On Sat, 28 Oct 2006 21:24:53 -0400, "Gary"
wrote:

"George Max" wrote

You're far far of the mark.

I work in engineering in exactly the kind of situation you're
expounding on. My company makes many thousands of any particular
model.

It is in fact not especially difficult to make changes within any
particular product to cheapen it.

30 years of my life are invested in product design and development.
Don't hand me that line of crap. It is in fact extremely easy to make
changes and substitutions that result in real cost savings for the
manufacturer without inordinate expense to do so.

If I may, I think you have to put what he said in context.

Consider a factory in China pumping out billions of identical tools:
Everything is pretty much the same except for the colour of the plastic and
the badge they stick on them before they're boxed.

I agree that it would be far more expensive to retool the line in order to
"cheapen" something for (in this example) Sears, than it would be to just
keep the line going.

We're talking mass production here, and the *real* savings are in the "mass"
part: It make no sense to create a different product to make it cheaper:
They're already smokin' them out the door as cheaply as possible.

Cheers!

Gary


The changes I mean are not in changing the form of a housing for
example, that *is* difficult and time consuming to do.

What I mean (for example) is to buy a group of motors from the motor
supplier that use sleeve bearings instead of ball bearings. Or use
less expensive batteries. Maybe use more regrind in the plastic. Or
simply pack fewer accessories.

That's what I mean. From my design end of the process, there are a
lot of things to do.

However, I work at a place that doesn't make bottom of the barrel
products, so it's obvious to me how to help them get there.

I will agree to a point with my last paragraph:

Of course if the starting point of the product being debated is
*already* at the bottom, then it would take a little more ingenuity to
wring even more savings from it, and that may not be worth the effort.