Why Things Fail

[pmacc]

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/10/...products-fail/

Its a faily long article but it goes into Ford and Microsoft's quailty and warrantiy claims and what they do to minimise part failure

[robbyj]

"why things fail" because our monetary system is a joke. Our economy is based on consumption. The more we consume the "better" our economy is doing. Things are not built to last. Things are built to fail after the manufacture covers themselves (warranty).

A question in an economics exam was something like this.

What is better for our economy?
(a) Buying a used car
(b) An Increase in tax
(c) Helping a friend build a shed
(d) A car accident

I actually couldn't believe that was a question. (The answer is D)

We live in a wasteful society. As our GDP increases, so does our wastage. While the quality of goods decreases.

We will never have things built to last anymore, rather built to eventually fail. So people can sit there and rub their hands together, saying look how good our economy is doing!

[mr smith]

Originally Posted by robbyj

"why things fail" because our monetary system is a joke. Our economy is based on consumption. The more we consume the "better" our economy is doing. Things are not built to last. Things are built to fail after the manufacture covers themselves (warranty).

A question in an economics exam was something like this.

What is better for our economy?
(a) Buying a used car
(b) An Increase in tax
(c) Helping a friend build a shed
(d) A car accident

I actually couldn't believe that was a question. (The answer is D)

We live in a wasteful society. As our GDP increases, so does our wastage. While the quality of goods decreases.

We will never have things built to last anymore, rather built to eventually fail. So people can sit there and rub their hands together, saying look how good our economy is doing!

Spot on, very hard to find products and services that have quality and integrity. Cheap, nasty and the quick buck seems to be the norm,spose this was inevitable now that big business runs everything while the one man show struggles against their might. The buing public on the whole are duds as well.

[pursuit2359]

Originally Posted by robbyj

A question in an economics exam was something like this.

What is better for our economy?
(a) Buying a used car
(b) An Increase in tax
(c) Helping a friend build a shed
(d) A car accident

I actually couldn't believe that was a question. (The answer is D)

Having studied economics, I'm very surprised by this - what exam was this (i.e. subject/course)? For that question, I would argue that d) cannot be the correct answer because a car accident adversely affects the productive capacity of the economy. A car accident might stimulate economic activity, but it's not actually beneficial to the economy as a whole.

[mike_nofx]

A car accident keeps many people "busy" or employed.
Police officers, ambulance crew, tow truck drivers, repair shops, street cleaners, etc etc etc. the bill for repair or replacement of car is probably footed by a foreign owned insurance company too.

[rancidpunx]

Mobile phones are the worst. Electrics in general seem to fail with ease.

[K93George]

Originally Posted by rancidpunx

Mobile phones are the worst. Electrics in general seem to fail with ease.

Absolute rubbish. Electronics have done nothing but vastly improve in performance, reliability and quality. Looking back to the first laptops and phones, they were made of cheap plastic, now phones and laptops are made of unibody aluminium. Regarding reliability, I don't have any facts on life span but I can say that computers today have much higher thermal limits.

Even cars, how anyone can think a modern car is less reliable then one built decades back is beyond me. Higher service intervals, manufactures backing up the product with higher warranties and all the "fail-safe" options they have. I rarely see a modern car on the side of the road because of a mechanical fault.

The other point of interest, "built to fail", come on! If your refering to value engineering then yes, they are built according to that principal. Not specifically to fail but to work reliabily to a certain period of time, and value engineering dates back quite some time.

[Jim Goose]

Originally Posted by K93George

The other point of interest, "built to fail", come on! If your refering to value engineering then yes, they are built according to that principal. Not specifically to fail but to work reliabily to a certain period of time, and value engineering dates back quite some time.

Ah if an object is only designed to last a few years... its BUILT to FAIL... there is no value there other then to keep consumers buying rubbish.
SBS re-ran that doco last week on how there was a shift in companies in the 50s and 60s to deliberately design products so that they had a limited life so that the consumer would keep having to buy them.

There is NO PROFIT to be made if a product lasts forever... because no one goes out to buy a new one.

Sadly also we have become conditioned to buy the "latest" electronic product through all the hype, as an example the iPod, iPhone, etc... wow its 1mm thinner!!!!! wow... its 1cm bigger screen!!! WOW!!! lets line up like sheep for 24hrs outside a shop so i can be FIRST to own one and ill throw my perfectly good phone in the bin.

We are the most wasteful society to date...

Most modern consumer goods are either non-repairable or cost more then a new one to repair. So we are forced to throw it out and buy a new one.

