9 ms·

When I went to the first semester of engineering school at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, there was a class called Engineering Professional Development

• BoorishBears 10y ago
  This anecdote seems to be crafted to imply that exchange is why you didn't major in engineering, but it doesn't outright say that. Did you really not major in engineering over that exchange with your class?
• 2T1Qka0rEiPr 10y ago
  Whilst this is clearly how no company should aspire to be, it's easy to understand that they want to make a profit, and if you design a "once in a lifetime" product, you'll find yourself out of business within 10 years or so after everyone owns said product. The outcome is planned obsolescence as highlighted in this article. As the article also points out, not only does this damage us economically, it also damages use environmentally. It should be the place of Government to ensure that these externalities are re-addressed (e.g. by taxing companies on every item of theirs which goes into landfill), and for us the citizens to lobby them to do so.
  • lr4444lr 10y ago
    Heaven forbid said company should use that quality to build their brand reputation, charge more to funnel back into R&D to create another product to fulfill a different consumer need, grow, get more profitable, and continue the virtuous cycle. That'd be, like, justifying capitalism or something.
    • marcosdumay 10y ago
      This should be the default state of every appliance, just because it should outcompete every other player. (Who would buy something that breaks?) It isn't. So, there's something very flawed on my reasoning above. Do people want stuff that breaks, is the problem a market for lemons? Or what else?
      • platz 10y ago
        Capitalism maximizes benefits to Capital, not consumers or labor.
        • sqeaky 10y ago
          I think the implication is that if consumers are well informed they will lookout for their own needs and try to buy goods of sufficient quality. If enough consumers do this the market for junk should fail. In some markets it has and in others it hasn't, apparently in appliances junk prevails.
          • platz 10y ago
            > If enough consumers do this the market for junk should fail I think over the long run we've seen evidence for the opposite due to consolidation. Markets aren't perfect; so I am highly skeptical of such a claim. it almost seems like the more the market matters to society, the less choice consumers actually have. I am more interested in trends over time than point-evaluations of dynamics at a specific moments.
            • sqeaky 10y ago
              I think in some markets it has worked great. My cheap car, a Hyundai Elantra is at just about 100,000 and I have not had to replace any major components. Back in the 80s and 90s Ford and Chevy were making real junk that wouldn't last long, and people that wanted better and started buying Toyota, Honda and Hyundai. If my Elantra is anything like my aunt's it will last until I wreck it. Hers was wrecked when another driver ran a red light and stopped her 210,000 mile streak. I hear the American companies are doing better, and things like Ford Fiestas are expected to last, I think we need more time to see.
  • erelde 10y ago
    Also, what other tools could we have made if we had optimal tools for the existing ones?
  • mozey 10y ago
    > by taxing companies on every item of theirs which goes into landfill Second that idea. From my perspective, if recycling was perfect the only limitation on single use items would be how convenient it is to dispose and obtain another one. Also, I hate searching for new clothes that fit when the current options go out of fashion.
    • Cthulhu_ 10y ago
      In NL, whenever you buy a new appliance, you (the consumer) have to pay a "removal fee", which is a few% or a fixed price depending on the product - think like €15 for a washing machine. This is used for the shop you buy a product from to take away your old one, and to cover some of the costs of recycling (I guess the materials in a dishwasher aren't valuable enough on their own to warrant recycling for the sake of making money off of it. Probably not many reusable parts either)
  • Zelmor 10y ago
    Time to stop thinking about profits and start thinking about sustainable developments.
    • hueving 10y ago
      And that will happen when money stops being useful. If you want sustainable solutions, realistically companies need to be charged for their externalities. Expecting altruistic behavior on a massive scale just won't work.
  • hvidgaard 10y ago
    taxing companies on every item of theirs which goes into landfill Just tax each sale at the cost it takes to recycle.
