know the times and temps of the heat treats and probably keep some control samples. For the knives they have made at different vendors I'd bet money their lab takes measurements and tests hardness's of the steel to insure it is as planned. That is how they found out the first Byrds were 8C and not 440 and they would know if that foundry changed steel again, for instance. If they get complaints about several knives from a batch they will have samples of everything in their records to look at and see why and what is going on. I think that is about all the control they need but it is also the basic level required for making the same quality repeatable over time batch after batch.

Some of the plants I worked at that sold internationally spent a lot of time and money and even had directors positions overseeing ISO and other standards. They worked pretty hard at it. It's true knives aren't Airbus and Northrup products but the basic ideas are similar just scaled back a bit.


Joe

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Sal says this in part 1 of the BHQ Spyderco shop tour, just after the 11:00 mark. I believe he was referring to machining tolerances and other manufacturing/QC standards.

https://youtu.be/JlsoX_Hkd1c

Thank you, that was the video I saw, yes.