Ill give examples of items (which i have given before) which shows how great modern items are when compared to when stuff was made to last.

My mums old NEC TV lasted nearly 25yrs... repaired only 3 times.
The new one i got her... lasted 3 months...

Her old GE fridge lasted 25yrs.. repaired twice from memory... her new one failed after 23months.

Her old chest freezer (westinghouse) was 39yrs old when i threw it in the tip, it was still working.. repaired ONCE. due to being flooded.

My Compaq laptop... lasted 3 months, the screen died. then 3 months later the fan died.... soon after that i needed a new battery.

The very first fluro globe i bought to replace those "old fashioned" filament globe which are deemed illegal to sell... lasted 2 weeks!!!! Yet these things carry dangerous heavy metals and are deemed "greener".

Bought a Sanyo DVD player... lasted 9 months before the panel buttons stopped working... (had to use remote)

[Thunder]

Just read the whole article, good read.

Got to say, if Ford are engineering vehicle parts with the goal that they last 10 years, then you got to admit that pretty good considering the poor life of all other consumables in our lives!

[mik]

agreed, cars are pretty good these days i reckon, look at the staggering complexity of the modern car compared to a car of the 70`s, the modern car keeps itself tuned up as rule, the maintenance of a modern car is minuscule compared to an oldie.
looking at my near on 12 year old falcon , it`s never had a tune up, it has no grease nipples and yet has all the original suspension except shockers at 210,000 k`s, all it takes to maintain it is general service items, it`s Never been on the side of the road for a break down(probably just mozzed myself ) , no doubt down the track it will need stuff, and it has a few very minor flaws from new , but taking into account how good it is/has been as a daily no fuss machine, it`s just no comparison.

[robbyj]

Originally Posted by pursuit2359

Having studied economics, I'm very surprised by this - what exam was this (i.e. subject/course)? For that question, I would argue that d) cannot be the correct answer because a car accident adversely affects the productive capacity of the economy. A car accident might stimulate economic activity, but it's not actually beneficial to the economy as a whole.

Just a basic economics subject at Charles Sturt. The other 3 answers dont contribute to increasing GDP (gross domestic product). The car accident, as pointed out, requires ambo's, tow truck, police etc all those wages to be paid. Plus the insurance company or the person has to buy a new car.

[BlueBear]

Thoroughly enjoyed that article, thanx pmacc.
That last part, Vextec modelling is amazing.
Cheers,

[K93George]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

My Compaq laptop... lasted 3 months, the screen died. then 3 months later the fan died.... soon after that i needed a new battery.

Bought a Sanyo DVD player... lasted 9 months before the panel buttons stopped working... (had to use remote)

Here is your problem, my God. A Compaq laptop? To top it off, a Sanyo DVD Player, I am suprised it lasted that long. If you had bought an HP Probook in the B series, it would have cost you a couple thousand but the build quality of them is insane. Made of aluminium and are flexible (to a degree!). I've seen these laptops last a long time. To be fair it should have lasted you longer but Compaq is the economy line of HP products.

Don't get me started on Sanyo, try perhaps a Sony player next time? Not a $70 one but an upper market one and come back to me.

Value Engineering IS NOT about having a product fail early. It is about making the best value product, for example. The market I will target with my TV is lower class and can only spend $700max on there 50". Now I will pick materials that meet the standard 1 year warranty, but why would I use a panel that lasts 100 years when the electronics will only last 3. I pick materials that meet the life expectancy but do not go over budget. If it lasts longer than 1 year, great! If not, well I expected that to be the case.

Now my upper class reference TV will cost $4,500 for a beautiful 70". It will be backed by a 5 year warranty, like nearly all LG LCDs. Now the materials will last a minium of 5 years but most likely more as I can budget in the cost factor of the customer not buying another TV for 7 years. But because of there income they most likely will, as I will continue to make better products.

[vanman_75]

A lot of it comes down to repair costs really. My last ge washing machine broke a knob after 8 years of solid use , but to buy said switch was half the price of a new one .

Fact you buy cheap - you get cheap , it ain't gunna last .I buy mid range just for this reason knowing it will get me five good years and hopefully 10 .just looking around my house and I must say I really don't have any junk nor anything that hasn't gone near ten
years ...
To be honest I don't think anything has changed , I just bought an xc one owner falcon 500 , it is exactly in the same condition as my au in the driveway with the same kilometers ...anything mechanical has some shelf life expectancy .
Pay more get more .