  • CWuestefeld 10y ago
    It should be the place of Government to ensure that these externalities are re-addressed (e.g. by taxing companies on every item of theirs which goes into landfill), and for us the citizens to lobby them to do so. That won't eliminate the externality. All appliances will now cost $X more. In the meantime, the government will have collected $X*N more revenue, but it won't have gone toward recycling the decommissioned appliances; instead, they'll have gifted it to their favorite special interests. Net outcome is a happy special interest, a re-elected politician, but a sad consumer and a sad mother earth. I don't see it being worth it.
    • woah 10y ago
      So is your argument that there should never be any taxes of any kind (anarcho-primitivism)? If that's not your argument, then what is unique about landfill taxes that make them more likely to be "gifted to special interests"?
      • CWuestefeld 10y ago
        So is your argument that there should never be any taxes of any kind (anarcho-primitivism)? I didn't say anything that even implied that. Clearly there are public goods that are best handled by a government. My reply was directed specifically at a comment that proposed a tax to address environment problems caused by planned obsolescence. I was showing that the proposal doesn't actually do anything to eliminate the environmental externality. If you can show me a more complete proposal that (a) really does address the environmental impact as part of the program; and also (b) addresses Public Choice economics (meaning that it accounts for regulatory capture, capriciously re-purposing the funds by politicians, etc.), then we can talk about it.
    • PeterisP 10y ago
      It would make a difference - an appliance that would last 15 years would be $X more expensive, but buying 5 appliances that each last 3 years would cost 5*$X. If $X is meaningfully large, it becomes a strong motivation to prefer things that last longer.
  • Chaebixi 10y ago
    > it's easy to understand that they want to make a profit, and if you design a "once in a lifetime" product, you'll find yourself out of business within 10 years or so after everyone owns said product. I don't think that's really true. There's something like 4 million people born in the US each year, plus immigrants. If your product is so good that it gets 100% market penetration, that's still a lot of sales. Plus, you can still make money selling spare parts and support. I think the real "drawbacks" to a company of not pursuing planned obsolescence are actually: 1. You can't slack and rely on milking your existing customer base for new sales (without making compelling improvements). 2. You're less likely to get the "world-spanning megacorporation" achievement, because you won't be running waste factories to fuel the obsolescence. Once you hit total market penetration, your operations and company will need to scale back to a smaller, sustainable (but still profitable!) size. Both those "drawbacks" are probably better for the world and humanity in general, but they conflict with the self-interest of a few minority groups.
• gommm 10y ago
  I had a similar experience in a mechanical engineering class, our professor was discussing MTBF (mean time between failure) and how calculating this more accurately allowed companies to better engineer their product for obsolescence. For a company, a product that is too reliable is unprofitable in the long term and so they adjust by making sure that the product works beyond the terms of the warranty but not much more. My professor was himself horrified by that (but he was a teacher because he believed in not working for corporations so that was not very surprising) I do know one company that has a reputation for not doing this. Miele in Europe but then their appliances are double to triple the price of typical companies. EDIT: corrected Mean Time Between Failure instead of Mean Time Before Failure. Thanks slim
  • slim 10y ago
    Mean Time Between Failures
    • LeifCarrotson 10y ago
      That's an interesting contrast. I mean, you're correct, but why is the acronym "between" instead of "before"? As the article describes, when replacing a part costs a comparable amount to the price of a brand-new appliance, people buy new appliances. With this mindset, the correct term is no longer "between" failures - when you might replace a part and average the described time until the next failure - but "before" failure - at which point you replace the device and buy a new one.
      • gommm 10y ago
        That's a good point. I'm not sure why I misremembered the term but in this case it might actually be more accurate.
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      • bboreham 10y ago
        The other one is Mean Time To Failure.
• lsaferite 10y ago
  > "You don't want to make your product too reliable, because people won't buy more of them, and you won't make as much money" > Of course this site is dedicated to the idea he expressed, so I am not looking for agreement here This feels like a comment that needs some explanation or proof (your comment, not lecturer's).
• modeopfer 10y ago
  I also studied engineering and I think your professor missed the point. You don't overengineer stuff anymore nowadays, not because you want to scam your consumer out of money (aka planned obsolence) but because the design tools got better and every gram of metal or plastic and every screw and every operation like welding, glueing and so on costs money. Nowadays simulation tools, new manufacturing processes and experience allow very cheap designs that endure the predicted amount of stress but not much more. That's the trade-off. Not every customer needs a power drill that lasts 5000 hours. Most people are okay with a cheap drill that lasts a cumulative 10 hours because that's the amount of lifetime use they get out of it.
