SIG Sauer P320

Opinions are like rectal orifices. Everybody has one.  So, for what it's worth, read on. 

My personal opinion (spit-balling here) is one of the supplied parts is out of tolerance at a very low frequency of occurrence.  Perhaps as low as one in 10,000.

They clearly have done a tolerance and stack analysis on all the parts and looked at the failure, modes and effects.  

The mechanical CAD model is theoretical.  What everyone forgets is that you actually actually have to go out and look at the goddamn parts.  

All of them.  

My money is on Supplier Controls.  A formal Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) looking specifically at minimum and maximum tolerances would be my next big move.

I would start with a review of engineering changes over time, and get the MCAD STEP files for review.  In parallel I would look at the sheet prints for proper expression of Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T), the training records for design engineers to show who has been trained on GD&T, and most importantly specific call out on the sheet prints of those component level AND assembly level characteristics that are 'Critical To Quality' (CTQ).  

Suppliers really like it when the design engineers actually disclose which dimensions and callouts out of the hundreds on a drawing will cause the design to, you know,  fail, so they can apply proper diligence and ongoing surveillance on those CTQ's BEFORE Production Part Approval.  Often times design engineering be forgets to denote these features, and it remains a State Secret, leaving suppliers in the dark.  

"Here's your parts.  Enjoy."  

I would also look at the number of Supplier Quality Engineers (SQE’s) SIG has, and make sure they’re the right pedigree AND temperament.  

I say this because my career has been plagued with supplied part conformance issues.  They are like herpes, and recur frequently.  

This is only why I would start here.  

The FTA would also yield the threshold margins for not just one component that is out of specification, but also which combinations of parts that would result in an “uncommanded discharge” or ‘UC’ of the pistol.  I would look at the totality of specifications for critical parts, not just dimensional (material composition, etc.).  

I then would personally inspect the records associated with the inspection plan for each critical component and assess whether the plan was followed, and in turn, if the inspection plan was decidedly deficient (AQL sampling levels, measurement method(s)), I would look to see who signed off on it; if it was approved by leadership, then I’d start a watch of the cognizant QA leader(s) for evidence of competence (or, incompetence) and any telltale CYA behaviors.  

If there was only a paper CoC supplied with material / part receipts (and not material certifications, test and inspection results / associated control charting, etc.), then I would pull the PPAP document and review the overall Quality Plan.  

If the Quality Plan was decidedly deficient, I would place the VP QA/RA on “special projects” and tell leadership they need to do a better job of selecting the HMFIC for QA.  

I would ask for any process deviations approved for any nonconforming critical parts, review all records of rework, verify the associated engineering analysis and risk assessments performed, and assess the overall signature approval authority of this process by departmental function, to assure the person approving these deviations / rework were granted authority to do so by the defined Design Control Authority (DCA) and Quality Authority.  

I saw in the FBI report for the pistol under evaluation that had an uncommanded discharge in Michigan (and wounded the trooper) that there appeared to be wear on the sear / striker assembly noted, and the photographs had a telltale hook on the contact area of the sear (as I recall) [The FBI did not conclude this was causal or a contributing factor in the report].  

This may possibly implicate the stamping process and the related supplier controls for the sear and related components.  Possibly even impact damage during material handling, shipment, receipt, or manufacturing assembly.  I would audit that full process for the critical parts.  

I would have my best steely-eyed Supplier QE (who only accepts evidence and records as inputs, but only listens to the blathering talking heads and suits to discern who actually knows what the hell they are talking about) fly out to the stamping house to inspect the stamping tool, recent tool maintenance, current production samples, retention samples (if any) and associated records.  I would look at the competence of their metrology, and the traceability of measurement reference standards to a National Standard, training of their inspection personnel and their calculation of measurement uncertainty to the equipment performing the dimensional and metallurgical evaluations.  

I would tell my SQE to be professional, but if he detects any smoke or pushback bullshit, to then toggle into full asshole mode and get me on speakerphone.  

