I don't think it's necessary to commit suicide in order to prove a
point on usenet.
Think of the wording for such a law. What constitutes spares? If the
product is outsourced, who's responsible for the spare parts? If
there are no spare parts left over after a production run, is the
manufacturer responsible for obtaining such spares? How long is
"reasonable". At what price structure? I would have extreme
difficulty producing such a law that would not involve some level of
mandatory parts inventory stocking levels.
Got it. Once a manufacturer is committed to a particular design, they
are required to continue to use that design for some "reasonable"
amount of time. Perhaps a government inspector should be invited to
design review meetings to insure compliance with what appears to be
the required use of obsolete parts?
The Bureau of Obsolescence Department of the Ministry of E-Waste
perhaps?
Not so. Progress in design has also been through small incremental
improvements in manufacturing. In the rush to deliver product, many
designs contain fundamental inefficiencies that are only cost
effective to replace as production volume increases. The result is a
continuous series of somewhat compatible but different parts. Design
changes in other areas of the DVD player may precipitate a mechanical
change in the DVD laser, such as the ribbon cable, thus producing yet
another DVD head mutation.
Sure. As long as the manufacturer supplied the parts to the
outsourced vendor in China, it was highly beneficial to use common
parts and sub-assemblies. However, once the design has been
optimized, it gets sent out to clone houses, that bid on producing a
"compatible" device, using the basic design owned by the manufacturer.
When switching to the new outsourced vendor, they will have their own
collection of favorite parts. In the case of the CD/DVD laser
assembly, it will probably be similar, but not identical. Slight
re-design for a change of vendor to accommodate parts handling
variations is fairly common.
Got it. Just tax the hell out of consumer electronics, so that the
price will be sufficiently high to convert the current throw away into
a major investment worth keeping. Surely you jest.
However, let's pretend that the eco-mania continues and such a law is
proposed. Of course, it wouldn't be a direct taxation on the consumer
as there would be rioting in the streets. You can easily increase
costs to the producers through mandatory inventory stocking levels and
the associated documentation and storage costs. The math is easy
enough. Break down the parts list for a $40 CD/DVD player and add up
the total. Typical is about 20 times the cost of the finished unit.
So, if you built the $40 CD/DVD player from components inventory, it
would easily be made to cost $800. If you demand that parts inventory
stocking levels be 10% of the production run, that would add about $80
to the cost of the $40 player, which should be sufficient for your
purpose.
Of course that doesn't include handling, which can be substantial. An
exercise I did for my (former) customers was to calculate the cost of
shipping an empty box. That's a product that costs zero to produce
and with zero components and labor costs (including production test).
However, it still has all the necessary overhead, such as QA,
packaging, documentation, support, parts, handling, warranty handling,
etc. I refer to it as the "cost of shipping an empty box". It varies
radically with manufacturer, but a manufacturer that has their own
production facilities runs about $150 to $300. One's that are heavily
outsourced and use fulfillment houses, is much less.
So, what's the cost of receiving your CD/DVD laser, if the
manufacturer decides to give you the part for free? Probably about
$100 in stocking and handling costs.
Really? Much of the world's e-Waste is going to China and India as
scrap. They *WANT* the scrap because in those countries, it's still
economical to re-use the parts. Officially, both countries have
banned the importation of such hazardous waste, but unofficially, they
welcome it.
<
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002920133_ewaste09.html>
We have a start on your proposed solution. In California, we are
charged a tax on CRT and LCD monitors at the time of purchase to
support the inevitable disposal of the devices, due to their lead
content. Never mind that most comply with RoHS and have very little
lead in them. Never mind that LCD's have almost no lead. Never mind
that glass encapsulation is what's used for nuclear waste disposal to
insure that it doesn't leak into the environment. Never mind that the
tax is not in any way related to the lead content. Is this the type
of thoughtless law that you want? It's probably what you're going to
get.
That's a very real fear. Whenever you generate an added expense
through legislation, someone has to pay the price. It's invariably
the consumer that pays. Governments don't produce anything. All that
they can do is inefficiently take money from one group, and give it to
another. If you want to give money to the scrap metal recyclers, to
subsidize their worthy cause, the money has to come from some other
group. I can also supply lots of examples of taxing unrelated groups
to (inefficiently) support worthy causes.
Lousy value received for cost incurred.
