Originally Posted by
Tundro Walker
You're giving mass manufacturers far too much credit. Typically, they have poor quality control, so they crank out a lot of defectives, and even the ones that aren't defective are pretty lame.
In the 1950's, folks like Deming and Juran were helping American corporations use basic statistics to control quality. After World War 2, folks like them went to Japan to help them rebuild their nation, and Japan, embracing statistical quality control, became a power-house manufacturer, producing products at lower cost and higher quality. In America (through 70's-now) we slipped from using statistical analysis to keep quality in check to "fluffy" MBA stuff like, cost-cutting by using inferior supplies (lowest-bidder syndrome), feel-good slogans, etc. The MBA teachings of the 80's were basically, show up to a company, do all kinds of cost-cutting to make it look like you just turned everything around and are saving the company millions, then get the hell out after 6 months before someone realizes that all the stuff you cost-cut is actually going to cost the company more money in the long run (dealing with unhappy customers, dealing with dept's that don't have the quality tools or supplies to stop making defects, dealing with depts that were down-sized when they actually needed more staffing or better training, etc).
Sadly, Japan is taking on America's influence again...looking more at profits and less at quality. Even German Mercedes screwed up by joining Chrysler. They started mixing in poor-quality Chrysler parts to their cars, and now there's a lot of unhappy Mercedes owners.
You could call if "forced obsolescence" (the engineer's flaw, as some engineers call it...they want you coming back otherwise they're out of business), but, like I said, I think you give them more credit then they deserve. It's mostly shoddy parts and sloppy build processes that create the "forced obsolescence" rather than any kind of purposeful planning.
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