Engineers don't ignore economics, they live and die by it. You can invent the best mouse trap in the world, but if you over price it, you'll die broke. The sole exception to this would seem to be in the area of government contracts where the technique is to low-ball the bid to get the contract remembering to include a paragraph about the price being subject to change as changes to the original scope are added by the customer.
Click the link, it's great reading.
3 comments:
You just can't fix stupid ... although many have tried ...
When I got out of govt work & went into the private industry price was my biggest change. I was at Ford tractor & assigned to the R & D team. When selecting a new switch (for example) the lab would test all the different models we could find. Then we bought the cheapest one. I commented to the senior engineer "why the big fuss about a 5 cent difference?" He just said, "yeah, take that times a million units and you'll figure it out". No more cost plus contracts! It's sink or swim time.
Merle
Thanks for the link and the comments, Bill!
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