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Generally more design time and more money can remove most constraints -- you just end up with a product no one is willing to purchase.

by jotux 12y ago

ddingus 12y ago
Which renders it all moot as the goal is to produce product that actually get used. Fantasy products are impractical due to costs and generally a lot of other assumptions. Toyota got known for cars that were good and cheap but not so fast in the 70's and 80's. Their cars quite simply did not break down. Detroit made cars that were not as good, but were quite fast and comparable in price. Way different set of tradeoffs. One was utilitarian and efficient and reasonably safe. The other was VROOM! A look at the odometers from that period revealed very few manufacturers bothered with anything over 99,999 miles. Many American cars would not go that distance without requiring some very significant service, or encountering some critical failure. Timing belt, pump, etc... The Toyota cars would go much longer times between failures, and those tradeoffs have played out in the market. Today, big American cars aren't as cheap, they still are pretty fast, and pretty good. I've an SUV that's going to demonstrate a service life profile very similar to that old '89 Corolla, both of which I probably won't retire until 400K miles. The vehicles are that good now. So that triangle can bend, and it's not binary as others have mentioned. It's a continuum where a whole bunch of things are always moving and changing. The other thing about time and money is how the markets play out. Sometimes it's good. Apple took that path a few times and ended up with nice margins and in some cases great share. In other cases, modest share, but margins that are worth it. Fair enough. Other times, being that late to market may well render the time and money expense moot as the use value is already being actualized in other products, leaving a superior entry with a saturated market that has very little incentive to purchase again.
sliverstorm 12y ago
Sure, with infinite time and infinite money you could make a perfect car. But even if you think Toyota has infinite money, they definitely don't have infinite time. Time is a cardinal constraint. Money can buy time, but only so much.

Generally more design time and more money can remove most constraints -- you just end up with a product no one is willing to purchase.

by jotux 12y ago

Generally more design time and more money can remove most constraints -- you just end up with a product no one is willing to purchase.

ddingus 12y ago

Which renders it all moot as the goal is to produce product that actually get used. Fantasy products are impractical due to costs and generally a lot of other assumptions. Toyota got known for cars that were good and cheap but not so fast in the 70's and 80's. Their cars quite simply did not break down. Detroit made cars that were not as good, but were quite fast and comparable in price. Way different set of tradeoffs. One was utilitarian and efficient and reasonably safe. The other was VROOM! A look at the odometers from that period revealed very few manufacturers bothered with anything over 99,999 miles. Many American cars would not go that distance without requiring some very significant service, or encountering some critical failure. Timing belt, pump, etc... The Toyota cars would go much longer times between failures, and those tradeoffs have played out in the market. Today, big American cars aren't as cheap, they still are pretty fast, and pretty good. I've an SUV that's going to demonstrate a service life profile very similar to that old '89 Corolla, both of which I probably won't retire until 400K miles. The vehicles are that good now. So that triangle can bend, and it's not binary as others have mentioned. It's a continuum where a whole bunch of things are always moving and changing. The other thing about time and money is how the markets play out. Sometimes it's good. Apple took that path a few times and ended up with nice margins and in some cases great share. In other cases, modest share, but margins that are worth it. Fair enough. Other times, being that late to market may well render the time and money expense moot as the use value is already being actualized in other products, leaving a superior entry with a saturated market that has very little incentive to purchase again.

sliverstorm 12y ago

Sure, with infinite time and infinite money you could make a perfect car. But even if you think Toyota has infinite money, they definitely don't have infinite time. Time is a cardinal constraint. Money can buy time, but only so much.