[TowerTalk] WTF??? Lessons to be learned

[KD7JYK DM09]

> Just try to change a tail light bulb on a recent automobile! (One before 
> LED's, though.) My 2015 Outback requires disassembling the whole rear 
> end of the car.

Designed by those with marketing notions, not those that service, touch, 
and often never seen them beyond the sales pamphlet.  Design for an 
appearance...

I worked for a company the had a device in production since 1963.  The 
primary adjustment was a potentiometer on the back of a sensor package, 
the only adjustable component on the board, the other being a parallel 
fixed high precision resistor installed in the shop during assembly, and 
calibration.  The slot for adjustment faced upward, buried under several 
layers of circuit boards, and a magnetically shielded sensor that had to 
be removed to get to it clearly, but if they were, the unit often had to 
be torn down, rebuilt, and re-calibrated in a lab (this seonsor needed 
to be accessed when active, during a field call) and certified to absurd 
levels (~1.5" of paperwork).  Despite continuous production since 1963, 
not a single dipsh-t among those that designed, but never serviced, 
thought to turn the pot 90 degrees, and the design of some twits baby 
was never changed despite the decades of mentioning it by those that 
actually touched it.

The solution?  Mangle the pot, so the unit had to be pulled from the 
field, and let the lab boys put in a new one (about an hour of work, and 
three days to complete documentation), to be mangled in the next few 
field checks.  At least it was job security for numerous levels of 
personnel, I personally fought ~1,800 units at three to five units per call.

Here's a real kick in the pants!  Service call cost?  $880/hr at three 
to five hours on the books (not to be confused with the roughly 15 
minutes of actual work).  My pay?  ~$7/hr.

Kurt