Jack Barton said:
Tony said: "I would hold no fears as to how savvy Dr Rene Wilfer is at making LS equipment."Nor would I! After all Lehmann taught him how. He’s had a lot of practice making ToyTrain and the LCE’s.
Jack
Jack,
Welcome to LSC!
Yeah, but to get an appreciation what PIKO is all about you need to look at the smaller scales. That is a much better indicator of what they can do than the stuff they did as OEM for EPL. Anyone who does jobbing stuff (OEM) produces exactly to what the customer orders. That ToyTrain stuff is sturdy, but as far as building the moulds etc. no big deal.
And we know how that OEMing can turn out. Look at MTS1 and compare to Lenz, look at MTS2 or 3 and compare to Massoth.
If you look at how PIKO markets their hobby line to the entry level … hmmmmm how do they do that???
Starter Sets.
Of course you know that producing large stuff is not quite as tricky as producing small stuff? 
At least that’s my personal experience. It’s a lot trickier to produce Z scale split rail fencing than doing it in HO or even 1:32 or 1:22.5