LED Bulb dying

[T]

You may not be getting the heat out. Tip: don't install it hanging down. The heat will go straight up into the cheap assed circuitry

[Fred Flintstone]

Most 'new' products today are made from components that have been life tested for years.

[Ed Pawlowski]

It was probably made in an ISO9000 certified plant. It does not mean they make good products, just that they are consistent.

I hope the other brand does better.

[Taxed and Spent]

sounds like in 1 year your should replace one even if it hasn't failed, so you will never be in this situation again.

[T]

I worked for a company that did that once. It made zero difference in product quality. It was just a bunch of paperwork to get the label.

[Ralph Mowery]

I worked for a large company and every couple of years there would be some program. None of them made any difference. Like you said, just a bunch of paperwork to get the label.

We had iso 9000, six sigma, team concept, tpm, deversity training, some kind of exercising before starting work, and probably some more that I have forgotten. Usually after the training part of the program ended , it was back to the old way about 6 months or less later. We started one or two programs but they faded out before everyone in the plant had gone through it. That was when we had close to 3000 people in the plant.

[clare]

ISO9000 just means you are producing well documented junk

[westom]

That is what business school graduates claim as they subvert well proven concepts. And then blame employees for resulting failures. What Ralph Mowery posted is routine when a boss is the enemy. Subverts what he cannot understand. That says business school concepts are the reason for so many failures.

They could not find even one engineer who said it was safe to launch the Challenger. Engineers were not even permitted to participate in a vote. Those business school graduates knew only they - trained managers - could make that decision. So they killed seven astronauts. Just another example of what happens when business school training denies and subverts well proven methods and solutions.

[T]

That is an absolutely sad statement. And, absolutely nothing I can disagree with. Been there, done that. Tears.

[T]

Hi Ralph and Clare,

Both are well stated.

-T

[T]

I once took a weeks seminar a company threw on quality circles and Deming's quality controls. And after that if your even tried to follow one millimeter of what was taught, you almost got fired. The middle level manager saw to it that NOTHING changed.

-T

Oh ya, we made a lot of crap.

[T]

Sorry, I misstated that. We made a lot of ISO9000 crap.

[anonymous]

LOL, corporations are the same everywhere. The most damage I've ever seen from a program-of-the-month is the lingering 5S crap.

[Ralph Mowery]

Things like that hapend a lot. Years ago when the Three Mile Island power plant melted down was caused by management that did not know how things worked. I have a cousin in the power business. He talked to some that were involved in that. Seems there was a problem but the actual operators were getting things under control by doing things that are not 'in the book'. Management stepped in and started telling them how to do things and that was when the melt down started.

Same as what I saw where I work. We made polyester. Mixed a powder and liquid at 300 deg C. One of the process lines started having problems and some supervisor that did not know the process started giving orders. The operators tried to tell him he was wrong,but they had to do what he said. Really made a mess of things. Saw that happen several times. Those were not small mistakes, but cost the company over $ 100,000 each time. Bad thing about it is the supervisors and engineers that were calling the shots did not get fired over it.

Found out one day why the management was so bad. There was an opeartor that was no good at all. His supervisor said he either had to fire the fat SOB or make him a supervisor. It was just easier to make him a supervisor than to fire him. At that period of time all the company seemed to require was that you showed up each day for work and did not falsify the company recored or time card.

A supervisor tried to fire someone and when he took that person to the plant manager, the manager looked at all the paper work and said I can not fire that man,he has been her 4 years and never missed a day. Did not even look at the reasons for firing the man.

[trader_4]

If you operate a ssd in a reasonable environment and dont expose it to surg es, no reason to think 137 years is unrealistic. Silicon doesnt turn back to sand in 5 years, if ever. Semiconductor devices are well understood, ex tensively studied and i would trust intel numbers before bs from a guy that posted about "mbtf".

[trader_4]

Its true they wont test a new product for 5 or 10 years to get an mtbf numb er before selling it. In the case of an led or ssd drive, its not the firs t one ever made. Manufacturers understand the devices, the physics, the fa ilure modes, and have similar devices that have undergone testing for tens of thousands of hours. That data allows estimates for the next similar dev ice.

[westom]

Three Mile Island is the classic example of how management, who does not know how the work gets done, then proclaim ridiculous denials about systems that make management redundant. That means employees - people who know how the work gets done - make decisions. Business school graduates fear that.

Only guy in GPU management who knew anything about how a nuke worked was off on National Guard duty. On Three Mile Island, they could not even make outgoing phone calls. GPU management could not ask Bell of PA for guaranteed service let alone more phone lines. It took Jimmy Carter to fix even that problem. He had all Three Mile Island phones connected directly to the White House switch board. Because 85% of all problems were directly attributed to top management. Who then blame others because they do not come from where the work gets done. Because they come from business schools, only they are trained (entrenched) to make decisions. Concepts such as ISO9000 expose business school graduates as a big reason even for bankruptcy - and crappy products.

Does he come from where the work gets done? One only need view how Steve Balmer did so much damage to Microsoft. Appreciate why business school graduates only see ISO9000 and other functions that target better products as paperwork.

Name a GM product designed by an engineer in the last 40 years. Even the engine in a Chevy Volt cannot recharge its battery. Another example of what happens when business school graduates - not the informed people

- make decisions.

[Paintedcow]

In the 70's I briefly worked for a company that went to large stores and factories and replaced ALL the lightbulbs. Mostly florescent tubes. Whether they worked or not, ALL bulbs were replaced every few years. I always thought that was wasteful, but I suppose it eliminated downtime for the companies when lights burned out.

Several times I took th working bulbs, put them in a box, and brought them home. I had a few of the work lights that used the 4ft bulbs and the bulbs still worked. I actually still have at least one box of them...

[Ralph Mowery]

I have always had mixed feelings about replacing all of them at one time. If the bulbs are made at the same place and time they all should be about the same quality. If the companies would wait for about 20 % or so of the bulbs to go bad, then replace them all it should be ok.

The main reason is labor. Some companies do not have the equipment to reach high places and not skilled labor to replace the bulbs and ballasts if needed. When hiring people they only want to do it once in a long time as just getting the equipment and people there is a large part of the cost.

If In a plant like I worked we had lots of people that were qualified and equipment to do the work. We replaced the bad lamps in our 'spare' time when other work was not pushing or there was not much to be done. By doing that the company saved lots of money because the labor was bsically not costing anything extra and only the bad bulbs were changed out. It was nothing for us to change 200 to 300 bulbs in a day as large as the plant was. That many could be bad and there was still plenty of light.

[clare]

I've gone through the ISO certification system - and there is NOTHING in the system that produces a better product. It just means if you build junk it will be more or less consistent junk - and well documented. It DOES allow you to trace back and find out where the problem came from if you can isolate what the problem is..

When management is trying to reduce costs it is usually not hard to tell where the problem came from - it came from buying the cheapest part somewhere to save $0.05

It doesn't necessarily change the mind of the accountant responsible for the decision.

You can source all your parts from iso9000 registered suppliers, but as long as their supplier is willing and anxious to provide them with parts with "fudged" certification stickers, it doesn't help anything. The accountants try to save $0.05 per unit to recouip the hundred thousand dollars plus they spent on the ISO certification so they can sell to government accounts.

At leastthat's how it worked in the computer business.

After getting ISO certification the quality actually DROPPED - for the above stated reasons. It's not "business school graduates" saying this - it's business school "graduates" doing it. The manager/CEO calined to be a "Harvard MBA" and the controller/CFO was an anally retentive old-school CMA - two worse pains in the ass could not possibly have been thrown into contact with each other in your worst nightmares.