this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
558 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
59517 readers
3119 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I work for a manufacturer with part catalogues going back to 1921, and while the telegraph codes no longer work, you could absolutely still order up a given part, or request from us the engineering diagram for it to aid in fabricating a replacement. You can also request service manuals, wiring diagrams, etc. Don't all half-decent manufacturers do this?
Been there done that. Got the tee shirt.
While good support to customers is very valuable, trying to support a product that is decades old and shares nothing in common with current products is a plain waste of time energy and money.
It would require someone to search out all the documentation needed to make that one part, then you need to figure out the correct process to make said part, determine if you have material on hand or need to special order something, then try to find that one old jig/fixture needed amongst a building full of 100's of such items for the right one. Then you need to be sure that the the complete fixture is there and nothing is worn out beyond use. Then you need to make time to insert this one-off semi-custom part into the manufacturing process.
By the time you do all this, that one 20 year old obsolete part will have perhaps cost you thousands of dollars and you still haven't made the first piece of swarf. Imagine the shock and surprise that customer would have when they get the bill that accurately reflects the true cost.
Oh, I've seen or rather heard the gasps of surprise you speak of, my friend. I remember about ten years ago getting a request to source a specific part out to Nunavut, in the Canadian Arctic. It was would have been pricier than just getting a whole new unit, for their purposes. We did provide them with the engineering drawings so that they could get a local shop to machine the parts, but I don't know if they ever went that route.
That's assuming you're looking for a replacement part. This is redesigning the product to work differently to fix a flaw. Like if you made a vacuum company use a different gear because the existing one was too fragile. That's likely not something you can just swap out. First you need an engineer to decide what kind of gear and redesign everything around it to make the gear fit properly as well as creating a way for it to be easily installed by the end user or their repair service. You're ultimately changing the functionality of the original product. Yes it's flawed functionality, but there are tons of flawed products out there.
Oh, most products and components go through multiple revisions to account for either flaws in the original design or to comply with local laws (for example, health and safety requirements that did not exist at time of original design). I believe it's imperative for every business to keep on top of these things.....but perhaps I'm a bit naive.
Sure, but then those new revisions that are currently being sold are what get updated. That's perfectly reasonable. We don't require physical products to go back and fix the old stuff they are no longer selling. If we said that a vacuum manufacturer has to go back and fix their old products for safety flaws to comply with modern standards, what about a company that has been around for 100 years? Do they have to go back and design and manufacture modern technology into those products that didn't exist when they were made? What if only one person in the whole world is actually using that product anymore? How long do they need to continue to revise the product?
Yes they do, but half decent manufacturers are extremely rare.
No. That is phenomenally uncommon. To the point it's almost unheard of.
Now I wish you'd tell us what the company is so if I ever need anything in that industry, I'd know where to buy from.
I wish I could be more specific, truly, but I would be putting myself at serious risk of doxxing myself, and I've made fun of a lot of bad people across Lemmy (and Reddit, once upon a time) that I would be putting myself and others at risk of retribution.