I would also tell the SQE to look assiduously at the material certifications and certified third party assay of the raw stock to see if the raw material met specification.   If there is not solid evidence, I would have additional tests of hardness, surface finish, dimensional performance over a sample of 300 parts, and metallurgy against the material specification.  

Footnote: Japan’s Kobe Steel was a world class supplier of specialty metals, and one day, a new SQE asked the question “have we ever audited them?”  The answer was no, because they were ‘Kobe Steel’ dude.  He pointed out that even Tier 1 Class A suppliers needed an on-site audit.  When he did his investigation, he found the records were falsified and management was asleep at the wheel.  This resulted in recalls from Nuclear Power Plants, Aircraft, US Navy ships, medical devices, and all manner of HI REL products.  Buzzkill.  

You have to look in the horse’s mouth to know how many teeth it has.  

In parallel, with the fault tree analysis (FTA) in hand, I would have a widely advertised 'Come to Jesus' with cognizant [Design] QA and Design Engineering to look at the analysis and testing behind the aging and reliability studies that assess the expected wear patterns over time of the critical components, and assess whether consideration was afforded design margin against each use case, and see if onset of uncommanded discharges (UC) was “out of box” or after a period of use, and if so, how much wear and abuse the produced pistols experienced.  

I would also see if there was a staff position for ‘Reliability Engineer’ at SIG and see if they were a refugee from Pratt & Whitney, or a newb freshly minted from an associate’s degree program from the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (or SHIT).  

I would assess the statistical validity of the sample sizes used to establish confidence levels.  This is the most significant contributor to Design and Process Validation efficacy; management does not want to spend the money to run sufficient quantities of product through testing.  

For safety critical (or Mission Critical — think ‘Nuclear Weapons’) the testing is 'the reveal' to weakness in design or process.  In the Semiconductor Segment, the process IS the product (the chips produced are only the accounting units to allocate cost and tally scrap).    

Note: The product that ships new out of the factory is not the product that degrades with use over time.  

The ‘use case’ anecdotally appears to influence UC.  The credible videos I have seen comport with heavier use, in the MIL / Police / and competitive civilian shooting use cases.

Occasional use, apparently not at all.  

There is a video circulating where some dude sticks a screw in the trigger assembly to "take up the slack" on the trigger and repeatedly forces an UC.  This is what you get on the interwebs these days.  

This 'test' is not a valid use case.  Pleeease.  

I would look at the validation plan, looking at drop shock, thermal shock, and vibration testing.  I would want to assess the “vibe profile” used for testing including the PSD factor(s) and over what frequency domain(s), and the test setup used.  I would look at a design FEA (finite element analysis) to see what stress gradients and torsional effects are at play (assuming a FEA was performed -- likely not).  

LEO’s are renowned for not lubricating their duty pistols, even though a majority of them are good “gun guys”.  

I would want to see the process validation test results for the population that was run to failure “bone dry”.  

Note: Trying to tell busy LEO’s to lube their Roscoe weekly is like telling someone attending a P-diddy “freak out” not to get any bodily fluids or baby oil on them.  

SIG is a nimble company.  It is run by an Israeli CEO.  They have entered the markets early for all manner of products, are quick to act, and it has yielded steller results as a company (financially, organizationally, and market timing), but I do not know their level of mastery with Operational Test & Evaluation as it relates to devising Validation Requirements.  H&K is slow, stogy, methodical, and enters the market windows late... but their shit works.  

This would be my approach to bird dogging this issue with the SIG P320 to root cause.  

The rest of this online chatter is just arm waiving, posturing, and narrative control in advance of lawsuits.  

The H-1B Program

I’m curious about all of the rhetoric regarding H-1B visas for specialty skills that are not demonstrably available through available US Citizens.  

When I was a senior manager at a Bay Area medical device company, I had several H-1B’s reporting to me when I assumed the role. They were mostly from India but also from México, and were engineers all.

