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Thread: Wessex Quality Improvements

  1. Wessex Quality Improvements

    I posted a lengthy reply about Wessex quality on Facebook, you may find interesting, so copy below;

    Thank you for the nice comments on Wessex tubas, and apologies to those that have previously got an instrument of lesser quality than they would hope. This will be a lengthy message, but I would like to fully explain the situation and what Wessex is doing to improve.

    When I started Wessex Tubas just 8 years ago it was from my back room selling a relatively small number of instruments, made by 4 factories in China and arriving on pallets at a self storage unit. In those days Wessex was like most other companies, just ordering from the factory in China and trying to mitigate any quality issues before shipping out to customers, but there is a limited amount that can be done at that stage if the finish is not good, valve caps won’t thread well, or even a crack in knuckle from valve block. I mostly only had contact with factories by email, so was difficult to get the standard required.

    I did my best in those early years and when after 4-years the Wessex business had grown to the size that I was now receiving complete containers, I decided I must take proactive action to improve quality further. By then I had settled on using the Jinbao factory (the best of those I had tried) and started the system of visiting the factory every quarter to quality assure at the factory before accepting the goods. When I first started the quality assurance, I could not be over demanding in everything being perfect, or we would have nothing to sell. But instead pointed out problems, tried to get rectified at factory and obviously rejected the worst cases, and with every visit raised the standard of acceptability - but could not raise too quickly or would not have sufficient stock to fulfill orders. It has been an ongoing problem deciding if to keep customers waiting and risk loosing orders, or accepting instruments with small defects and hope the customer will be satisfied. Customer demands vary tremendously - some are happy as long as the tuba plays well and are not worried about finish, while others worry about the smallest scratch, or imperfection.

    Two years ago I welcomed Chuck Nickles to Wessex Tubas as Chief Designer and Technical Advisor and he has been coming with me on every quarterly quality assurance visit ever since. Chuck has a lot more knowledge of tuba building and repair than I and has in effect been acting as consultant to Jinbao in improving their quality, with better soldering, improved tooling and greater use of jigs, etc. So over the last two years quality has continued to improve, probably for all brands coming from the factory, if they have been applying the lessons to other production.

    Knowing Wessex team is going to be there for every order quality inspecting and being ever more critical, Jinbao have been working particularly hard at improving the quality of Wessex to the extent that for example they spend 6-times longer polishing every Wessex tuba against other brands.

    Jinbao had already established a High-Grade department which were making boutique trumpets for some other company to German quality standards and when Wessex decided to develop the Chicago-York 6/4 CC tuba it was decided that this tuba would be manufactured by High-Grade to the best standards possible. The quality of this tuba was way beyond anything previously that had come out of China. Chuck Nickles and I have been working with Mr.Qi, the High-Grade production manager to raise standards further, including such things as better valve cap threads, which has always been a difficult area to get entirely right, but with the latest production I think we have at last got fixed.

    Over the last year there has been an increasing realisation from both the factory and I that manufacturing Wessex in High-Grade is the way forwards to produce the quality that Wessex and our customers rightly demand. High-Grade production is completely different from regular Jinbao production. Regular production is by means of a production line with workers carrying out one process and passing on to the next, with no-one apparently taking full ownership for the production of that instrument. It is a process to make as cheap as possible, which is what is demanded by most companies getting instruments made in China. In High-Grade every instrument is built and assembled by a skilled craftsman, or craftswoman who takes full ownership for the whole process, even lovely polishing when finished. That is the way Wessex wants our instruments made. There are obviously cost implications - it costs about 30% more to make a tuba in High-Grade, but regardless I have made the decision with Jinbao Management that during 2019, all but student Wessex production will be transferred to High-Grade. This has got to be done over a period, as the High-Grade team has to be trained and grown and we are taking over 3-floors of the factory for just Wessex High-Grade. All new models are being made in High-Grade from the start and already manufacturing of Wessex other professional tubas has started to be moved across, so all Wyvern CC, Viverna BBb and Grand BBb are now made by High-Grade. The difference is tremendous - they look like they have come from a different factory! These are tubas of which I am personally proud.

    But we don’t want to remove economically priced tubas for students and schools from the range, so will continue with some regular production, but these will be branded ‘Overture’, so it will be clear to customers where the tubas have been produced. We will still try to make ‘Overture’ as good as possible, but the process will not allow them to quite come up to High-Grade standards. During 2019, the range of each model will be clearly marked on website.
    www.Wessex-Tubas.com
    Customer Services & Chicago Showroom visits: Dolce@Wessex-Tubas.com
    Shipping & UK Showroom visits: Coda@Wessex-Tubas.com

    Visit our Facebook page

  2. #2
    Jonathon, thank you for this discussion. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of your manufacturing improvements in the coming years. Already you seem to be doing a fantastic job.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Location
    Sacramento, CA area
    Posts
    309

    Euphoniums too...?

    Hello there (smile). Thank you for the peek into the Wessex production process. I was wondering if these changes affect the production of the other brass instruments, such as euphoniums, baritones, trumpets, etc. Tubas are wonderful, but I am hoping that this applies to euphoniums too (my personal favorite, smile).
    - Sara
    Baritone - 3 Valve, Compensating, JinBao JBBR1240

  4. This applies to all the low brass, so also euphonium, baritone and trombones. Most high-brass will become part of the Overture range, as Wessex is mainly a low brass company
    www.Wessex-Tubas.com
    Customer Services & Chicago Showroom visits: Dolce@Wessex-Tubas.com
    Shipping & UK Showroom visits: Coda@Wessex-Tubas.com

    Visit our Facebook page

  5. #5
    Thanks for sharing this news.
    John 3:16


    Conn Victor 5H Trombone
    Yamaha 354 Trombone
    Conn 15I Euphonium

  6. #6
    Does anyone know what is happening with the Wessex website wessex-tubas.com
    It has been a couple of weeks now and I'm still getting unable to connect messages from all of my browsers due to an expired
    authentication certification. When this happens, browsers refuse to connect.
    This has got to be affecting their sales. Or maybe they are just revamping the website in advance of the quality improvements they are making.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Indianapolis area
    Posts
    1,000
    Just brought it up fine.
    Jim Williams N9EJR (love 10 meter CW)
    Formerly Principal Euphonium in a whole
    bunch of groups, now just a schlub.
    Shires Q41, Yamaha 321, 621 Baritone
    Wick 4AL, Wessex 4Y, or whatever I grab.
    Conn 50H trombone, Blue P-bone
    www.soundcloud.com/jweuph

  8. #8
    I also had no trouble pulling it up. To be safe, I Googled the name Wessex Tubas, then clicked on the link to the website.

    This is the link that I received:
    https://global.wessex-tubas.com
    Euph Loosh
    Imperial by Boosey & Hawkes 4-valve Euphonium (mid-1950's)
    MPs: Kosikup 1 1/2, Bowman BB2 Euro shank, Denis Wick 4AM; Marcus Bonna case

  9. #9
    Still can't bring it up. Still says it has an expired certificate. Even if I attempt to bypass the certificate, I can't get a connection. Not sure what is going on here, but it is certainly not working for me on any browser I have on my machine.

  10. #10
    This is the error message I get.
    wessex-tubas.com uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate is only valid for the following names: prod1.shp.mcafee.com, *.prod1.shp.mcafee.com Error code: SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN
    I don't seem to be able to get around this. I tried accessing it with the link suggested above: https://global.wessex-tubas.com

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