4 ms·

I see this kind of thinking all the time in hardware engineering as well, and it all boils down to premature optimization. Cost almost always is driving this.

I see this kind of thinking all the time in hardware engineering as well, and it all boils down to premature optimization. Cost almost always is driving this. One example is a recent project was a very cost-sensitive machine in which a small heater was copied over from another product, but no one actually verified that it was good to the required limits (just the default use case). Well, turns out it wasn't quite powerful enough but it is way too late and expensive now to fix it at the end! Also, all the engineering time was wasted to figure this out (but it often seems management doesn't count engineering time the same way as parts cost)! I've since learned that in the beginning of a project it is critical to identify the riskiest parts of the design and try to isolate that to a module and over-spec it, hopefully with a path to reduced cost later on. But the most important thing I've learned is don't try to solve tomorrow's problems today!

techslave 7y ago
> management doesn't count engineering time the same way as parts cost because the IRS doesn’t either
- falcolas 7y ago
  When you count for the employment tax for every employee, it's not exactly cheap (around 30-35% of the base salary). The difference really is that whether the engineer is looking at the heating coil or not, the company is still paying them.
  - organsnyder 7y ago
    > The difference really is that whether the engineer is looking at the heating coil or not, the company is still paying them. And while they're looking at that heating coil, they're not doing something that could be generating more value for the company. But opportunity cost is extremely hard to measure.
  - techslave 7y ago
    no, the difference is whether the cost is allocated to fixed or overhead cost (presumably scaling slowly) or COGS (presumably scaling linearly). increase in COGS looks very bad for the business. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/101314/what-are-differences-between-operating-expenses-and-cost-goods-sold-cogs.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/101314/what-are-dif...
    - roland35 7y ago
      It certainly depends a lot on your quantities... if you are only making 100-200 of something a year then I think engineering time would dominate the calculation. But as with all things, it depends and you need to do the math for your own situation!

techslave 7y ago

> management doesn't count engineering time the same way as parts cost because the IRS doesn’t either

falcolas 7y ago
When you count for the employment tax for every employee, it's not exactly cheap (around 30-35% of the base salary). The difference really is that whether the engineer is looking at the heating coil or not, the company is still paying them.
- organsnyder 7y ago
  > The difference really is that whether the engineer is looking at the heating coil or not, the company is still paying them. And while they're looking at that heating coil, they're not doing something that could be generating more value for the company. But opportunity cost is extremely hard to measure.
- techslave 7y ago
  no, the difference is whether the cost is allocated to fixed or overhead cost (presumably scaling slowly) or COGS (presumably scaling linearly). increase in COGS looks very bad for the business. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/101314/what-are-differences-between-operating-expenses-and-cost-goods-sold-cogs.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/101314/what-are-dif...
  - roland35 7y ago
    It certainly depends a lot on your quantities... if you are only making 100-200 of something a year then I think engineering time would dominate the calculation. But as with all things, it depends and you need to do the math for your own situation!