During my tenure, I had three openings I attempted to fill with US Citizen talent.  I hired US Citizens from Silicon Valley and had to terminate all three during the probationary period for being largely ineffective.  There were no candidates that met the minimum requirements AND did not have prior performance or behavioral red flags.  

The team I inherited was strong and effective.  

This was near the end of a five year period of remediation, and prior to my arrival the recruitment process was led by a turn-around team who knew how to, you know, recruit.  

Recruitment is not an instantaneous process of looking for a “clot for a slot” as Dr. Laurence J. Peter (Peter Principle fame) would coin the phrase.  

Recruiting growable, loyal, passionate talent takes time, typically months, including scouring outplacement sessions for Armed Services officers, warrant officers, and technical enlistees, and having a network in place and pre-established contacts with high-performers in the market space who may suddenly become available or otherwise entertain evolving their career.  

This does not happen without planning led by senior leadership.  

Regrettably, HR departments don’t work that way.  

They are driven by finance and open requisitions that if not filled in 90 or 120 days, are rescinded by management to stay true to the tyranny of the budget and/or EBIDTA short term bogies, and not the long term.  

When a prospective “highly desirable” candidate does became available, there is usually a hiring freeze in effect to cover an operational or programmatic shortfall, or no open position to allow for such a hire.   The approval process for a new role takes weeks to months to push through the hiring wickets and checkbox controls to get an answer, and always exceeds the window opening that these sudden candidates have to act upon.  

Effectively managing this process takes management focus (and is aided by metrics).  

Well run companies budget for and hire candidates on-the-spot, and find roles for them knowing the organization must constantly evolve to stay relevant, and scour the market to identify and be at the ready for future acquisitions.  

Poorly run companies do not hire sudden employees, nor develop recruiting networks.  Most companies are barely minimally functional with LinkedIn, and are not proficient in my opinion.  

I chuckle at the overseas “outsourced” recruitment copy / paste operations that pester LinkedIn members with “opportunities”.

"Dear [LinkedIn member name], I note from your résumé you are a warm body with a heartbeat, a LinkedIn account, and your background is highly impressive.  Please do the needful and apply for this junior deputy assistant specialist third class role at a undisclosed company way across the country from your location.  No relocation compensation.  Six month term.  W2’s only.”  

In my opinion 95-98% of companies are fairly poorly run from a recruitment standpoint.  

Southwest Airlines used to have a process (I do not know if it is still in place) to deliberately manage staffing to place in job openings internal employees two out of three times, and hire outside one out of three times.  This was (at that time) a key business metric.  

You don’t do this kind of staffing unless you have a constant attention to effective cross-training, regular staff rotation and rigorous evaluation as to how the rotated employees have assimilated their required competencies in their new roles, and whether they demonstrate an ability to stretch to a higher role.  

The only way this works is if you have an effective lean internal training system tailored to each role, and (I detest using this word) ‘mentoring' from key employees.  

Allied-Signal and General Electric had / have the four (or nine) block system of assessing employees and managing under performers out of the organization and identifying high performers, but generally instead of a core tenant to a manager’s function, this activity devolves over time to a once a year check-box activity, and the output is placed in a three (or two) ring binder where it gathers dust until next year.  

No further work stems from the four block to work on improving the company systems and processes, nor helping folks get the help they need to overcome obstacles and grow or feel more loyal to the organization.  

Staffing from a pool of high potential (HIPOT) recent college graduates, in-turn rotated through various high profile (and often demanding) roles in an organization (in various capacities, both in and outside of their domain expertise) is another method of developing and identifying internal leadership.  The problem with these programs is that after 3-5 years the vast majority of these folks invariably strike out and move on to another employer who values your employees more than you do; program participants having assessed that their larger opportunities lay outside of the current organization.   