[flappist]

Originally Posted by K93George

Here is your problem, my God. A Compaq laptop? To top it off, a Sanyo DVD Player, I am suprised it lasted that long. If you had bought an HP Probook in the B series, it would have cost you a couple thousand but the build quality of them is insane. Made of aluminium and are flexible (to a degree!). I've seen these laptops last a long time. To be fair it should have lasted you longer but Compaq is the economy line of HP products.

Don't get me started on Sanyo, try perhaps a Sony player next time? Not a $70 one but an upper market one and come back to me.

Value Engineering IS NOT about having a product fail early. It is about making the best value product, for example. The market I will target with my TV is lower class and can only spend $700max on there 50". Now I will pick materials that meet the standard 1 year warranty, but why would I use a panel that lasts 100 years when the electronics will only last 3. I pick materials that meet the life expectancy but do not go over budget. If it lasts longer than 1 year, great! If not, well I expected that to be the case.

Now my upper class reference TV will cost $4,500 for a beautiful 70". It will be backed by a 5 year warranty, like nearly all LG LCDs. Now the materials will last a minium of 5 years but most likely more as I can budget in the cost factor of the customer not buying another TV for 7 years. But because of there income they most likely will, as I will continue to make better products.

My first plasma would be getting close to 10 years old. It now lives in a restaruant where it shows a slideshow 6 nights a week. My first LCD which is about 8 years old is at my daughters house along with my 15 year old Sony DVD player while the Sony 5.1 DTS amp I bought in 1997 is still attached to my current TV and bluray and works well every night.

There were sanyos etc. 15 years ago, they were just as good as the current ones.

Quality lasts, cheap rubbish does not........

[Jim Goose]

Originally Posted by K93George

Here is your problem, my God. A Compaq laptop? To top it off, a Sanyo DVD Player, I am suprised it lasted that long. If you had bought an HP Probook in the B series, it would have cost you a couple thousand but the build quality of them is insane. Made of aluminium and are flexible (to a degree!). I've seen these laptops last a long time. To be fair it should have lasted you longer but Compaq is the economy line of HP products.

Don't get me started on Sanyo, try perhaps a Sony player next time? Not a $70 one but an upper market one and come back to me.

Value Engineering IS NOT about having a product fail early. It is about making the best value product, for example. The market I will target with my TV is lower class and can only spend $700max on there 50". Now I will pick materials that meet the standard 1 year warranty, but why would I use a panel that lasts 100 years when the electronics will only last 3. I pick materials that meet the life expectancy but do not go over budget. If it lasts longer than 1 year, great! If not, well I expected that to be the case.

Now my upper class reference TV will cost $4,500 for a beautiful 70". It will be backed by a 5 year warranty, like nearly all LG LCDs. Now the materials will last a minium of 5 years but most likely more as I can budget in the cost factor of the customer not buying another TV for 7 years. But because of there income they most likely will, as I will continue to make better products.

Wowee.. well i never... i knew i was doing something wrong... i have to buy the most expensive one in order to get the best product!

Funny... the LG fridge wasnt cheap and lasted 22months.

The Toshiba TV a "good name brand" and comparable in price with all the other name brands at the time i bought it, lasted 3 months.

How stupid of me... i shoulda bought the most expensive one, because price means itll last the longest!

And how extremly stupid of me to expect a product to last its warranty period of 12months!

[vanman_75]

And one person having a half dozen dodgy electrical items is not a true representation of good or bad product ...lemons happen if its made by man it will break ...buying higher in the price rangewill just increase your odds ...
That's how people generally end up with brand bias ...one good run and you shout from mountain tops ...and one bad one you will never touch em again ...money doesn't always buy reliability but it certainly helps

[flappist]

LG is by far the best marketing to hit this country in decades.

LG does not stand for Life's Good, it stands for Lucky Goldstar as in the company formed when the Lucky and Goldstar merged some years ago.

The best motor industry equivaled I can think of is Holden rebranding Daewoo........

[Peter B - CV8]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

Ah if an object is only designed to last a few years... its BUILT to FAIL... there is no value there other then to keep consumers buying rubbish.
SBS re-ran that doco last week on how there was a shift in companies in the 50s and 60s to deliberately design products so that they had a limited life so that the consumer would keep having to buy them.

There is NO PROFIT to be made if a product lasts forever... because no one goes out to buy a new one.

Sadly also we have become conditioned to buy the "latest" electronic product through all the hype, as an example the iPod, iPhone, etc... wow its 1mm thinner!!!!! wow... its 1cm bigger screen!!! WOW!!! lets line up like sheep for 24hrs outside a shop so i can be FIRST to own one and ill throw my perfectly good phone in the bin.

We are the most wasteful society to date...

