How It Is Made: Wristwatches, Javelins, and Aircraft Wings
The first episode was about the production of high-end analogue wrist-watches. Because of their high sales prices, customers who purchase these watches expect a core good and service quality. About the competitive dimensions, the quality dimension is the most important part that the manufacturers are concerned about. As production of these kinds of high sale price watches depends on forecasted demands or the data of previous model, I think these are well-matched with “make to stock” production. Instead of machinery manufacturing, most of these high valued watches are made by master craftsman. So, customers regard these watches as not just watches but a kind of jewels. For these reasons, the aspects of perfectly entailed details and features, millisecond accuracy, and top notch quality are emphasized by those companies, which means that defective product have to be exchange right after detecting due to their image which would lead to a negative impact in sales and reliability. Thus, quality control plays a critical role in the marketing of these watches.

At the next episode, the video showed me the process of javelins. Javelins are made on aluminum, carbon-fiber, or steel poles. Depends on gender of users and official rules of games, their length and weight are determined. They mentioned that the most important thing about javelins is the ‘straightness’. In terms of ‘goods-service continuum’, I thought javelins would be pure goods. The reason why I thought that the process of javelin production do not differ much with other manufacturers. Although it looks similar with the process of high price watches, the javelins are not needed to alter any specifications. Unlike high priced watches determined by skills of manufacturers, javelins are not different among manufacturers. In my opinion, the quality controls of javelins should be focused on the final stage, where the javelins are inspected to see if they follow the international rules by weight, straightness, and length. In conclusion, I think that when it comes to quality control, it is more important for the production process of watches than that of javelins.

The third episode was to show how to