The process to on-board a H1B through USCIS (for me) was rules based, onerous and pedantic, requiring multiple engagements with the cognizant government agency and a six to nine month time period, and sponsorship.  We had to conclusively demonstrate the job market did not have a single person with the requisite skills to staff the role.  We had to advertise (canvass) and disclose the applications and CV’s and show why the US Citizen or green card holder applicants did not meet minimum requirements, and could almost automatically expect a challenge from USCIS if you passed on 'minimally viable' domestic applicants.  

The H1B’s that worked for me were well above par in performance, but were always worried of losing their jobs, being deported, and always had their recruitment antennae out.  So, while diligent and high performers, they were not loyal to the company, despite being loyal to me.  

I think the real problem is how companies view “talent”, and treat them.  

That is the villain — not the H-1B’s or the program as intended.  

The H-1B’s I am familiar with are here (in the US) as a bandaid for a larger problem, and, by-in-large contribute positively corporations.  

Additionally, in my opinion, with the decline in primary, secondary and higher education quality, and the obscene cost growth in higher education, it seems to me the talent pool is shrinking, and companies will need to focus more on internal growth and retention and better manage their affairs for the immediate future.  

This secular decline has been aided and abetted by the SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan Lab leak (funded by the brightest elites in US government), the resulting COVID-19 pandemic, and especially most world governments’ response to the pandemic and the knock-on effect to children and young adults marching through our educational system.  

This all finds us here with a younger population struggling, often working two (or three jobs), concerned that no one cares much about their condition (except every four years), taking basic service roles to bide their time in the hope that manufacturing rebounds in the US (and with each manufacturing job the addition of two to three support and untold supply chain jobs).  

It will take more than two years to rebuild our collective hollowed-out manufacturing base; I foresee a decade of necessary change, which must start with leadership and a change in corporate culture.  Increasing the cost of commodities 

Changing leaders is easy.  

Permanently changing culture (and sustaining it) is hard.

E Unum Pluribus - The Triumph of Tribalism

Following the lead of the US Armed Services, NASCAR announces total ban on Confederate flags from all races, events and properties.  

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/motorsports/nascar-announces-ban-on-confederate-flags-from-all-races-events-and-properties/ar-BB15j5s3 

[begin sarcasm]

As scribes in attendance feverishly recorded, Pharaoh Phelps I, the leader of NASCAR, was overheard to decree, "Let the Confederate Flag be stricken from every book and tablet.  Stricken from every pylon and obelisk of Egypt.  Let the name of Robert E. Lee be unheard and unspoken, erased from the memory of man, for all time.  So it shall be written, so it shall be done; let the woke times roll.”

[end]

I am an amateur vexillologist (or at least a vexillophile; I am also an amateur thespian but I’ll save that for another blogpost).  

Also, as an inept but recovering student of history, I note several things related to this sudden clamor to eradicate any vestige, etching, carving, monument, or symbol from the Civil War in the public (and now private) commons.  

Everyone is now seemingly gleefully fixated on the expurgation of the “Confederate Battle Flag” as a token gesture against white racism.  

The flag was adopted after the battle of First Manassas, as a visual aide to identify Confederate regiments at war on the field of battle.  The ‘peace’ or ‘parade’ flag of the Confederate States was the Stars and Bars, the first of three styles representing the Confederacy.  

Given that the Patron Saint of anti-American wokeness, Colin Kaepernick, has represented that the Betsy Ross Flag (and by logical extension each subsequent iteration of the US National Flag) is racist iconography of our defective founding (in 1619?), I therefore predict that in all of this Latter Day Wokeness, the marauding Jacobins will metastasize and expand the Gleichschaltung to include the following flags: 

The Mississippi State Flag 

The first US Navy Jack 

The Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” Flag (including the Georgia 1st Battalion Flag) 

The Join Or Die Snake "Benjamin Franklin” Flag 

The Battle of Gonzalez Flag 

The Thin Blue Line Flag 

The Three Percenters Flag 

The Ensign of the US Coast Guard 

The Seguin “Alamo” Flag 

The State Flag of Alabama, Florida, Flag of Scotland, Jersey and any flag in the Commonwealth containing the UK Union Jack, including Hawaii (for the similarity to the Confederate Battle Flag) 

And possibly The 1824 Alamo Flag (which, was likely never flown over the Alamo) because, cultural appropriation.

