Understanding Quality Control and Defects in Golf Production

Golf’s original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) spend millions of dollars every year on assuring quality control specifications are maintained on every product produced. Recently, these QC processes have fallen under question as defective products — whether it be golf balls with off-center cores or non-conforming drivers — have made their way to customers.

While defects in manufacturing are nothing new, and arguably far fewer today than equipment yields of decades past, social media and internet outrage have companies under a microscope.

Understanding Defects

First and foremost, it's important to understand that every single process that produces a product or service can also produce defective products. It is also extraordinarily rare for a manufacturing process to yield zero defects. This may seem like common sense, but it's not. Trust me.

Golf balls are a great example of this concept for two reasons:

1. They are one of the most frequently produced products in golf; and

2. They are produced in large lots (i.e., "mass production.")

Because of these two facts, golf balls are at a high risk of defects. Throw in the third fact that they have many parts in their construction, including multiple layered cores, and the opportunities for failure increase substantially.

Taking A Step Back

Larger OEMs with significant golf ball market share can produce as many as 5 million dozen golf balls a year. That means there are 5 million opportunities (at least) for the finished product to be defective. Think about all of the manpower, machinery, R&D and money that goes into designing the process used to create a golf ball. Despite all of that attention and effort -- and sometimes because of it -- defects can still slip through.

The question a company has to ask itself is simple, but not easily answered: "How many defects are we comfortable with?"

As golfers, we hope the answer to that question is "None!" But guess what? It's not.

Instead, companies have a judgement call to make: is the effort/time/money to reach ZERO defects worth it, or are we willing to accept a percent yield of golf balls that fall out of spec? Every quality control department in every industry asks themselves this question every single day.

How they answer it depends on a few factors:

1. What is the worst case scenario if a consumer receives a defective product? (Depending on industry, this can range from nothing to permanent customer loss)

2. What is the return on investment (ROI) for allocating the resources necessary to lower our defective yield? Or, will customers ACTUALLY buy more of our product because of these behind-the-scenes efforts? (Will they notice?)

3. What are our competitors doing?

4. Did their customers notice?

The severity and likelihood of occurrence of a defect reaching the customer differs from one industry to the next. In golf, any high-profile player stumbling upon a defective piece of equipment would be of the highest severity. Luckily, the likelihood of that occurring is quite rare (or so we hope).

It is theorized that reaching ‘zero defects’ is next to impossible in the golf equipment space. Above all else is the need to detect when a defect slips through the cracks, if not prevented entirely. A process doesn’t need to be perfect in order to prevent defects from reaching the customer, and it’s up to us to understand that mistakes happen despite best intentions.