This is such a clusterfuck of a post that I really don't know where to start, and won't be spending much time trying to correct all the errors.
I never said it was easy. You also missed the most important element, which is brainpower (it's understandable, though, considering that most people have such little experience with it).
And there is your problem, as well as the problem of most any firearm manufacturer that doesn't go by the initials "AI". If you are trying to do any sort of real volume with a standardized ("catalog") product, then you have to take this from the realm of craftsmanship into mass production. This means implementing standard work.
Growth means a lot of things change at once. It doesn't mean that quality falls apart. There are methods developed over the past 150 years on how to scale production without hurting quality; in fact, done properly, quality often improves (more volume means more opportunity to do things properly with tooling, fixturing, etc.).
As Deming put it:
You are correct that additional production cannot be had just by obtaining more resources with the present way of doing things, which is exactly the problem I was trying to point out in my previous post. Figuring this out is the problem of management, and smart management is paid the big bucks because they can lead a company through this sort of transition without the customer feeling any adverse effects. Happens every day, and people don't know it. That's when you know that it's being done right (and it's hardly ever done right in the firearms industry...)
That's cute. That's also the sort of narrowsighted, naive description I'd expect from someone who has never spent any time inside a proper mass-production environment.
Deming's 3rd principle of quality (out of 14 total) is as follows: Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
Read those words carefully. Maybe you'll eventually get the idea that there is way more to "quality control" than a bunch of people with measurement devices who throw parts into bins labeled "pass" and "reject". If you ever get the chance to step foot into something like a modern engine or transmission plant (devices which are far more complex than any firearm, and which are made to far tighter tolerances), you'd probably be shocked at the amount of inspection which doesn't take place.
Wrong. Companies with a quality culture will work with suppliers to ensure that they don't receive defective product. Quality rejects (internal and from the customer) are incredible rare in a proper mass-production setup. One manufacturer that I worked for had internal quality failure rates in the neighborhood of a few hundred DPPM (Defective Parts Per Million) - about 0.05%. Failure rates at the customer were around 20 DPMM, or 0.002%. That's what happens when someone has their shit together. When they don't, then things obviously turn into the sort of clusterfuck where people stand around measuring parts, and defects inevitably get through to the end customers.
It was exactly the sort of clusterfuck one would expect from someone who doesn't know mass production, and worse, doesn't know enough to hire management with experience in mass production. There are at least tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of people in the Rust Belt who have the required experience to mash metal into usable parts. I'm sure at least one of them would have liked to relocate somewhere warmer...
Yeah, um, no thanks.
If you want to see the trickle-down from luxury to mass-production done right, the auto industry is an amazing example. Whatever class-leading technology is introduced on today's Mercedes S-class ends up in a Honda Accord or Ford Fusion within a couple of years, and with at least the same level of quality and durability (in many cases, it gets better since mass production affords better design and control methods). It's fuckin' awesome.
