3 ms·
It's called Value Engineering. How do you increase total profit on an item? You either increase market share, or you reduce unit cost. When you start out, the
by flir 4y ago
It's called Value Engineering.
How do you increase total profit on an item? You either increase market share, or you reduce unit cost.
When you start out, the first of these is the better choice (not least because you're trying to build a reputation). When you're mature, the second is.
There's a guy called AvE on youtube whose tool teardowns illustrate this really well. The top-end tools obviously have different design goals - stuff like easily replaceable sacrificial components that are designed to fail, so expensive components are saved.
- stevehawk 4y agoYou mean it's market demand and manufacturers are competing on price to maximize sales and not some conspiracy about planned obsolescence and "things were better in my day!"? i refuse to believe such a logical argument
- juve1996 4y agoThings that break lead to greater sales. How do you deal with this? If they're competing on sales, then they need to optimize for the point at which it can break without losing brand confidence.
- xxs 4y agoI'd give an example with a printer. Refillable Ink-jet - a very low cost per page, indeed. After some time (approx 2y - warranty time in the EU; 5-6k pages/year), it started having an issue feeding paper, press the button to retry, it may work - frustrating, I know. 'Till one day it stopped altogether. It took me some time to figure it out - in short the tension springs were anemic to a high extent. So no tension on the paper rolls - no feed. Replacing the springs with imported ones (around 5-6 times more tension force) has made the printer not skip a page. The original springs like 1 cent together. The replacement cost was like 40cent for 10 - retail. There is no way the manufacturer was unaware.
- xxs 4y ago>There's a guy called AvE I think his name is Chris, actually. Other than that, the infamous inverse bathtub curve.
- flir 4y agoDidn't know that - got the impression he was sharing nothing about his life. Ok, his channel is called AvE.
- xxs 4y ago>got the impression he was sharing nothing about his life. Of course! As most normal humans would. (being named "Arduino vs Evil" would be rather harsh to a boy) There is an early video about a water pump (BOLTR - La BOMBA!) and a following one, trying to claim the warranty.