3 ms·

I sometimes wonder if companies should/could be forced to publish a “lifetime cost” of all of their products, much like we do energy ratings for appliances. Som

by throwaway20222 4y ago

I sometimes wonder if companies should/could be forced to publish a “lifetime cost” of all of their products, much like we do energy ratings for appliances. Something that would show all of the expenses over the lifetime of the products, including estimated maintenance and lifespan before replacement so people have a better idea of the true cost of the purchase. I am confident the reporting would likely be captured by the manufacturers anyway and there would be a lot of arbitrary inputs into the reports, but something to fight the short term profit taking you describe.

ddulaney 4y ago
Hard to imagine this working, even in a perfect world. Set aside regulatory capture and corruption and politicking and pretend that everybody does a genuine best-effort attempt to be honest. It's extremely hard to know ahead of time which products will ultimately be reliable and which will be flaky. Most flaky components weren't designed with that in mind -- there are some exceptions, but maintenance headaches are normally a mistake by the manufacturer. And even setting that aside, a big part of "cheap to maintain" is how many units you ship: part of why it's cheap to maintain a Civic or a Corolla is because they made millions of them, parts are everywhere, and every shop knows how to deal with them. But knowing up front if your product is going to be a hit or a flop is just not generally possible, even though that has a huge impact on maintenance costs. Even in a world of angels, I don't know that this idea would work in general. Maybe if it was specific to some industries where the costs are easier to estimate?
- robin_reala 4y ago
  It’s already the case that you have to do this for certain groups of products in France under the AGEC laws. Take for example this dishwasher: https://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/p/diskad-lave-vaisselle-encastrable-ikea-700-40475416/ https://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/p/diskad-lave-vaisselle-encastrab... . It has an “indice de répairabilité” of 7.4, generated from a bunch of different factors such as ease of disassembly, availability of spare parts and documentation, and the ability to factory-reset it. The data sheet listing those factors for this model is here: https://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/files/pdf/4f/fd/4ffd4fd2/indice-de-reparabilite-lave-vaisselle-diskad.pdf https://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/files/pdf/4f/fd/4ffd4fd2/indice-d...
  - rand846633 4y ago
    Do you have any personal experience or opinion if this law/metric is helpful for consumers in praxis?
    - robin_reala 4y ago
      No: it’s fairly recent (and in fact only a part of the wider set of AGEC requirements that include labelling for recyclability, recycled status, consumption of rare earths and precious metals, origin of textiles, etc.) And then there’s the EU-wide Digital Product Passport[1] coming in the next few years that’ll up the game again. We’ll see over the coming years what customer perception is like. [1] A report on this at https://www.corporateleadersgroup.com/files/cisl_digital_products_passport_report_v6.pdf https://www.corporateleadersgroup.com/files/cisl_digital_pro...
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    I don't know what, if any, regulations are involved but here in Norway several of the big electrical retailers have started publishing the expected lifetime of products together with statement of how long spares will be available. For example the Ankarsrum food mixer (successor to the classic Electrolux Assistent) entry at Elkjop.no states that the expected lifetime is 30 years and that spares will be available for 12 years. https://www.elkjop.no/product/hjem-rengjoring-og-kjokkenutstyr/kjokkenapparater/kjokkenmaskiner-og-matlaging/kjokkenmaskin/ankarsrum-sunbeam-yellow-kjokkenmaskin-akm6230sb/374115#sustainability https://www.elkjop.no/product/hjem-rengjoring-og-kjokkenutst... The French idea looks good. IKEA don't provide that information here :-(
  - ddulaney 4y ago
    I like that a lot. Judging from the criteria (in my extremely limited French) it’s a measure of effort rather than outcome, but honestly effort is all we can really ask for.
hotpotamus 4y ago
Total cost of ownership is a pretty standard estimate in the auto world, but yes, it really needs to be done by a 3rd party, and of course the tractor market is pretty niche in comparison.
clord 4y ago
Even if they only did this with the maintenance schedule costs, with breakouts for major possible maintenance incidents, in present dollars. That would be extremely useful. Companies like consumer reports should do this sort of thing.

ddulaney 4y ago

Hard to imagine this working, even in a perfect world. Set aside regulatory capture and corruption and politicking and pretend that everybody does a genuine best-effort attempt to be honest. It's extremely hard to know ahead of time which products will ultimately be reliable and which will be flaky. Most flaky components weren't designed with that in mind -- there are some exceptions, but maintenance headaches are normally a mistake by the manufacturer. And even setting that aside, a big part of "cheap to maintain" is how many units you ship: part of why it's cheap to maintain a Civic or a Corolla is because they made millions of them, parts are everywhere, and every shop knows how to deal with them. But knowing up front if your product is going to be a hit or a flop is just not generally possible, even though that has a huge impact on maintenance costs. Even in a world of angels, I don't know that this idea would work in general. Maybe if it was specific to some industries where the costs are easier to estimate?

robin_reala 4y ago
It’s already the case that you have to do this for certain groups of products in France under the AGEC laws. Take for example this dishwasher: https://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/p/diskad-lave-vaisselle-encastrable-ikea-700-40475416/ https://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/p/diskad-lave-vaisselle-encastrab... . It has an “indice de répairabilité” of 7.4, generated from a bunch of different factors such as ease of disassembly, availability of spare parts and documentation, and the ability to factory-reset it. The data sheet listing those factors for this model is here: https://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/files/pdf/4f/fd/4ffd4fd2/indice-de-reparabilite-lave-vaisselle-diskad.pdf https://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/files/pdf/4f/fd/4ffd4fd2/indice-d...
- rand846633 4y ago
  Do you have any personal experience or opinion if this law/metric is helpful for consumers in praxis?
  - robin_reala 4y ago
    No: it’s fairly recent (and in fact only a part of the wider set of AGEC requirements that include labelling for recyclability, recycled status, consumption of rare earths and precious metals, origin of textiles, etc.) And then there’s the EU-wide Digital Product Passport[1] coming in the next few years that’ll up the game again. We’ll see over the coming years what customer perception is like. [1] A report on this at https://www.corporateleadersgroup.com/files/cisl_digital_products_passport_report_v6.pdf https://www.corporateleadersgroup.com/files/cisl_digital_pro...
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  I don't know what, if any, regulations are involved but here in Norway several of the big electrical retailers have started publishing the expected lifetime of products together with statement of how long spares will be available. For example the Ankarsrum food mixer (successor to the classic Electrolux Assistent) entry at Elkjop.no states that the expected lifetime is 30 years and that spares will be available for 12 years. https://www.elkjop.no/product/hjem-rengjoring-og-kjokkenutstyr/kjokkenapparater/kjokkenmaskiner-og-matlaging/kjokkenmaskin/ankarsrum-sunbeam-yellow-kjokkenmaskin-akm6230sb/374115#sustainability https://www.elkjop.no/product/hjem-rengjoring-og-kjokkenutst... The French idea looks good. IKEA don't provide that information here :-(
- ddulaney 4y ago
  I like that a lot. Judging from the criteria (in my extremely limited French) it’s a measure of effort rather than outcome, but honestly effort is all we can really ask for.

hotpotamus 4y ago

Total cost of ownership is a pretty standard estimate in the auto world, but yes, it really needs to be done by a 3rd party, and of course the tractor market is pretty niche in comparison.

clord 4y ago

Even if they only did this with the maintenance schedule costs, with breakouts for major possible maintenance incidents, in present dollars. That would be extremely useful. Companies like consumer reports should do this sort of thing.