Reliable or not?
Hi,
this maybe slightly off topic but it would be nice to have a conversation about the issue.
It´s really good that you can buy equipment that will function 10 years with minimum maintenance.
But the reality might be some different.
In the current/past economical pressure days, the only thing that matters is the price.
(Personally I have been earlier sitting 15 years on the other side of the table)
Can you get an e.g. transmitter for half the price that is probably what the buyer will buy.
It doesn´t make any difference if the transmitter will break after 1 year, the books are already closed
for the past year.
I will give you a real life example.
I just to work for a company that makes machinery for the cable industry.
We were the number one in the world.
I worked for the reel handling department (pay-off, take-up:s and similar equipment)
We manufactured these "superior" quality machines compared to the Chinese copies.
If you compare the price it was e.g. ours 100k€ the Chinese 60k€ (or cheaper).
Our machines were optimized to function with our line control systems and function 24/7 without any problems.
Still the customer (mostly in the far/near east) insisted the buy these cheap copies..?
I had some conversation with the customers maintenance people and our service/sales people from those countries to determine why they would want these machines.
The answer was, if the equipment is too reliable then the service department will get fired because they have nothing to do...
They bought cheap machines which gearboxes that lasted for 1/2 year and had to be replaced.
Nobody calculated that if you stop the HV cable machine, you will spend two days starting it up and cleaning the line.
Usually the value of the cable can be in M€ so you would think by "saving" 40k€ you will end up losing money?
Heard a funny story from my colleague that occurred in the Middle East.
He was starting up a big chemical plant, everything was working fine except for sometimes.
When he stared to investigate the problem he came up that every time the factory management visited the
control room the operators switched all controls to manual. This was to give the impression that the operators have to work really hard to get the plant running (nobody gets fired).
After the management left they switched everything back to auto and no problems or alarms..
![Yes]()
