4 ms·
...a former employer (based in the EU, exports perhaps 2/3 of production outside the EU) took a major financial hit when it was found that a valve sourced from
by lb1lf 8y ago
...a former employer (based in the EU, exports perhaps 2/3 of production outside the EU) took a major financial hit when it was found that a valve sourced from a cheaper supplier than the ones originally used contained an (undeclared) asbestos gasket.
Cost of replacement gasket? Less than $1/system.
Cost of getting to gasket? ~$70-80k/system. We had deployed a few hundred.
On the upside, after this incident, noone in purchasing tried to source cheaper, same-same but different replacements for parts specified by engineering for years thereafter...
- blattimwind 8y ago"same same" is the enemy of quality in any supply chain.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoAnd the friend of your customer's wallet. Trade-offs are everywhere.
- lb1lf 8y agoDepends on the time span; a once mentor of mine always quipped that the ultimate act of laziness was to do things properly the first time and be done with it; much the same goes for the economics of cost savings - long term, quality tends to lead to longer maintenance intervals and simpler maintenance at that. The ultimate cheapness is to buy quality items and be done with it. (Obviously, there will be cases where this doesn't hold true, but as a first-order approximation...)
- Drdrdrq 8y ago"I am not rich enough to buy cheap stuff."
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]