LEGO® Plans Everything – Including The Extras
Let’s give the short answer and then go into the long answer: LEGO® meticulously plans everything and ensures the highest quality product. The long answer: the company follows a strict protocol and quality assurance system.
LEGO® Plans Ahead For Customer Happiness
There are a plethora of extra pieces that usually always come in a LEGO® set. You will find anywhere from 3-5 pieces of extra LEGO®, usually the smaller kind (1×1 bricks), because it is a part of there Six Sigma methodology. The iconic toy manufacturer accounts for every issue they could have with their designing, building, and shipping protocols, obtaining a 5.63 sigma process. What does this mean?
Well, LEGO® ships approximately 220,000,000 (yes, 220 million) sets per year, and with this level of quality control, that is roughly 4,200 defects for every 220,000,000 sets shipped which is astounding.
The defect rate of 4,268 defects in 220 million sets corresponds to approximately 0.00194%, indicating a very high level of quality and precision in the manufacturing process.
So, What About Those Extra Pieces?
That is probably one of the many things a part of the LEGO® Group’s QA (quality assurance) process. Extra LEGO® pieces cover a few bases:
They are factored into what would/will most likely go missing.
They save on shipping costs for the company if such a minuscule piece goes missing.
Missing pieces can upset valuable consumers and fans, and possibly hurt LEGO® group’s reputation.
Machines count by weight, and some pieces are so light, they add an extra handful of little ones just to be sure the set has every piece.
If you Receive A Few Extra Tiny, 1×1 Pieces What Do You Do?
You don’t have to do anything. LEGO® planned for this. You are getting exactly what you paid for. Keep calm, carry on, and keep building. Most websites will actually tell you what extra pieces you should expect to receive!