That "cost" as you call it is a savings to the taxpayer. When the parts ALL have to be ordered to the job, and expiration dates creep up, the cost to retain tailings on kits and re-introduce them into the system id far greater than simply ordering what was needed and getting the job done.
To implement your "cost reduction" CRAP would cost the taxpayer far more, and in a mission critical application, it could even cost lives. That is unacceptable.
So shut the f*ck up about that which you obviously know absolutely nothing about. Not everyone uses the same model you have stuck in your brain.
If you're so worried that a few 0603 resistor values are going to compromise national security, do all of your CM's employees have "secret" level or higher clearances?
Exactly. Reduced number of different parts saves inventory and reduces machine time. As I make in the UK this is probably more important than if I was making in China. Also given that resistors come in reels of 5000 then if you make 500 using a special value then 4500 are held in stock until scrapped.
In my PPoE they certainly weren't linked and you don't get much larger than that. ... As it is, I only have a hint at
Except that CMs aren't shy about dumping the small guy if a major customer come in with an unanticipated order. The small guy *has* to be in charge of his destiny.
Sure, we do that with our system now. We can even undo an ECO in under 15 minutes (as I found out this morning). oops. ;-)
Sure, but we'll never get anywhere close to 50K units per year. Maybe
10K lifetime (we can only build ~10/week, now). At >$10K each, 10K units wouldn't be bad.
Don't remind me. My ex-colleagues in R&D in one company HATED writing proper component specs. They even tried making fun of me for specifying 360 ohms. Their idea was "can't we use the wrong value and get away with it ?". They did that once behind my back, putting the right value on the schematic and the wrong value on the BOM, substituting 22pf ( which was a stock item ) for 33pF. A year later about half the 8051 clock oscillators in production stopped working. I should have left right then.
Graham
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Just for kicks, I looked up the difference between 1%, 10%, and 20% resistors at DigiKey. We use a ton of 10K resistors for pullups and configuration setting, where 20% would certainly work. If it saved significant money I'd look into it further (not). The 10K 20% 0603 resistors were 100x the cost of 1% and 10% resistors don't exist. I guess that settles it. ;-)
I'm kinda fond of 4.7k and 3.3k (and multiples-of-10-thereof) for 5V and 3.3V logic since everything is then in the ballpark of 1mA (or 100uA or whatever). :-)
At least at one point in time I believe that 10k was the most popular resistor value around.
I had a tech once who decided that he knew more about decoupling than I did. He wire-wrapped all the decoupling caps, in daisy-chains (you don't do *anything* daisy chained on WW), to a single power and ground. I had specifically instructed him to use these teensie shorting clips that were made to go around the wrap pins directly to the appropriate land right next to the decoupling cap pin. They were a PITA to install, but not as bad as they are after the 6000 wires are on the board. The boards had to be scrapped at a cost of a couple of thousand for the hardware, not to mention the weeks of work lost. I was not a happy camper. He never worked for me again and I got a kid fresh out of school to train right (the kid ended up the same level engineer as I was, in the research division).
PPoE? I have also seen large companies where there was no such link and that really surprised me. Usually that means money is being left on the table. One of the most painful questions in a design review can be "So what's the total BOM cost here?". Of course, as a consultant one must be careful with that kind of question in front of so many people, better to ask outside the meeting.
All I can say is that at EndoSonics I and the engineers had that information at our finger tips, right on our workstations. We also had stuff like total systems cost barometers, catheter costs, and so on, updated in realtime. Just one of the reasons why we got the stock price from the $4-5 range to $11 within three years (that's when the company was sold, for that price).
... As it is, I only have a hint at
Yes, have a rather painful memory about that, from China. They don't dump you out of the blue but begin to hint that you aren't big fish to them anymore.
Then you'll have to look at the savings, may not be worth the effort. But if you could change 500 pull-ups to versions that cost 1/2c less that'll still save the equivalent of a mid-size car over the lifetime.
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Regards, Joerg
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North American pricing, Asian pricing, two different things.
Also, trimmable resistors are a different beast. Yes, they can be pricey, at least here in the US. The pricing info I got was most for the delivery location Shenzen.
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Regards, Joerg
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Ouch, that sounds like a company that is seriously out of control. If they wouldn't put proper procedures in place I would leave, or nowadays terminate the consulting agreement.
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Yep. In fact there was no real central engineering parts database, at least that engineers could access. Corporate purchasing engineering obviously had them.
You have no idea. One engineer had specs (recovery was the biggie) added to an LF356 that pushed it over $25, in 1975.
Up until now the BOM cost wasn't the driver. I'll have to have this discussion with the owner again. He just said he thinks our BOM cost is too high for one variant. I just put the real BOM together so purchasing could get a better idea of the real number.
There are many times where I just pull an OpAmp that's convenient, rather than the cheapest. I don't know what the real cost is. I asked for a dump from purchasing into the engineering database once a week, even. So far...
As I think I've said before, our business up until now was highly seasonal. If we miss a month, we miss a year. We miss a year and there is no more. The owner bought the tools and people so that doesn't happen.
Sure. It would take no time to do, either. A quick sort on 10K resistors would show if any where used for something important. ;-) As I said, there are plenty of other places to skin this cat, too.
Gee, I thought you'd like 4.99K, since we're all doing 1% now. ;-)
FOr some reason, the design I'm working on now is split between 10K and 4.99K, no matter which the supply. 10K is used for all the configuration and version ties though. Inertia, I suppose.
They are all cleared if the item being built requires it. So there are different levels of need and compliance. Most are COMSEC cleared, if not all, and some have secret clearance.
We have some items that are not secret until they have been programmed with secret code segments.
Once they have, the PWA, assembly, or final product has to be tracked, including escort, when not in a secured location under the control of the security custodian.
If an assembly fails test, the PWA must be destroyed if the programmed chip cannot be physically removed.
So the only testing a CM can do is power up, or such to verify a microcontroller is up, etc. They would rarely perform any fully functional test programs, and any turnkey items we have built are done at secure facilities.
Most of these places have tighter hiring criteria than a police department (obviously).
I _ran_ a business and it did not cost more. Medical devices, very agency-regulated. We must have done something right I guess. $50k of excess inventory would have caused our CFO to explode.
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Use another domain or send PM.
I guess I'm a little obsessive about bypasses - I've done prototypes where I actually soldered the cap on the opposite side of the board to the chip; the philosophy being that when it's laid out, I can use wide (low inductance, well, lower than 1/2" of #30 wire!) traces for the bypasses. Remember those sockets with the bypass cap built in?
At our company, rudeness like yours would have you fired within a month of hire; we just don't allow it. If you survived the interview process, which is very unlikely.
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