[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> This makes me crazy! So Apple under Michael
> Spindler is pushing so hard to get product out
> the door because Apple was literally one quarter
> away from bankruptcy that they included WHAT
> THEY HAD TO KNOW WERE FAULTY CPU CARDS
> [emphasis added] either believing the company
> would go down and not have to worry about it
> or that they would last long enough for most
> warranties to expire...
[Cheap shot omitted.]
I had the pleasure of a brief stint in Quality Control for (the major
consumer products company), and my brother ran Quality Assurance for a
household-name product at (the major US chemical company). My current
work in quantitative investments focuses heavily on risk control. ("I'm
not a real doctor, but you can trust me because I play one on
television.")
Each Boeing rivet gets separate three sign-offs... why not four?... ten?
Grease from machinery (used to) get onto approximately six out of
100,000 toothpaste tubes that got by the line inspector ... why not put
in two more people and maybe cut it to 1? ... Twelve people
hand-inspecting each tube? Gas tanks made out of 2"-thick steel would
allow gasoline to explode less often in crashes, if you didn't mind
another half-ton of weight. And how would you trade off Carpal Tunnel
Syndrome versus the poor quality of voice recognition?
Anybody who mouths "zero defects" is a hypocrite, because no human
activity can be utterly without error. No American consumer would be
willing to buy products that cost twice as much because the failure rate
went from 0.001% to 0.00001%.
It amazes me to see an assertion that Apple acted unprofessionally in
building a machine, even if it SUBSEQUENTLY was found to have had a
higher-than-average defect rate. (Which point I've never seen claimed
for the 2400. I do know that most machines in the 2400's class --
laptops of the 1997 vintage -- have a miserable failure rate. Even PC
desktops of that era had a DOA rate of what -- 20%?) Engineers can't
simulate all the different modes of failure over 3 years without beating
up on a few hundred machines for three years. Yes, you aim for the
lowest defect rate consistent with the cost of the product and human
safety, but there's always a trade-off. Every real company sets the
standards it wants to adhere to, and they're generally much higher than
appears economical. Would it be better to have a zero defect rate on a
machine that nobody could buy?
I don't know how we non-Apple-employee types could get the statistics on
failure rates, but if you have something more tangible than an attitude,
I'd be interested to learn about it.
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