kony wrote:

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 00:31:39 -0500, David Maynard
wrote:




snip of arm waving


If you're making so much 'warranty' stock as to significantly affect your
cost per unit ratios then you're in deep doo-doo.

Wouldn't that be a "business model assumption" you just made?

No.

You wouldn't even GET to a 'business model' with those assumptions.

It would also be only an opinion, without knowing what the cost
is to run off a few more units from an assembly line already set
up and running,

You were not talking about running of a 'few more units'. You were claiming
so many more units that your volume purchasing costs are dramatically
affected. SO affected that the replacement units were 'cheap' compared to
the ones made for sale.

parts already purchased (so many are shared
between different models),

Doesn't alter the fact that your volume purchasing is driven by
manufacturing items for sale and not replacements for defective units.

workers trained and lines running.
Cost per unit as an average of total produced is different than
cost per unit of an additional run, the former being much higher
cost.

It's an 'opinion' based on experience. Failure rates high enough to
necessitate replacement production of that magnitude means your
manufacturing and/or design is hopelessly screwed up.

That is a basic truth in mass manufacturing, disagree all
you like as I'm not going to bother arguing it.

I have no problem with 'truth in mass manufacturing'. It's your invention
of wholly unrealistic scenarios I dispute.

ANY successful business model is going to have warranty costs covered in
the price of the product. That, in and of itself, is not 'revealing' of
anything.


... which is basically a restatement of my original point.

You're trying to argue the merits of fanless power supplies by attacking
the purpose and meaning of warranties because the other poster made a
presumptive claim regarding them. But it's a non sequitur for BOTH of you,
just as arguing how fast a car is by what color it's painted would be. It
might actually work once in a while, if people who like fast cars happen to
often like 'red', but it's only coincidentally related (compounding the
misperception with 'anecdotal' stories) without a direct cause and effect
relationship, just as your warranty theory doesn't really apply to your
apparent argument over fanless PSUs.

You were correct, as I agreed in an earlier post, that a long warranty
doesn't say much, if anything, about lifespan but neither does all this arm
waving about how 'cheap' a warranty is, your 'marketing tool'
characterization, or any of the rest.