Operaghost
Member
Designed obsolescence or just economics?
If I design a widget that will be built like a tank and last 20+ years, how much is that widget going to cost me to build? I'll need to use premium components to get that life span. And I will have to make sure I can get those components for the next twenty years so I can continue to support my product.
Then, my competitor builds a similar type of widget, but they opt to go the low-cost route, and thus their product will have a shorter life span of say 7 years. Their device sells for half what mine is selling for. Functionally the two products are comparable, but my product is beefier, so it is slightly larger along with being twice the cost.
Who is buying my product? No one. I am not price competitive and my product dies on the shelf. Hardly anyone thinks long term anymore. It is all about how much this will cost today. Everything is so short-sighted these days. Never mind you would eventually have to buy three of my competitor's products to match the lifetime of my one item. If it lasts 7 years great, because the person responsible will have moved on to something else and won't have to answer the questions about why they didn't buy the quality product when they had the chance. In fact, they were probably promoted for saving the company money. When in fact they cost the company money.
Yes, the PLC-5 was indeed a tank. It would still be running a lot of processes today, but lower cost and lower quality competitive devices entered the market and forced prices down. With that we accepted lower quality and shorter product life spans as the trade-off. I wouldn't say Rockwell or other big manufacturers purposefully design their product to only last 7-10 years, but it certainly is a consequence of the drive for lower costs.
After all this time, that old Kirby looks like a smart purchase.
OG
If I design a widget that will be built like a tank and last 20+ years, how much is that widget going to cost me to build? I'll need to use premium components to get that life span. And I will have to make sure I can get those components for the next twenty years so I can continue to support my product.
Then, my competitor builds a similar type of widget, but they opt to go the low-cost route, and thus their product will have a shorter life span of say 7 years. Their device sells for half what mine is selling for. Functionally the two products are comparable, but my product is beefier, so it is slightly larger along with being twice the cost.
Who is buying my product? No one. I am not price competitive and my product dies on the shelf. Hardly anyone thinks long term anymore. It is all about how much this will cost today. Everything is so short-sighted these days. Never mind you would eventually have to buy three of my competitor's products to match the lifetime of my one item. If it lasts 7 years great, because the person responsible will have moved on to something else and won't have to answer the questions about why they didn't buy the quality product when they had the chance. In fact, they were probably promoted for saving the company money. When in fact they cost the company money.
Yes, the PLC-5 was indeed a tank. It would still be running a lot of processes today, but lower cost and lower quality competitive devices entered the market and forced prices down. With that we accepted lower quality and shorter product life spans as the trade-off. I wouldn't say Rockwell or other big manufacturers purposefully design their product to only last 7-10 years, but it certainly is a consequence of the drive for lower costs.
After all this time, that old Kirby looks like a smart purchase.
OG