Most modern consumer goods are either non-repairable or cost more then a new one to repair. So we are forced to throw it out and buy a new one.

Ill give examples of items (which i have given before) which shows how great modern items are when compared to when stuff was made to last.

My mums old NEC TV lasted nearly 25yrs... repaired only 3 times.
The new one i got her... lasted 3 months...

Her old GE fridge lasted 25yrs.. repaired twice from memory... her new one failed after 23months.

Her old chest freezer (westinghouse) was 39yrs old when i threw it in the tip, it was still working.. repaired ONCE. due to being flooded.

My Compaq laptop... lasted 3 months, the screen died. then 3 months later the fan died.... soon after that i needed a new battery.

The very first fluro globe i bought to replace those "old fashioned" filament globe which are deemed illegal to sell... lasted 2 weeks!!!! Yet these things carry dangerous heavy metals and are deemed "greener".

Bought a Sanyo DVD player... lasted 9 months before the panel buttons stopped working... (had to use remote)

I saw that doco the other week & was pretty surprised. One example was a printer manufacturer that had a chip wired into the circuit to keep a tally of the number of print jobs. As soon as it hit 18,000 copies the chip then prevented any further printing. The printer was still perfectly good - it was just programmed not to print anymore...... Why would a manufacturer do that ???? (if not to force the consumer to spend money).

[K93George]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

Wowee.. well i never... i knew i was doing something wrong... i have to buy the most expensive one in order to get the best product!

Funny... the LG fridge wasnt cheap and lasted 22months.

The Toshiba TV a "good name brand" and comparable in price with all the other name brands at the time i bought it, lasted 3 months.

How stupid of me... i shoulda bought the most expensive one, because price means itll last the longest!

And how extremly stupid of me to expect a product to last its warranty period of 12months!

Some valid points there, but in all honesty, all the products I have ever bought have been fault free. All in the upper segment of the market of course. Then some cheaper brands like DSE have also been fault free, I can't think back to one crappy product I have had. All last far beyond when I throw them out.

[blueheart419]

In the begining, before the turbo, before the quad cam, possibly even before the MPEFI... and perhaps, just perhaps before the wheel... No longer were we content with living in caves with our women, a man had to prove his love with building things like houses and gardens and plowing fields, because suddenly nature wasnt good enough. His love wanted more and the more that a guy spent time trying to make his work easier, then the more his love figured that he could produce.
So men began to devote their time soley to inventing machines and devices so as to make their lives and the lives of other easier. And thus the class system began to emerge. No longer was working enough for his love. She wanted a man who paid someone else to work for him while he thought up labour saving devices which she would promptly flaunt in front of the other wives in showing off her husband. Which then used to cause fights between the men down at the pub. So intead of fighting over women, men went to fighting over the women bragging about them.
It was around this time, that the queen, wife of the king, (the first king was the guy to win the most fights in a year down at the pub) decided that because these other men were making machines and labour saving devices to sell and also paying other men to work for them, that these men should contribute some of their hard earned money to the king and queen for looking after them. In reality the queen just wanted more money so that at the next meeting of kings she could say that her husband was richer than anyone else and start a fight between the kings which we all know turns into a war. So no we have the king taking people from the fields and labour- saving device making jobs to fight for him, but the queen still wants her regular amount of money so they have to work harder to not only make the labour-saving-devices, but also to compensate for the lack of men who are away fighting. So they begin making devices which help them make the labour saving devices. Which now means that someone has to look after the devices that help make the labour-saving devices which means that instead of working he has to learn how the devices work, so he can fix them when they dont work, which means he is working, but only when the devices aren't.

[svo supporter]

Next thread will be about how many poor people are out of work, because places closed down, due to lack of sales of their products.

Sad fact of life....People need employment, so places make things that tend to fail quicker than the older days....Something to do with a bigger population these days, when compared to the older days

[Jim Goose]

Originally Posted by K93George

Some valid points there, but in all honesty, all the products I have ever bought have been fault free. All in the upper segment of the market of course. Then some cheaper brands like DSE have also been fault free, I can't think back to one crappy product I have had. All last far beyond when I throw them out.

I have a cheap and nasty XMS 5.1 Digital AMP... got it over 10yrs ago.
Its still working great.

Bought an Ozito jack hammer drill 6yrs ago and still going well.
(know a guy who bought one and he installs warehouse racking and has had it for 5yrs and estimates over 150000 holes drilled into concrete).

Some of the cheaper stuff out there is surprisingly good these days.
A lot of the stuff coming out of china these days like name brand TVs and cheap brand TVs are built at the same place and just have a different label.... DSE Tvs come to mind.