This will not end here.  The radicals will expand the range and depth of those icons that must be eradicated from our history, and collective memory.  

As Robert Heinlein has been quoted as saying, “A generation that doesn’t know history has no past; and no future.”  Orwell said in 1984 “Who controls the past controls the future.”  “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”  - Edmund Burke

The upbeat of tearing down monuments and icons of our past is control of the future.  

..

An Old Friend

This weekend evolved (devolved?) into one wherein I've been well ahead of my minimal apartment and bill-paying duties, with a sudden surplus of time, and living as I am now downrange in the People's Socialist Democratic Republic of California, well behind enemy lines and having been TDY here for a full year now.  

For anyone wondering, secretly or openly, what would prepare someone to contend with moving from the Midwest to California for a job in these Latter Days, I would recommend you read the following.   

I find myself serendipitously with a surplus of time to 'assassinate'.  

For me, California is a sort of love / hate thing.  "But the weather is so bitchin', Dude."  

Yes, it is.  And today is proof in certainty of that.  Off-shore flow has boosted the temperatures and removed the Summer chill you find in more windy parts of the Bay Area.  

Aviation types know this as CAVU.  

Locals call this 'Delta Weather', wherein you sail up the San Juan or Sacramento Rivers into the Delta, anchor, and party until you can not party any further, or are arrested; this is not competitive 'sailing weather' on the Bay.  

So, driving to one of my routine watering holes, I noted that under the 'law of infinite probability', several songs suddenly sequenced into rotation on my legacy iPod (plugged into my car's USB feed) that I had not heard for decades.  Seemingly, by divine providence.  

The one song that tripped my trigger was Def Leopard's 'Gods of War' from their Hysteria Album.   Driving West on CA-4 in my Honda Fit (32 mpg hammer down, 40 mpg if you drive like you are in Wisconsin - which I'm not), I suddenly flashed-back to when I first arrived in the Bay Area, way back in March 1989, when I left a rockin' job at Rockwell Autonetics in Anaheim working as a Manufacturing Engineer on the PeaceKeeper Strategic Ballistic Missile, to take a job with a boutique Aerospace & Defense company in Concord California (right before peace broke out, the Berlin Wall came down, and Congreff and Bill Clinton extracted a well-deserved 'peace dividend'),.  

At the time, I had a collection of motorcycles, and not much more.  My Alpha bike was a 1987 Suzuki GSXR-1000R, trimmed in blue and white.   

I would explore the roads by swinging a leg over the Beast, and taking various back-roads to find interesting places.  

The One place I latched onto early on was to take the McEwen Road exit to Port Costa.  The destination is the Warehouse Cafe.  

So, I detoured to vector to the Warehouse.  

As I sit here, it is an anachronism which has not appreciably changed in the 30 years since first landing.  A unique place.  One of my all time favorites.  It is a place where bikers, yuppie scum, professionals, sports fans, and all manner of humanity; they all get along.  

You can sit and watch the ships travel on the river, and the passenger trains pass by, from an establishment that was a warehouse in the 1870's, and now is a Class I dive bar today.

This is one day I'm enjoying immensely.  Old Friends are good thing.  

California Progressive Progress

Washington Post: These California agents are coming for your guns

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/these-california-agents-are-coming-for-your-guns/2018/02/24/b72fb252-183a-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html 

Snappy headline.  And timely, too.  

And as an added bonus, foreign nationals (with no background check, entry inspection, or visa) are officially welcome to enter the State of California and are and harbored from ICE and the USBP by State authorities (the State Attorney General has threatened to prosecute anybody who cooperates with ICE), all the while the CA DoJ six-person gendarme squad is going door to door looking for guns.  

