Companies that still care about the quality of their product?

[Qoyote]

So many companies now just use the insurance company model of "do as little work as we possibly can" or even "actively hurt the consumer to keep them buying". They're not respectable. Are there any companies that feel like a breath of fresh air from that? Where you actually like buying their service?

 

[FilterFreq]

These only really seem to exist in niche territories where quality and integrity are valued and when almost all of the consumers of said product are demanding better from the company. The road to record profits kind of has a body count, more or less, and your average consumer is seriously just going to take it. Whether that's a subscription service, price increase, or what have you. Almost nobody is demanding better, so that's what we all get.

I should stress that they do exist, but not for most consumer-grade goods

 

[Shevek]

AFAIK, Vise-Grips are still as ever. Many years ago, an American machine manufacturer sold a big one to a customer in Taiwan. They had found that it was cheaper to sell machines with installation and instruction services than it was to send out a mechanic under warranty. So, there was the installer, the Taiwanese mechanic who everyone hoped would be able to fix anything faster than the American could return, and a translator working together. The American needed to make an adjustment, so he asked if he could borrow "some locking pliers." This was translated, and he was quickly handed a pair from the local toolbox. As a mechanic will, he glanced at the brand name, to see if he had to be cautious, and was astonished. "Why is it" he asked "that if I ask for locking pliers in the USA, I get a Taiwanese knock-off, but here in Taiwan, I get genuine American Vise-Grips?"
Even the translator knew that one, replying "Only Americans are rich enough to buy tools that don't work."

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Want to learn how attention to only the bottom line and running a company for shareholder "value" is ruinous, read Flying Blind. It is a step by step of how MBAs destroyed Boeing and deliberately killed people with their 737 Max 8 that incorporated a single point failure mode that they did not even let pilots know was operating on their planes. Now Boeing cannot even turn out defect free planes.

If it's Boeing, I'm not going.

 

[Shevek]

Want to learn how attention to only the bottom line and running a company for shareholder "value" is ruinous, read Flying Blind. It is a step by step of how MBAs destroyed Boeing and deliberately killed people with their 737 Max 8 that incorporated a single point failure mode that they did not even let pilots know was operating on their planes. Now Boeing cannot even turn out defect free planes.

If it's Boeing, I'm not going.

I used to shop at Boeing Surplus, and remember the selection of barely-damaged material, etc, falling off drastically when they merged with McDonnell-Douglas, and unaccountably absorbed the executives who had run those two fine old companies into oblivion. They may all have been inspired by Jack Welch of General Electric, who is often considered the first CEO to be completely without scruples in the pursuit of profit.

 

[Judge]

Most corporations seem overly fixated first on shareholder equity and second product sales. Not to build a better mousetrap, but rather to market the mousetrap better financed primarily with greater incoming equity.

Yet when you subtract such a company's equity from their balance sheet, suddenly they don't appear so robust in terms of the products they sell. Reflecting a "paper tiger" in the marketplace.

Worse when you see multiple paid-in-capital entries on the same balance sheet designed to make a company look more profitable than it actually is, through buying back their own stock. In the past such buybacks usually reflected a company doing very well. Now....not so much. Just a shell game to fool greedy investors.

 

[Cryptid]

Interesting fact: Back in the 1960s, people were already discussing "Planned Obsolescence" and how it affected them.

 

[Shevek]

Interesting fact: Back in the 1960s, people were already discussing "Planned Obsolescence" and how it affected them.

Detroit had been using annual model changes for decades by then. Ancient Greek archaeology is much simplified by the art on their pottery going out of fashion every decade.
Two products that I used to really like are now not worth buying - orange soda, and liquorice allsorts. There are many others, but those were memorable disappointments.

 

[Mary Terry]

Want to learn how attention to only the bottom line and running a company for shareholder "value" is ruinous, read Flying Blind. It is a step by step of how MBAs destroyed Boeing and deliberately killed people with their 737 Max 8 that incorporated a single point failure mode that they did not even let pilots know was operating on their planes. Now Boeing cannot even turn out defect free planes.

If it's Boeing, I'm not going.

Do you know what is going on with the Boeing space capsule? Those astronauts have been stuck in space for a long time now. No one is really talking about it - not NASA or Boeing - and I wonder if those astronauts' fate is sealed by the inability to get that Boeing piece of junk back to earth.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Interesting fact: Back in the 1960s, people were already discussing "Planned Obsolescence" and how it affected them.

I remember my mother telling me about that. How products were purposefully not built to last and to be easier to replace rather than repair.

 

[saturnv]

Do you know what is going on with the Boeing space capsule? Those astronauts have been stuck in space for a long time now. No one is really talking about it - not NASA or Boeing - and I wonder if those astronauts' fate is sealed by the inability to get that Boeing piece of junk back to earth.

The astronauts will be fine. If the starliner capsule is deemed unsafe for them to fly back in (looking likely), they will return in a SpaceX Dragon. That would be very embarrassing for Boeing, but fine for the astronauts.