[99AUXR]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

A lot of the stuff coming out of china these days like name brand TVs and cheap brand TVs are built at the same place and just have a different label.... DSE Tvs come to mind.

Being built in the same place or from a similar design doesnt mean anything if the quality materials and build is there. I can think of multiple examples in the automotive industry.

[Yellow_Festiva]

I think a lot of things fail because of how they are treated. Not many people care to look after something, or go out of their way to repair it when all the cool people are buying the next model, be it cars, mobiles, computers etc.

Manufacturers know this, so why engineer something that is durable when most users will not care if it breaks in a year or 2 anyway?

I always question why the iphone has a sealed battery. What would that last with average usage, 2-3 years? How long does the average iphone user own a specific model for? 1-2 years (generally speaking of course).

I got 10 years out of the Festiva and it was no where near its used by date. I generally keep the same phone for 3-4 years and my last laptop got replaced after 5 years.

I still keep the old phone as a back up, in fact a German friend is using it right now on a trip here and I still use the old laptop every now and again.

Repairing stuff is not as economical as it used to be either. Who, in their right mind would want to be in the small appliance repair business, do lawn mower repair places still exist?? I remember seeing a few in my area growing up, now I think they are all gone. About the same time you could buy a new Chinese mower for about the same as 2hrs labour and the parts needed to repair your old one.

Being wasteful has a lot to do with it as well. Such is life however.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

A car accident keeps many people "busy" or employed.
Police officers, ambulance crew, tow truck drivers, repair shops, street cleaners, etc etc etc. the bill for repair or replacement of car is probably footed by a foreign owned insurance company too.

Reducing the consumer base AND reducing productive capacity is NOT good for the economy. Yes, keeping police/paramedics busy might seem good on paper, but they arent actually productive ... look up the smashed window analogy.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by mik

agreed, cars are pretty good these days i reckon, look at the staggering complexity of the modern car compared to a car of the 70`s

exactly. if a car was still a steel shell with crap seats, a radio and basic dash, it would last decades. but nowadays we want satnavs, air con, comfort, soft-touch plastics, etc etc etc. you cant have it all.

[TheSneakiness]

I have an Acer ex-gov refurb laptop that would nearly be pushing 10 years of life and apart from slow startup cause the thing can't handle anymore than 1GB of RAM it still works like I bought it.

It does need to be replaced soon though as the netbook is not handling being the main PC of the house.

[robbyj]

the thing with laptops and the like are they go out of date so quickly. buy top of the line right now, and in 3 years it will be half as good as any new laptop and considerably a lot cheaper.

My first laptop was virtually top of the line, intel 2.2ghz duel processor, 4gb ram, nvidia 250mb (forget which type) graphics card etc etc. Cost me about $2400 with a voucher, was worth almost $3000.

3 years later...

Now my new laptop. 8gb ram, intel i5 2.4ghz, 64 bit windows 7, USB 3.0, AMD Raedon graphics, for $750

[Werd.]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

Her old GE fridge lasted 25yrs.. repaired twice from memory... her new one failed after 23months.

Her old chest freezer (westinghouse) was 39yrs old when i threw it in the tip, it was still working.. repaired ONCE. due to being flooded.

My Compaq laptop... lasted 3 months, the screen died. then 3 months later the fan died.... soon after that i needed a new battery.

Well yeah.. Compaq... par for the course, HP/Compaq are just rubbish low quality junk designed to break.
Had 3 of em, screens died in all, same point of failure.. (2007-2008 era DV2000)

Still got an old Dell D600 which is doing great, on it's third HDD due to dropping, survived falls of bunk beds, screen works perfectly and it actually still goes okay for an almost 10yo 1.3ghz single core.

Dell D630s also seem similarly unkillable, HDDs tend to crap out often, sometimes dedicated graphics but meh, expected.

Desktops, IMO there is not really such a thing as an unreliable desktop, they have loads of room inside so there aren't many cooling issues, nothing can really break, 3.5" HDDs are very dependable nowadays.
Low end graphics cards seem to have trouble, been through 3x GT220s in a Dell Desktop.. but any "gaming" PC with a mid-high end card should see years.

The Nvidia 8800GT, released October 2007, I still see people now posting about how it just died on them and they need a new card etc, runs at 70-80deg C it's entire life and still lasts 5 years..

Technology is getting more advanced, things can now be built to tighter tolerances. With more and more things being implemented in every day products sure some of them will have standard failure rates, but I hardly think there is much in the way of planned obsolescences.

(Except for Apple making each revision of iOS slower )