Granted, I support removing firearms from felons.  Makes sense.  Good move.  But the level of effort here seems unserious.  Six officers - for the entire State of California?  They will realistically need hundreds of agents to be effective.  And MRAP’s, too.  

And I would also observe that recent mass shootings caused by the bloodthirsty NRA (in Parkland Florida, Sutherland Springs Texas, Charleston SC) all were preventable, had our government institutions done their job, and followed current law.  

Clearly, what the Progressive Left and media (I know, I repeat myself here) are clamoring for, and what we desperately need, are more legal restrictions on firearms, because the current law is not enforced by those entrusted to enforce it.  

But after reading the piece in WaPo, I would take a step back and wonder why the Governor Jerry Brown and the benevolent legislature in Sacramento,  

• pardoned convicted Illegal aliens to prevent their deportation, 

• removed mandatory sentencing guidelines for using a gun in a crime, 

• now allow convicted felons to vote, 

• pushed early release of violent felons from prison, 

• now registers anyone with a driver’s license (including illegal aliens) to vote.

Remember, the US Federal Constitution requires the census only to count people residing in the States (not US Citizens), and therefore each illegal alien is not only a potential voter, but added representation in Washington DC.  Those poor rubes in North and South Dakota are each stuck with only one measly Representative.  Iowa only has four Representatives in the US House.  They would otherwise have more (representatives in DC) if it were not for the non-citizens residing in California.  

It would seem that (in California) the law is a tool, to be used to achieve your Progressive Left agenda of building liberty snuffing, wealth transfer (Progressive Left Socialist) paradise, with an out-sized political influence in DC.  

Public safety does not enter into it.  

It's politics, all the way down.  

Zusammenstöße, Georgia Tech Edition

So, a self-declared “non-binary” gender dissident, Scout Schultz, who is somehow affiliated with the LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM “movement” (and seemingly down with “The Struggle" on campus), walks around with a Leatherman knife menacing street pedestrians last evening, and the police are called.  

The police show up, and the subject (seemingly deranged) menaces the police and screams “shoot me”, and the police shoot and kill the subject as he approaches the cop.  Classic “Suicide by Cop”.  

Intrepid News Media report (CBS This Morning) the subject was holding a “tiny” pocket knife, and the cop is now being openly asked why he did not use non-lethal force on the subject wielding a ‘tiny' knife.  You know, Tazer the guy, or throw a net over him like they did before 1980.  Or pepper spray.  Or transactional analysis (TA) “I’m ok, you’re ok, fuzzy warm dynamic therapy.”    

The subject’s Facebook is festooned with Southern Poverty Law Center, Black Lives Matter, Atlanta Antifacists, It’s Going Down, and Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America ‘likes' (the subject’s Facebook account has been subsequently suspended).  I’m all in for free speech; to afford fools the means to self identify.   

500 students get in touch with their inner feelz, and have a peaceful memorial, and a peaceful march to the police station.  Fine.  This is what the school system has produced.  ibid. - Free Speech   

Then, the Antifa “FIGHT BACK” banner waiving crowd appear to do some Ultraviolence, and torch a police cruiser, smash windows, and beat the Oppressor Cops of Georgia Tech.  

CBS This Morning covers Scout Schultz’s father, William Schultz, who was trotted out by yes-justice.com (which seems to be an ambulance-chasing race hustler organization, looking for a new gig) and sporting a greasy pony tail looking disheveled and unshaven but in a spiffy loaner sport coat, and and the father openly questions why the police shot his “obviously mentally deranged” son.  It is clear the fruit did not have far to fall from the tree.  

I had a sort of Robert Bergdhal (Bowe Bergdhal’s father) flashback moment.  You know.  Kinda' like when you throw up a little in your mouth.  

Unlike in Baltimore, Berkeley and Charlottesville, where the leadership ordered police to “stand down” to allow the “justice involved youth” some 'room to burn' (which I call Verbrennungraum Zusammenstöße), the rednecks in Georgia clamp down on the violent protest and make arrests.   

