Making cables by hand, or sending out orders to the cable factory during NPI? By hand you can usually only screw it up four or five times (for a cable there ar

Making cables by hand, or sending out orders to the cable factory during NPI? By hand you can usually only screw it up four or five times (for a cable there are only four ways to make). Sending out orders during New Product Introduction (so nobody knows what they're doing, and the answer to "how did that work last time?" is "in fact, that has never once in the history of human civilization worked") to a cable vendor that engineering (you) recommended be dropped due to quality problems including (but not limited to) "does not read the cable drawing", but management insisted we keep using because "we know how to order from them" (which was awful -- hand delivering parts, dealing with angry dogs in the way, drunken contacts at the vendor, and finding out that not only do their neighbors hate them (no surprise), but they managed to personally (personally!) get on the bad list with their FedEx guy; this is not easy) -- so that is no excuse)... that's how you get to the real pain.