On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:02:12 GMT, "Arfa Daily"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

So you might think, but in my experience, particularly with companies, there
are many factors other than price, which drive the decision making process.
For instance, one place that I was until a few months ago, repairing large
volumes of a particular board for, has been taken over by another company. I
was charging them 30 quid a pop to repair them. They are currently buying in
new boards from the manufacturer, at 150 quid a time, and throwing the
faulty ones away ! (I know this for a fact, as I know someone that works for
them). The best of it is that as a part of the repair, I used to carry out a
reliability mod, that made them virtually indestructible after it had been
carried out. So here we are hovering on the edge of recession, and you would
think that a saving of 120 quid a board, and a reduction in your field
service call-back rate, would be just what the doctor ordered, but no. For
reasons best known to themselves, they throw money away. So how do you
reconcile that one ?

I often had the reverse experience. Many large companies with
convoluted accounting practices would find it easier to repair
something by replacing a board costing $200 instead of requisitioning
an entire new unit costing, say, $100.

- Franc Zabkar
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