[OT] Outsourcing squared

How good that technical details reveal itself by looking at ...

Good luck

Rene

Sounds to me that this is the way to ensure that one is keeping

*behind* the competition!!!

Nothing wrong with that B.T.W. - it might make perfect sense to identify the crap components that wear out quickly and setup a second-source production for them undercutting the OEM's ;-)

On Tue, 16 May 2006 05:53:45 -0400, Spehro Pefhany wrote in Msg.

The only thing "novel" about this is sending the stuff to India, not the dismantling.

The cool thing is that car mfgers A, B, C don't each have to disassemble the cars from D, but that the Indians do it once and for all, building a huge database that everybody can buy information from.

robert

Hardly. You want to make sure you adopt all the good ideas of your competition, PLUS the ones you come up with yourself.

I used to tear down consumer electronics as a bit of a pastime. Create schematics, parts lists, look how they tested and panelized the boards, the mechanical techniques they used, how the molds worked. You can really learn a lot that way. The Japanese are particularly good at this, you can see elements of all the major competition in many of their best products-- they don't suffer from the NIH syndrome, which prevents excellence (or even the knowledge of the resulting mediocrity).

You might also be able to identify weaknesses that will show up in the marketplace much later, places where they cut corners etc. This could be of great competitive advantage in some cases.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

I think it's wonderful! Find out how something works, and make something better, cheaper! That's the enterpreneurial spirit that America was founded on, and launched us all into our consulting careers!

Hooray for Freedom!

Cheers! Rich

Hello Spehro,

I tend to agree with Frithiof Andreas on this one. I can only speak for the medical device industry but companies that did this kind of reverse engineering typically produced "me, too" products. Possibly cheaper but nothing to write home about. I worked for a company that didn't do it yet we were leading the pack in quite a few markets. Many times the competition had an "oh s..t!" experience when we waited to reveal something until the next big trade show. It drove them nuts.

True, but only for general learning purposes.

Absolutely, especially in automotive. "What? They didn't use ball bearings here??"

But auto makes and others had better look at their own data first. It doesn't require disecting competitor models to find out why certain products are so much worse in reliability than imports.

Regards, Joerg

So you're arguing in favour/favor of *ignorance*?

I don't understand why supposedly professional engineers are so emotional on this matter. Maybe I spent too much formative time working with the Japanese...

As just one example, if TI had figured out what Commodore was really paying to have the 64 built they'd wouldn't have had their clock cleaned by them. Apparently they just *assumed* the costs were similar. They were not, and neither was the Mexican assembly quality near as good as the Asian Commodore quality.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Hello Spehro,

No, I just see a lesser value in reverse engineering than others ;-)

Sometimes the time spent on it would be better spent on thinking how to push the envelope some more.

Nothing emotional about it with me, except that I find some kinds of reverse engineering rather unethical. There is nothing wrong with buying a competitor's unit and taking a look. Having chips slivered down on an electron beam microscope would be another matter.

Why didn't they just sit down and design theirs as cheap as possible? I usually have a good hunch of what competitors' BOM costs and labor are. But at the end of the day what counts is not that knowledge but whether you truly found rock-bottom or not. And whether you got there first.

I could have told them that. Did they lay off all their older folks or why didn't they know?

Regards, Joerg

I love to dissect other peoples' gear, and read their schematics if I can. I learned a lot by studying "the classics" - HP and Tek manuals - and I always research as much of the competition as I can before I design something. I buy things and manuals on ebay sometimes, just to "tear down." I heard that HP and Tek were usually the first buyers of one another's new products.

I seldom copy ideas or architectures, and never copy schematics, but it's good to know what they did right and wrong, and how they package their electronics, and what their gadget may cost to make, and how many kluges they average. There's no point in missing something important.

And it's a joy to find that the competition has a truly awful design... time to sharpen the knives.

John

Hello John,

In medical the sales guys keep their guard against the competition ever getting their hands on a unit. I never understood why. So, we scoped them out at trade shows and when in the clinics. You can see most performance parameters just by some outside tricks. Like doing the "morse code thing" with a wet palm on a tranducer to see how their beamformer sticks things together. When a friend whipped out a ruler to measure the array width he was escorted off the booth by a few mean-looking burly guys.

Regards, Joerg

I like to check the serial numbers of the instruments in the booth (they tend to be new, shiny boxes) and graph that versus time, to get an idea of their sales volume.

John

Hello John,

When I started it was already somewhat customary with many companies to start with a substantial offset. I guess mostly so that customers don't get the feel that they are the guinea pigs. I heard that now some are even randomizing.

Regards, Joerg

Sheeesh! I measure it with a finger, noting joint intersections, etc., jot those notes down, convert to dimensions back at the hotel.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Hello Jim,

Another trick is to know the exact length of your shirt cuffs and the pattern on the shirt.

Anyway, he wanted to have exact dimensions down to a millimeter.

Regards, Joerg

During foundry tours I say something like, "Wow! I bet you can move

100 (or whatever low-ball number is appropriate) wafers through here every 24 hours!"

Invariably the manager will blurt out, with pride, the actual number!

Then I can estimate his true cost/wafer ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

I don't own a shirt or suit or watch.......

Gawd, I feel like I'm DNA

martin

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

I have a watch !

Graham

That is what I do quite often in my consulting activities. Together with the most experienced colleage of the customer we take apart new gear of competitors (mostly Japanese tho) and make sure we really understand how every circuit works. Then anything interesting is simulated, prototyped and when it works out better than our own solutions adapted in our next design. This way we can keep our market share above 80%. It is one of the activities I like most, because it requires a lot of experience and knowledge and I really can appreciate a creative new solution of someone else. Isn't this how we all learned the "special" bits of knowledge? Seeing and recognizing a superiour way of doing things.

--
ciao Ban
Apricale, Italy