 

[Mary Terry]

The astronauts will be fine. If the starliner capsule is deemed unsafe for them to fly back in (looking likely), they will return in a SpaceX Dragon. That would be very embarrassing for Boeing, but fine for the astronauts.

Thanks for the update. I assume that means that the SpaceXDragon can attach to the Boeing capsule to transfer them to it. After they return home, we can call it a successful failure like NASA did with Apollo 13.

 

[saturnv]

Thanks for the update. I assume that means that the SpaceXDragon can attach to the Boeing capsule to transfer them to it. After they return home, we can call it a successful failure like NASA did with Apollo 13.

The astronauts are in the international space station. They can stay there indefinitely. The dragon capsule that brought the previous batch of astronauts to the station is still there along with starliner. If the two astronauts that rode up on starliner return in dragon, the next dragon launch will bring two fewer astronauts and it will all work out.

 

[Shevek]

Speaking of quality work and NASA, I saw a spare Lunar Rover, and any racing bike mechanic could have made it a lot lighter and a bit more rugged with a file. All their land vehicles look as if they were designed by people who have never gone off-road in their lives. However, I know that they have been riding around in airliners with fuselages that are pressurized tubes supporting themselves without a separate frame. The ISS astronauts live in pressurized tubes just floating in space without landing stresses, just an occasional very gentle push to correct the orbit. However, those tubes are bolted to a separate frame, like an old-fashioned pickup truck's bits, that weighs SEVEN TONS.

 

[Mary Terry]

Speaking of quality work and NASA, I saw a spare Lunar Rover, and any racing bike mechanic could have made it a lot lighter and a bit more rugged with a file. All their land vehicles look as if they were designed by people who have never gone off-road in their lives. However, I know that they have been riding around in airliners with fuselages that are pressurized tubes supporting themselves without a separate frame. The ISS astronauts live in pressurized tubes just floating in space without landing stresses, just an occasional very gentle push to correct the orbit. However, those tubes are bolted to a separate frame, like an old-fashioned pickup truck's bits, that weighs SEVEN TONS.

I know weight matters when launching a rocket and trying to break free of earth's gravity, but does weight have any real relevance in deep space?

 

[Shevek]

I know weight matters when launching a rocket and trying to break free of earth's gravity, but does weight have any real relevance in deep space?

Weight is mostly irrelevant in orbit - the frame is basically just gliding in tight formation, but it cost a large fortune to get it up there, and will be risky to get back down.
Those giant first-stage rockets start off at zero efficiency and burn out before they get to 10%, all while in air that is easy to fly in. They can lift a 2nd stage that is heavier than any aircraft can manage, but nobody has tried several aircraft hooked up to the same lifting cable, picking up the 2nd stage from a souped-up truck on the runway.

 

[Judge]

Thanks for the update. I assume that means that the SpaceXDragon can attach to the Boeing capsule to transfer them to it. After they return home, we can call it a successful failure like NASA did with Apollo 13.

One thing for sure, NASA remains intensely defensive when faced with failures they cannot hide. At least there are few personalities like Walter Mondale to continually attack them.

That said I just don't see things at Boeing improving any time soon.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Quality engineering matters for any company irrespective of product or service. I learned this as I progressed from one company to the next, got my self trained and then brought it as a strength to future moves. They may not have had a plan but I did.

 

[Mary Terry]

Weight is mostly irrelevant in orbit - the frame is basically just gliding in tight formation, but it cost a large fortune to get it up there, and will be risky to get back down.
Those giant first-stage rockets start off at zero efficiency and burn out before they get to 10%, all while in air that is easy to fly in. They can lift a 2nd stage that is heavier than any aircraft can manage, but nobody has tried several aircraft hooked up to the same lifting cable, picking up the 2nd stage from a souped-up truck on the runway.

I've been to Stennis Space Center on the Mississippi Gulf Coast several times where they build the rockets. It is located on the Pearl River close to the Gulf, near Bay St. Louis, MS. We used the Center's meteorological data collected during Hurricane Katrina in connection with litigation I was involved in.

 

[Shamar]

Do you know what is going on with the Boeing space capsule? Those astronauts have been stuck in space for a long time now. No one is really talking about it - not NASA or Boeing - and I wonder if those astronauts' fate is sealed by the inability to get that Boeing piece of junk back to earth.

This is a great illustration of the decline of Boeing, especially the decline of their innovation and rise of manager decisions over engineers. They were selected as the primary crew vehicle contractor, with SpaceX as a secondary contractor, mainly because Congress mandated a second source. Boeing got $4.2 billion, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion. Boeing had the already successful Apollo capsule to build on, while SpaceX started from scratch. SpaceX developed a capsule in seven years that has worked flawlessly for the last four years, while Boeing has spent 11 years and twice as much money building a capsule that still does not work properly. Boeing needs to put the engineers back in charge.