Inside Gratz Quality Assurance: A Year of Precision, Process, and Progress
Hey Everyone,
2025 was a big year for Gratz.
We reduced lead times for new orders to 90 days. We tested our first-ever limited-quantity “Available Now” program, allowing customers to receive Gratz equipment immediately after placing an order. We established entities in several key regions—including the UK, and the EU, so we can now clear customs on your behalf. We are about to establish this same system for Korea. This eliminates a major hassle for our customers, and for those with VAT registration numbers, it allows us to avoid charging VAT altogether on purchases from Gratz. We have set up instant shipping quotes through our website for the US market and will be working to do this same for key countries around the world. In 2025, we saw big improvements in our shipping. We’ve negotiated new shipping rates with our carriers, bringing down costs substantially.
We supported numerous Classical Pilates studio events, symposiums, and continuing education programs. And most importantly, we helped many new Classical Pilates studios get started and open during the year. We shared 18 studio tours on our social media and website, spotlighting studios that uphold the lineage and discipline of Classical Pilates.
You can read more about these studios and their features: Gratz Equipped Studios Carrying Classical Pilates Forward and Gratz Equipped Studios: Preserving the Classical Pilates Method.
We could cover each of these topics in a traditional year-end review, but instead we decided to focus on one very specific subject: quality assurance.
At first glance, QA may sound boring. It is not—to us, at least. We think of quality assurance as the discipline of making sure you receive your Gratz apparatus on time and that every piece is the highest quality possible. In 2025, we made significant investments and changes in how we approach QA, all with a single goal: ensuring the apparatus you receive from Gratz is the best it can be.
In this note, I want to focus on QA through the lens of a single piece of equipment—the Gratz Reformer.
Engineering Specifications and Tolerances
One of our major investments in 2025 was the creation of extremely tight engineering specifications for every Gratz apparatus, including the Reformer. These specifications include precise measurements, dimensions, weights, and design details, all defined through detailed CAD (computer-aided design) models.
For many of these specifications, we also define tolerances. A tolerance is the acceptable amount of variation from one unit to another. For example, we want the two leather straps on a Reformer to be the same length. An inch of variation would be unacceptable. At the same time, leather is a natural material, and some stretching is inevitable. Our tolerance in this case is that straps must be within ¼ inch of each other at the time of shipment.
This is just one example. The Reformer alone has dozens of engineering specifications, many of which include defined tolerances.
Springs: Measuring What Matters
Another major investment we made in 2025 was the design and construction of precision force testing equipment for our springs. This equipment allows us to precisely measure to within 0.01/lb the spring constant value of all our springs. This calibration is registered with the National Institute of Standards & Testing (NIST) for traceability.
We also worked with an engineering partner to custom build a spring cycle tester to allow us to establish the long-term durability and performance of our springs. This machine allows us to simulate a year’s worth of use into a few weeks. Our team can now verify actual spring performance degradation over time. This piece of equipment was designed and built to Gratz's specifications and is one of a kind only owned by Gratz.
This machine measures the spring constant of every spring we use—not just for Reformers, but across all Gratz apparatus. The spring constant is a measure of a spring’s stiffness, defined as the force required to stretch or compress the spring by a given distance. Our machine measures spring constants at multiple points along the spring’s range of extension.
This testing taught us a great deal. For example, we learned that the initial spring constant of a standard Reformer spring and a long-neck Reformer spring are very similar at the beginning of extension. However, as the springs lengthen further, the spring constant of the long-neck springs increases. For practitioners who prefer long-neck springs, this can be beneficial for exercises that fully extend the carriage and springs, such as Long Stretch.
Here is a graph showing the spring constant comparing the regular reformer spring to the long neck spring:
We use this machine both to ensure consistency, confirming that springs fall within a defined tolerance, and to test durability, including how many pulls a spring can withstand before falling out of specification. We plan to publish this data in 2026.
This deep understanding of spring behavior, specifications, and tolerances is now a core part of our Reformer QA process.
Getting Wheels Exactly Right
Another key improvement we introduced in 2025 was a comprehensive assessment of Reformer wheels. As with other components, this includes detailed specifications and tolerances—one of which may surprise you: sound.
Our wheels are not inexpensive, all-plastic polyurethane wheels. Each wheel contains a steel sleeve and bearings embedded within the polyurethane body. This construction ensures that the wheels are not simply “free-spinning”. Instead, the interaction between the steel axle, sleeve, and bearings introduces a controlled amount of friction. The correct amount of friction as specified back in the 1960s.
That friction produces sound, and we now actively measure and manage it to ensure it remains within specification.
Through our detailed assessment of the wheels, we also learned more about the lithium grease we have been recommending for decades. We found that the white lithium grease we have been recommending is inconsistent across brands and recent formulations were more prone to oxidation and moisture loss, causing the grease to cake up and gum up wheels. Our new recommendation, Molykote 44 Medium Grease, addresses these specific issues being both resistant to oxidation and moisture loss. This helps to reduce frequency for needed lubrication while allowing for a more consistent wheel spin.
Final Inspection Before Shipping
We also introduced a much more rigorous final inspection process before any Reformer leaves our factory.
Each completed Reformer undergoes a full visual inspection documented with 35 high-resolution photographs. We also physically get on every Reformer and test it for feel and sound. This has proven more challenging than expected, as our factory environment is louder than most studios. To address this, we are now working on building a quiet room to further improve sound testing and ensure every Reformer is within specification.
Beyond final inspection, quality checks occur at every stage of the build process: welding, woodworking, finishing, upholstery, assembly, and even packing.
For those who want to see this process in action, we’ve created a video that walks through how we do this—every single day at Gratz.
Continuous Improvement
All of this may sound like a great deal of effort, and it is.
In 2025, we served thousands of customers. We believe most of these customers were delighted with their order. But, by our count, we disappointed 52 customers in some way during the year. Every one of those instances is taken seriously at Gratz—whether the issue involved QA, customer service, or a missed delivery date by a shipping partner. For each of these 52, we did a detailed root-cause analysis to understand what caused the issue and built this in learning into our current practices. This resulted in us changing some of our shipping partners, changing the way we pack some of our apparatuses, how we tune wheels on a carriage before shipping, and many other things.
We are working systematically to improve every step of the process. This is just the beginning.
Quality is something we are obsessed with at Gratz. We believe we are better today than we have ever been—and we are committed to being better tomorrow than we are today.
In signing off with our last newsletter from 2025, we want to thank you for your support and encouragement as we work to ensure Gratz consistently exceeds your expectations.
We’re looking forward to a great 2026 and wish you all success and good health in the New Year.
John and Elizabeth
2 Responses
Patrick Bauman
December 30, 2025
Sounds like you’ve been busy 🐝’s I like your advancements, technology is a good thing as far as reproduceable consistency, I wish I was closer I would come help you .