So, it’s all the fault of the cis-heteronormative bigoted Police that Scout Schultz is dead.  Lawsuits ensue.  

Welcome to Weimar America.  

Quality Assurance

SIG is a good company (quite unlike Remington’s leadership, in my opinion).  But this latest recall is disturbing:  

https://www.ammoland.com/2017/09/sig-sauer-safety-warning-recall-notice-limited-number-rifles/ 

This follows the SIG MCX™ recall, the so-called “voluntary upgrade" of the SIG P320, and is accompanied by the Ruger Mark IV™ safety recall.  Sturm-Ruger is also a good company.  

I do Quality & Reliability as a profession, though few notice these days.  

I witnessed how you take the North American Rockwell B-1B from LRIP (Low Rate Initial Production) of 4 shipsets in 6 months to 4 per month in under a year.  And improve quality.  

I witnessed how the Northrop production of the Internal Guidance Module (IMU) for the “Peacekeeper” (MX) ICBM was assumed by Rockwell international for systemic quality issues, because the USAF trusted the Anaheim Operations to get it right.  The MX IMU was so precise it was reportedly able to detect magma movement in the earth.  In the 1980’s.  Boeing purchased the defense business in 1996 following breakout of peace following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and subsequent painful consolidation (remember the "peace dividend?").   

I witnessed how automation of a manual processes, absent consideration of design, always fails.  To be successful, automation drives improvement into the design, results in improved quality, and better controls in the supply chain through "quality deployment."   

I witnessed how you take the Systron Donner Gyrochip™ (Automotive Quartz Rate Sensor or AQRS) from 300 per month (for Cadillac Luxury Car Division) to 12,500 to 25,000 per month (for VW, BMW, Ford of Europe, Daimler Benz, et al) in 12 months - while maintaining a better than 50 ppm failure rate (we were at 24 ppm in year one after launch - 50 ppm triggered a $1,000,000 penalty clause in our contract).  

As an (so-called) industry professional, I used to get Aviation Week, free of charge, and would always first read the very last section that published the findings of NTSB airline crash investigations.  I have an appreciation of scientific forensic failure analysis (or F/A).  The NTSB is exacting.  This should be required reading for serious manufacturing people.  

I have taught failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) to design and manufacturing engineers.  

To the point, I witnessed the ramp Toyota Motors underwent when the Great Recession hit, and General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt, shed market share, and Toyota (the world leader in automotive quality and lean manufacturing) gobbled up market share, and expanded production to address it.  I saw the multiple recalls, which horrified senior Toyota leadership who previously did not have experience with such.  The "stuck accelerator” issue was blamed on floor mats that allowed the accelerator pedal to latch into full-throttle, resulting in the deaths in 2009 of an off duty state trooper and his wife in California (who incidentally the wife was the HR Manager of Systron Donner).  

Toyota Leadership failed to understand the emerging reports and make corrective action, and instead decided (upon the advice of their US legal counsel) to fight claims in court.  Leadership failure.  

A business ramps production, the methods and procedures currently in place to assure quality are taxed.  Because more often than not, they [control methods] are put in place over time with no foresight as to the ongoing maintenance penalty, and prospective scalability of the control methods.  This includes employee learning curves, training and role classification, and demonstration of skill competencies and proficiencies.  

Simply put, Quality Control for steady-state is not scalable, and Leadership often assumes the manner by which quality is assured currently can be used at higher rates of production; this is not so.  Management's emphasis is on compliance (especially in the FDA related space), however outside of the Semiconductor industry (SEMI) there are seldom active reviews and implementation plans to modify, simplify, and invest in changes to control methods to allow quick ramping, and a smaller Quality Assurance footprint.  

And (in my humble opinion) this is what happened to Toyota, and is happening to the firearms manufacturers who spooled up to offer new products and greater volume during the Great Gun Control fears during the Barak Obama years.