Andy wrote:
* I disagree that it's definitely there for a reason. Your appendix is
> there, but for no functional reason at all. This tube might be
> entirely useless, or it may be part of a "jig" for manufacturing or it
> could well be for vibration damping but I'm still trying to figure out
> what it'd really do, given its location, apparent weight, and only
> being on QCs.
*
* Josh wrote:
>Good analogy but I don't see that applying to the automotive industry.
With
>the agressive bean-counting going on with auto manufacturers today I have
to
>doubt that is serves no purpose. Odds are it costs a few dollars, and if
>they put it on the many many thousand QC trucks that adds up. If it didn't
>serve a legitimate purpose it would have been removed already purely for
cost
>savings.
I agree with Josh. Having spent a few years working ay an auto assembly
plant, I know the engineers worry about how to shave a few pennies off the
production cost of a car or truck. When I was working at Saturn, we were
rolling a new vehicle off the final line every 60 seconds, each shift and we
were running two 8 hour production shifts at that time.
That works out to 960 cars a day, 4800 cars a week, over 20000 cars a month.
If our final line shut down for any reason, mechanical breakdown, personnel
issue, the estimated cost in lost production was over $5000 a minute.
So the engineers live by the old saying.....a penny saved is a penny earned.
Ray Irons
Dover, DE (for now, but I'm California bound!)
.
.
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