  • rbcgerard 10y ago
    To your point, I saw or heard an interview with a Ford engineer a while back where he basically said look we know how to make parts that last forever, but they are heavy and expensive. He went on to say people want more affordable cars (cheaper parts) and we need to make cars lighter for fuel efficiency standards (lighter parts), so they set an internal goal of 10 years of longevity for a part, and then try and make the cheapest/lightest part that meets that goal.
    • filterfish 10y ago
      It's a fucking washing machine, 10kg extra isn't going to make any difference.
      • Fifer82 10y ago
        I seen an article on the ring pulls on top of coke cans. They are hollow because it has a huge impact on raw materials usage (over the course of 10 million cans). I think every gram counts to the bottom line of the share holders no matter how mundane. Similar to the UK Construction Industry. Hit the minimum possible legal requirement and charge the maximum amount of money.
        • cr0sh 10y ago
• aljones 10y ago
  I experienced nearly the exact same thing except it was from a guy that worked for a heating and cooling manufacturer. He specifically talked about how they tested their products to last 2 times longer than the warranty. If they lasted longer then they looked for cost saving opportunities. This was in 2001.
  • ISL 10y ago
    That's not so different from software service level agreements.
• dang 10y ago
  > Of course this site is dedicated to the idea he expressed Whoa! Where on earth did you get that idea? This site is dedicated to being interesting. Making things last is interesting. The software that runs HN has lasted a decade so far and we would love it to achieve 1950s refrigerator longevity.
  • e40 10y ago
    Yeah, I downvoted the comment solely based on this. It's absurd.
  • jdbernard 10y ago
    I can understand where he is coming from. As a community we do spend a lot of time talking about companies and products that are definitely not going to last. If building to last is a priority it's not very high on the list. The growth curve of the venture-backed companies native to this community seems to be "get as big as you can as fast as you can." That's not necessarily in contradiction to building something that lasts, but it does seem like long-term considerations are often cast aside in favor of the funding round. Similarly, the idea of pivoting your business is not necessarily contrary to the idea of building things to last. Obviously it does no good for anyone to build things no one wants, regardless of how long it lasts. Still, it does make it hard to plan for ten years from now knowing we may abandon the current direction in six months. Or that the team building the product may have entirely turned over within those ten years. Enough of the companies and products we love and discuss here get acquired and shut down that it is a semi-regular topic in our community. That's not building to last. Even the big players in our community are not really committed to products long-term. Change is the name of the game. Disruption does not lend itself to long-term stability. We don't actually value the company creating reliable, predictable products. We value the company disrupting that company with untested, immature products. The attitude of our whole industry is tied to the ephemeral. We don't stay with employers long enough to see things through over ten year periods. And generally we all praise the more flexible job arrangements. I know I personally have benefited from it, but I know it was always left a hole in team I was leaving. So I can understand why he would get that idea.
• drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Except its rare to see actual documented proof that this is a real practice in reputable industry. Sure it must happen (or seem to happen as a unintended effect), but from a rational perspective if Samsung does this then I'll switch to LG, thus costing Samsung business and reputation. I have no brand loyalty so it doesn't make sense to make unreliable products. I, like any consumer, get pissed off and I switch to other brands at the drop of a hat. I'll also address the article point by point: > Motors last about 1/3 to 1/4 as long as they used to. That's questionable, but lowered motor life is probably in the cards due to efficiency gains. Modern motors are far more efficient than old ones and the more efficient designs are simply more delicate for a variety of reasons not the least of it is lighter materials and running closer to their optimal maximum which means more wear and running hotter in general. Also the reduction of hazardous materials and other regulations means we can't just use environmentally dangerous materials like lead willy-nilly anymore. I recently read that due to laziness and consumer ignorance, your average ceiling fan was something like 30% efficient up until fairly recently. So you were burning a good 75-100 watts on what should have been 15-30watt usage. These manufacturers just used these old designs for decades, thus increasing our electric bills and adding to pollution. Consumers pick up the fan and feel its "heavy" due to this old motor and think its "quality." Its really just a waste of electricity. >Not enough competition. I just bought all new appliances for my house a few years back. If anything, I was bowled over by all the players in this space and had to do a lot of legwork in regards to reviews. I really don't think lack of competition is an issue. >Refrigerator door seals are glued on now instead of screwed on This is a generalization. For my current and previous fridge they were screwed on. Even then, strong glues could hold these for their expected two decade lifetime if done correctly. Again, the author can't, or won't, give us specifics here. Certainly cheap and poorly engineered brands exist. Name and shame. Don't generalize. >They can often be found for $300 at big box retailers, but they usually break within 2-3 years. 10+ years on my last dishwasher before I moved and 4 in on my current one. No issues and my current one is a fairly low-end Samsung. I do ok financially, but I'm cheap. My samsung is a cheap knock-off of the 'real' Bosch at the store. It even mimmicks its styling. So yeah, I'm not buying rich guy stuff here. Also, we're parents so we run that thing almost everyday. >There is too much confusion over who is making quality appliances. 10-20 minutes reading reviews isn't asking a lot. I spend more time reading reviews of office chairs or video games, let alone $500+ appliances I depend on for my daily living. >Newer appliances start rusting within even a year or two whereas I’ve seen washers and dryers and other appliances from 40 years ago that are still rust free. I can't remember the last time I saw rust on a modern appliance. Maybe this is limited to one vendor using cheap paint. I wish the author tried to be specific. Rust on the stuff I grew up with was everywhere. I remember trying hard not to cut my hand while doing the laundry. I remember my dad buying rustoliem all the time because everything rusted back then. We didn't have clear-coats as an industry norm and stainless steel, a mid-range finishing today, was rich guy and restaurant only stuff back then. We had nice thick but brittle paint, but if you chip that, and don't catch it on time, then you got rust. > If an old refrigerator or freezer would last 40-50 years before being replaced These were serious edge cases and as an old-timer I remember having a repair tech come out periodically and my parents paying fairly significant bills to fix this stuff. Sure they "lasted" only because we were constantly replacing their innards. >Elon Musk would have already started working on building a better appliance that runs off a battery bank and solar. If you think today's stuff is overly engineered and delicate, wait until you start dealing with the pita that li-ion batteries are and how short their effective lifetimes are with daily use. Let alone running solar and how much that'll cost to install within code on your roof and how much that'll increase the cost the next time you re-do your roof. I have cheap-ish electricity and natural gas available in my basement. I'm good, thanks. Seriously, this guy isnt a researcher or engineer, he's some guy who sells junk on craiglist. This post is one step above 'forwards from grandma' territory. This is classic fallacy of idealizing the past here. I imagine as a craigslist junk seller he doesn't see the old appliances our parents all threw away, he's just seeing a biased sample of all the stuff that were well maintained or had low usage, like buying a 30 year old car with 20,000 miles and bemoaning how 'cheap and crappy' modern cars are. That said, the modern world isn't all roses. Because there are so many more manufacturers and so many budget brands, its easy to cheap out and get a lemon. Or there are so many lines, its sometimes unfair when you get a lemon model from a decent manufacturer. When I was a kid these things cost, fixed for inflation, a whole hell of a lot of money. And even in the late 70s and early 80s, in a normal non-ghetto but not rich Chicago neighborhood, I still watched old ladies scrub their laundry on washboards and hang them on laundry lines because of cost prohibitive issues. You either could afford for the reliable $1,000 GE washer or you couldn't. Lets not romanticize a time where everything was super expensive and which left a lot of people out in the cold. Some people are going to buy the budget Amana that is crappier than the GE they grew up with, but it regularly goes on sale/clearance for $250 or so at Walmart. Sure beats the $700+ GE if you're poor and very much beats paying the laundromat. The take away here isn't modern things are terrible, its don't buy budget brands if you want quality.
