[Grovenet] Minimum Wage/China

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

There's another less-obvious factor in the equation. Most consumer
electronics today are designed to work quite reliably for a limited time.
The materials used in the circuits, right down to the solder and soldering
techniques employed, are designed assuming no one cares if most electronics
will work after about five years since by then the technology will have
advanced enough that the consumer will want a new unit anyway. 

When these devices fail they are virtually un-repairable. Replacement parts
often are no longer available and some of the failures are truly
catastrophic. For example, I just worked on a report about the chemicals
used in the latest automated soldering process of many devices. These
chemicals avoid solder with lead. (In Europe, lead-based solder is now
banned in consumer electronics.) They work fine and have less potential to
pollute if the device does end up in the land fill, but they don't have the
durability of the older soldering systems. When they start to break down,
virtually the entire device falls apart, electrically.

The attention given to spending time and money building lasting products
depends upon the presumed life. For example, a cell phone is almost a
throwaway after one year, according to the industry. A computer should
survive at least 5 years. A television perhaps a little longer.  

On the flip side the industry points out that they do a much, much better
job of recycling these days. Used electronics are ground up, literally, the
materials extracted and recycled into new products that we can buy.

That is, if we can afford them <G>.

Ron D'Eau Claire 

-----Original Message-----

Katie, 

As you know well there's 4 measurement metrics for industry: Cost, Quality,
Delivery & Safety.  The Safety metric is one most folks take as a given so
the ones usually reported are Cost, Quality & Delivery.  And as I'm guessing
you've experienced numerous times in one of your previous employs, the Cost
& Quality metric usually end up on either sides of a balancing arm.  No
surprise here: Cost is King.  Everybody always says "We need to make sure we
put out a Quality product!"  But they don't speak the rest of the sentence:
"We need to make sure we put out a Quality product THAT FALLS WITHIN OUR
COST TARGETS."

We'd all love to have those high-margin products that have high volume
demand.  But I realize there's few products (new prescription drugs, maybe?)
that meet the 'high margin, high demand' test.  Instead, every mfg'er and
retailer is locked in a vicious cost fight with their competitor to see who
can reach the  bottom floor, the quickest, and make sure nobody else settles
in at the bottom or establishes a basement.  :-)

I'll agree with you that probably 99% of the time it's far cheaper to simply
throw away the non-functioning product and get a new one.  And I don't see
this changing anytime in our lifetime.  There are, of course, a few
industries where fixing a broken unit is probably cheaper than purchasing
new, like cars or iPODs, but most of the products are low-priced to begin
with and continue to reduce in cost the longer the product's in the
marketplace.  Almost seems like technology has helped to make us a MORE
"throw-away" society.
 
Allen Warren


----- Original Message ----
From: allnutt <allnutt at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Minimum Wage/China


There would be a lot less plastic in the land fills because people would not

buy as much stuff and wind up throwing it away when it had a little flaw in 
it.
And the repair business might become profitable again.  Today we just throw 
stuff away and buy a new one because it is cheaper than having the old one 
diagnosed, let alone fixed.

Katie


 
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