Re: Equipment, and the Useless Eco- legislation ...


"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:o0t0f3l4vmk4d3smvdtaoeo1nqp6u7tcdb@xxxxxxxxxx
"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@xxxxxxxxxxxx> hath wroth:

See what I'm saying now ?
Arfa

Nope. What you're asking for are government mandated inventory
levels. We already have some of that in the US in the auto industry,
where manufacturers are required to make parts available for 5(?)
years after date of manufacture. The result has been a flood of
counterfeit parts, most of which are junk. The manufacturers also
have disbursed the cost of stocking useless inventory to the buyers of
new cars.
<http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/genericauto/>

That's the problem with your suggestion. The $40 CD/DVD player will
cost considerably more if the manufacturer is expected to inventory
all the parts inside, in individual coin bags, as individual SKU's.
Since the real cost is warehouse space and accounting overhead, the
cost will be substantial. Incidentally, the most difficult problem
with China manufacturing is storage space.

So, what percentage of a manufacturing run is ever expected to be
repaired? Well, I'm only familiar with the wireless and
communications business. In the public safety and government sector,
it's 100% of the radios sold. Note that these are $1,000 radios.
However, in the consumer sector, the radios are essentially throw
away, and are rarely repaired. Fortunately, many of the parts are
generic, but that was accidental, not intentional. So, what is the
difference between a $50 (high end) FRS/GMRS/MURS radio, and a $1,000
public safety radio? Well, quite a bit, but little of it justifies
charging 200 times more. What does justify the cost is that the
manufacturers of high end radios stand behind their products, with
extensive (authorized) dealer networks, and in depth parts stocking.
Now, extrapolate the commodity $40 CD/DVD player into such an
operation, and methinks you'll end up with a $1,000 player.

Is a $40 CD/DVD player even worth repairing? At my shop rate, that's
about 30 minutes of repair time, assuming I use no parts. I can
barely test the unit and fill out the paperwork in 30 minutes, much
less fix anything.

The laws of unintended consequences also applies here. The intent is
to have your Denon xformer available at a reasonable cost. Instead,
you're going to be offered a "power supply sub-assembly" or some
manner of board exchange program, instead of the individual parts.
This would probably satisfy the letter of the proposed law, but would
dramatically increase your cost of the parts to the point where the
device would be easily deemed uneconomical to repair. For example, I
can buy individual parts and pieces for the older HP LaserJet II, III,
and 4 printers. However, parts for all of the recent HP economy
printers are offered only as sub-assemblies.
<http://partsurfer.hp.com/cgi-bin/spi/main>
Try to find some of the tiny and easily broken inkjet printer parts
and pieces.

There are plenty of things that can be done to improve the land fill
problem. My favorite is subsidized recycling and reclamation. This
is being done locally by a senior citizen's group, where they break
apart cell phones, computahs and electronics, and sell the scrap to
metal recyclers.
<http://www.greybears.org/computer.html>

What are you going to do with all the inventories of repair parts
after the 5(?) year limit expires? More land fill? Incidentally, I
bought the obsolete parts inventory from several repair shops and
radio shops. The volume of the junk is far more than justifiable.
I've tried to sell the mess but nobody was interested.


Oh dear, I'm losing the will to live here ... I'm really not proposing
trying to make manufacturers hold mountains of spares at their governments'
behest. That said, I do think that they should have to hold spares that are
of a specialist nature in their kit, such as lasers, for a reasonable time.
There is absolutely no reason at all why every new design that they produce,
should have a new type of laser fitted. A DVD laser is a DVD laser is a DVD
laser. Up until recently, most of the main manufacturers had a small array
of their favourite types, that appeared in all of their products. In the
last couple of years, that seems to have gone out of the window, which
contributes to the scrap equipment situation.

As far as the $40 DVD goes, of course it's not worth repairing, but the
reality is that it shouldn't be $40 in the first place. This is just a
reflection of Chinese expansionism forcing itself on the global market, and
not caring about the piles of junk going to landfill, that it is leaving
behind because of the price. If world governments want to see landfill from
scrapped equipment reduced, then they need to legislate against this
nonsense of giving away DVD's at the supermarket checkout. And don't say
that it can't be done, it can. Governments have imposed import levies on
foreign goods many times to protect indiginous industries. I seem to recall
that fairly recently, your government did it to mine over steel imports ...
The only thing that's stopping them is the fear that if they are seen to be
making $40 DVDs $100 by imposing a $60 recycling tax on them, the great
unwashed will see them as money-grabbing killjoys, and they will lose their
elevated pig-at-the-trough politician status. They can't have it both ways.
Either they just shut up and ignore the environmental impact of allowing
checkout DVDs, or they do something proper about it.

So what's wrong with passing on the cost of stocking spare parts to the
consumer ? It makes the item a more realistic price in the first place, and
will encourage owners to "mend and make do", instead of "toss and buy new"

Your argument about expensive kit being 100% repaired is self-defeating in
the case of Denon, for instance. People buy Denon instead of Ying Tong
because it is expensive, and they expect to have repair inventory available
for it for a realistic time, because of that.

But aside from all that, the point that everyone is missing is that where
spares *are* available, they are unrealistically priced by the
manufacturers, and that leads to totally unecessary scrapping to landfill.

I don't care how big your warehouse is or where it's located, or how many
times you have to ship an item around the world before it comes to rest, or
how many bags you have to put it in or what your admin costs are or what
your postage costs are or any of the other 'justifications' that get trotted
out, NO manufacturer can justify marking up a laser that cost him $1 to buy
to $150 as a suppliable spare part. If it really cost that to supply, then
he must have some serious issues with his business model. If he really can't
supply said part for a realistic $15 - $20, then the retail cost of every
player needs to go up by 50c to cover the cost of spares inventory. The
consumers can't bleat about ecology and landfill over their Sunday paper,
and then refuse to pay for it. And the only way that will come about, is if
governments do something to legislate for it, which they easily could.

Now do you see what I'm saying ?

Arfa


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