A Reputation to live up to
I was watching the latest NASA Shuttle mission the other day, live from space. They were doing an EVA onto the International Space Station, attaching some large structure to it. The metal structure needed to be modified by disassembling and re-assembling parts of it. They used some really nice power tools that could be programmed for various torque settings and rotational counts. Like remove bolt A with torque set at 21.4 lbs and stop after 32.5 rotations.
What amazed me was the amount of detail they knew about every bolt and brace on the structure. I’m sure every piece, every bolt, every washer, has trackable paperwork and a mountain of technical data documented. It was then that I looked back at the amount of detail we put into our latest MPEG decoder, MasonIP, and felt really good about all the design time we put into the product.
As most of you know, the MasonIP decoder is our broadcast quality rack-mount DVD verifier and MPEG player. It is a substantial piece of equipment, having been designed from the beginning to be the best quality player device available. A vast amount of engineering has gone into MasonIP, from electronic and mechanical to software. We wanted the MasonIP to live up to all of the previous Mason decoder products if it was to bear the ‘Mason’ name.
You see, Mason products are designed for continuous use. Not for a simple playback now and then. It is designed to run 24 hours a day, for weeks on end. Previous Mason products have been decoding and playing back MPEG for 5 years without a failure. Now that’s a reputation to live up to.
But all this quality costs. It costs in engineering. It costs in producing. It costs in sales.
What burns me up are the mis-conceptions about product longevity that people have today. When my dad bought our first color TV, it was a substantial amount of money. But the main issue for purchasing the brand we did was the quality of the product. It had a good reputation, and rightly so. It lasted for 15 years.
Today the manufacturers, and the consumer, are looking at the selling price as the main reason for purchase. Then they expect the product to perform. So manufacturers continually cut costs in the products with every revision, trying to get a lower selling price, and thus an increase in sales. But the product quality suffers dramatically. This would be OK if the consumer understands that the lower price model probably won’t last that long. But I fear the consumer is rather ignorant about such things.
When I purchase a complete PC for $139 (yes, they do come that cheap), if the product dies within a year, I don’t bitch about it. I mean it was only $139. If the cpu fan dies or the keyboard dies, oh well…I fix it. But I don’t expect a $139 PC to last for years running continuously. That is not realistic.
The same goes for those cheap DVD players. If I spend $49 for a DVD player, I don’t expect it to run continuously for several years. That would be crazy. My expectations match the product selling price and I am not disappointed. Of course if I spent premium dollars for a DVD player and it died in a year, I would really be mad. My expectations again match the price of the product.
What has happened is that manufacturers have reduced their costs and quality while not reducing their selling price. The bean-counters at these companies are getting too involved in the engineering of a product, without any notion about destroying the companies reputation, and thus it’s future long-term sales. Sure the numbers look good at first, but look what happens after awhile. This business model does not hold for the long term. Just look at Dell.
My recent trip to Dell in China was amazing. Dell is the leader in getting every last dime out of their costs. If you saw their operations, you would be amazed. But there is a downside and it’s happening right now. That downside is a significant drop in Dell quality. They are being accused of poor quality products and thus their sales are going down. Their market share is also going down. And they are in the middle of the largest product recall in consumer electronics history.
The Dell business model works for the short term, but it is not a viable long term business model. Every year they kept lowering their costs, but kept their sales prices stable. That meant increasing profit year after year after year. It made Wall Street happy and kept their shareholders happy. BUT, you eventually reach a point when you just can’t lower costs anymore and still have a working product. This is something the bean-counters do NOT understand. But us engineers understand.
I believe that Dell has shot over their peak. They cannot reduce their costs anymore. That means no more increasing profits. That means very upset bean-counters and stockholders. That means poor quality products and a destruction of their company reputation.
I don’t mean to pick on Dell; this sort of thing is happening to a lot of companies right now. You can see it with every purchase you make. Look at how every year the products are getting cheaper in quality. Even if you buy the same thing again, the later manufactured products are always cheaper in materials and workmanship. It’s a real disappointment when you can’t get a quality product anymore. But at least we here at Wired recognize this trend and will NOT be a party to it. We engineer great high-quality products and will continue to do so. We have a reputation to live up to.
-Mark Bain
Excellent piece mark! Thanks!