• deegles 10y ago
  I don't think it's a conscious, malicious strategy. Just a reality of manufacturing. Let's imagine a market where 1,000 people need a widget, with 10 new people per year. You design and develop a 100% reliable widget and quickly sell 1,000 of them (recouping your development costs). You need to sell 10 per year to stay in business. Other companies see your success and rush to market with a less reliable but cheaper widget. No one buys from you since it takes years for reliability issues to surface in your competitors product. You probably don't have enough cash reserves to wait it out. Ergo, you go out of business.
  • sqeaky 10y ago
    So this is why Dyson no longer sells vacuums and Apple No longer sells phones. Sorry for the sarcasm Premium products can command premium prices. They just don't move the same volume.
    • galdosdi 10y ago
      The parent was talking about premium reliability, not all kinds of premium. The issue is a premium that people can't notice for many years. Apple's phones are not premium in a reliability sense, so are not a good example. Selling reliability can be a serious problem when nobody will know what's reliable for sure without waiting several years. There's some tricks, like offering a warranty and heavily marketing the reliability, but the consumer still has to reason about the chances the vendor will still exist and be solvent, whether the warranty will be annoying to cash, how honest the vendor will be about allowing claims, etc. Until a company has been around long enough to have a reputation, it can't really get out of that
• irrational 10y ago
  I don't understand this if you have any competitors. Whenever I have a product fail, I don't buy any products from that same company again if at all possible. I had a Maytag dishwasher fail. I won't buy (and haven't bought) Maytag dishwashers since.
  • dangerbird2 10y ago
    As the author notes, there is very little real competition in appliance manufacturing, with a few companies making the vast majority of brands out today. If you stop buying a Maytag dishwasher, there is a good chance you'll end up with another brand that happens to be owned by Whirlpool Corporation.
    • irrational 10y ago
      Yeah, I'm aware that Maytag is owned by Whirlpool. For this reason I most recently purchased a Bosch.
  • dangerbird2 10y ago
    As the author notes, there is very little real competition in appliance manufacturing, with a few companies making the vast majority of brands out today. If you stop buying a Maytag dishwasher, there is a good chance you'll end up with another brand that happens to be owned by Whirlpool Corporation.
• hatfieej 10y ago
  I spent years designing electronics and motors for GE, including the washing machines. I never once heard anyone in any department make the slightest mention of designing a product to fail. That was a side effect of something like "design for 20 years" but "prove reliability for 10 years". The purchase price set by the market was just too low to prove reliability longer. I'm not sure if the following was true, but I did hear the discussion of "for every $1 we add to the product cost, it will cost the customer $5". People move every 7-10 years and moving appliances is a pain, so I think that's just where the market landed when accounting for reliability vs price. I think there's some unfair nostalgia about appliances being built to last years ago. A quick search revealed a 2 speed/3 cycle 1962 washer sold for $185 which is over $1400 today. You can buy that washer for $300 today. Plus it has safety features to prevent ripping your kid's arm off. :) Sources: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/60selectrical.html http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/60selectrical.html http://www.in2013dollars.com/1962-dollars-in-2016?amount=185 http://www.in2013dollars.com/1962-dollars-in-2016?amount=185 https://www.lowes.com/pd/Roper-3-5-cu-ft-High-Efficiency-Top-Load-Washer-White/1000074111 https://www.lowes.com/pd/Roper-3-5-cu-ft-High-Efficiency-Top...
• eatbitseveryday 10y ago
  If engineers are taught this, I imagine orgs like NASA, SpaceX, Boeing etc. must surely hire individuals who do not subscribe to this idea. Reliability IS important in these areas. In my opinion, what this individual told you should belong to a business lecture, not engineering. If your systems fail in engineering, you aren't doing your job right.
  • greglindahl 10y ago
    Making engineering tradeoffs between cost and reliability or performance and reliability is very much a part of many engineering situations.
    • eatbitseveryday 10y ago
      Engineering something so that it is reliable JUST ENOUGH so you can make more money from it failing sooner is not a trade off between cost of producing it and its performance.