"Realistic" and "over taxed" seems to be indistinguishable here. I
still remember the days of $1,000 CD drives. I vaguely recall paying
$400 for one that used a "cd caddy". Wanna bring back those days? I
can afford a $40 player. I can't afford a $400 player.
A bit of topic drift. Actually, extended warranty sales peak in the
mid range products. Nobody buys an extended warranty for throw away
products because a replacement is expected to less than the cost of
the warranty. For very expensive hardware, the warranty is usually
included in the price, where the consumer has no choice and is
generally expected to protect their investment. However, the mid
range products (i.e. big LCD and Plasma displays) are where the
extended warranty pays. These go for about 15% of the purchase price
per year and are pure profit for the dealer, who does nothing other
than sell the warranty, and then outsource the repairs. These people
expect to have their expensive displays for much longer than the throw
away $40 CD/DVD player. So, they invest in insurance.
So, how about a compromise? Instead of raising the initial cost of
consumer electronics, just offer government backed electronics
warranties. The money would go to the starving repairmen to subsidize
their losses because nobody wants $40 CD/DVD players repaired. It
would delay the dumping of the $40 player because the consumer would
now get a "free" repair job instead of being force to purchase a
replacement. A simple coupon labeled "good for one government
sponsored out of warranty repair" in the box should work. If a free
repair isn't sufficient incentive, the government might consider
subsidizing the re-manufacture and rebuilding businesses and give the
consumer rebuilt exchange. Since such an operation will require
stocking parts, you just might get your spare parts.
Unrealistically or unprofitably? Try my exercise of "shipping an
empty box". What it would cost for *YOU* to ship an empty box to a
customer? You can get a clue by the handling costs charged by some
eBay vendors. Most start out with fairly reasonable handling charges
and rapidly escalate to much higher charges based upon losing money on
small items. Anyway, your cost of shipping an empty box is the
minimum charge for anything you sell and ship.
What most manufacturers do is unload their parts inventory to
distributors and vendors that can handle the low volume and low
per-shipment charges. Once that is done, there's no incentive to
re-use those parts in future products.
I see. So $1 for the hardware cost is deemed reasonable, but $150 for
the massive overhead required to stock, inventory, package, document,
ship, warranty, and transact the part is not reasonable. Well, the
charges are based on the same formula used to price the original $40
CD/DVD player. Figure on a minimum of about 5 times cost to sales for
products, and about 20 times for anything that has to sit in inventory
waiting for someone to purchase. Your laser was probably sitting in
their warehouse for several years before you needed it. That's really
lousy stock turnover compared to the CD/DVD player, that probably was
delivered just in time and never saw a warehouse. The electricity,
staffing, rent, paperwork, etc for the warehouse can just can't be
ignored. At $150, you're probably correct that it's overpriced.
However, much of that $150 are real expenses.
I see. You want the consumer to pay for the inevitable repair in
advance. Well, that can be done by time of purchase taxation, where
the revenue would go to subsidizing the expenses of the parts
warehouse. I doubt that a "save the parts jobber" campaign would have
much of an effect in Congress, but it's worth trying.
As for the business model, just put $20 in an envelope and let it sit
for a few years. Disburse your expenses for storing the envelope over
those years. Don't forget the cost of the envelope, guard service,
verifying its contents (inspection), determining that it's still there
(inventory control), finding it after someone moved it, and a proper
percentage of your office rent. Also, shrinkage (theft), inventory
taxes, depreciation, obsolescence, and inflation. You also have to
make a profit to justify the exercise. Now, after a few years,
someone wants to purchase your $20 envelope. What's it worth then?
Oh yes they can and do so quite effectively. The trend is that as
long as someone else pays, it's just fine. Let the government pay, or
let the evil manufacturers pay, or pass the cost back to the
manufacturers. It really doesn't matter who gets to pay as long as
it's not the consumer.
Locally, a group wanted to install a light rail rapid transit system.
Are the expected light rail commuters suppose to pay for their own
transit? Nope. The evil automobile drivers were expected to pay for
it.
I think of government as more of a problem than a solution.
Sure. You're suggesting that every problem has a government solution.
If you look to government for solutions to all your problems, soon all
you will have left is government. If that's insufficient, please
consider that of all the possible solutions to problems, the LEAST
efficient is to have the government do it. The only reason we even
have a government is that some problems (i.e. war) can only be solved
by huge organizations, of which the government is the largest. When a
huge organization tries to solve small problems, they usually fail
miserably.
