On 8/24/2016 8:15 PM, Ken Javor wrote:
What I meant was that with a very high volume product, it is important to minimize the costs associated with each product unit (recurring costs) and thus it would be more economical when faced with an EMC noncompliance to find the source and snub it, as compared to adding a band-aid type fix. So in this case they would go back and re-layout the PCB in order to reduce the source of the emissions that was being snubbed by the ferrite cores. But in a very low volume product line, there isn’t enough volume over which to spread a nonrecurring cost like re-laying out a board, and it is less expensive to just add those ferrites and ship.
EMC compliance can be and often is a measure of quality. Compliance with emission standards and building for immunity requirements requires it; that care and diligence in design, procurement and processes, both of assembly and test, cannot be achieved easily or consistently unless an organization is structured to include it as a matter of course.
I've been working on a paper/article how organizational structure and cultures can adversely affect quality, and I draw parallels to the Flint Michigan water crisis to point out that the rewards for being tight with resources, and coming in ahead of schedule and under budget promote disregard for risks that will actually be realized and marginal designs, as well as test practices that only imitate evaluation of performance a product is supposed to deliver.
To save $100/day, someone decided to not require an anti-corrosive be added to the new water source when it was chlorinated, which resulted in foul-smelling and tasting biomass and skin rashes, and lead leaching into drinking water at levels far higher than can be tolerated, levels that can require lifelong monitoring of brain function for many of Flint's residents. His "savings" will cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in remediation and replacement of Flint's water delivery system -- but it would have helped come in ahead of schedule and under budget.
We might look back at our own careers and be able to summon instances of EMC saves and successes achieved only after we've done something we were told not to do, or ignored organizational barriers we weren't supposed to transgress. Quality and reliability depend on how organizations wants to do things, and how well they keep to it.
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