14206509:Rotten_Trumpkins said:
Cool. I've ridden faction skis before and like them. How will they be different in terms of manufacturing process and durability? As I'm sure you're well aware while they're great skis, there's a boatload of folks here who've had questionable durability issues with their factions. I would attribute that to mass production but I could see others pointing to design as the weakness. Any comments?
Faction's biggest pitfall re: durability was Sporten. Most independent brands of this size (Faction, Black Crowes, 4FRNT, Armada pre-acquisition) don't make their own skis directly, they use manufacturing partners (Elan, Amer, Loxee, Sporten, Fisher. Head, Nobile). It is very easy to control the quality when you're making less than 1000 units, but with Faction, making 24-30k units a year, quality assurance goes down slightly. And if you're talking about their most popular SKUs (CT 2.0 and 3.0) the sample size out in the world is going to be inherently larger. Before the move to Fisher last year, Sporten had made the CT series for 6+ years. So I would say that it isn't so much mass production or design that always ruins quality or durability, but also who you have building it. Many factors in the equation...
And remember, negative reviews always outweigh the lack of positive reviews. Which is to say that most people that have a good experience with a product or service are usually not very vocal about it, because why bother, right? When shit goes wrong, humans love to complain about it. I am not excusing poor manufacturing or quality assurance, but it's a thought to be considered.
TLDR: while we are using a manufacturing partner, we are making so few units that QC is easy to monitor, and Patrik is obsessive about quality.
