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'Right to repair' gathers force

Andy Millar
I'd be interested to canvas other members views on this. My view is "about time" - not for consumers to mend appliances themselves, but for appliances to be designed and manufactured for long service lives. My perspective comes from experience in three different manufacturing industries where longevity was a given, our products were expected to be serviceable for 20 years, and in practice typically lasted considerably more - 30, 40, 50 years. I get very frustrated if a piece of domestic equipment fails in an unserviceable way after, say, 5 years - recently happened with our gas cooker (which was actually pretty naff from day one). Then of course there's the electronic equipment that fails just after the warranty expires - I'd suggest that's completely unacceptable from a resource point of view. We know a huge amount now about design for reliability and design for serviceability, from an ethical point of view shouldn't we be applying this more?


I'm glad to see this article also considers the question of whether we should be encouraged to replace perfectly serviceable equipment in the name of energy efficiency. As it states, this all depends whether the energy expended in producing the equipment and disposing of the old equipment could actually exceeds the potential saving - which I suspect it often does.  


Cheers, Andy
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    To throw a bit of a contrary argument here; how far do you take the right to repair?  How much do you want to have to pay (as increased product prices) in order to achieve it?


    From a microelectronics point of view, devices have got faster and smaller and more complex.  If you had access to the diagnostics and that told you that the one of the memories (or the SoC itself) was showing signs of failure; there are many reasons why you shouldn’t be permitted to attempt repair.


    The first is that many SoC’s and associated memories are packaged as BGA’s these days.  Those are a complete nightmare to remove from a PCB without some form of specialist equipment.  You would need a reflow line in your garden shed to get the new one soldered on as well.  Or course we could move back to socket packaged devices and memory, but I doubt it would have the same sort of performance.


    The second is the safety and security aspect; if you allow the user to change something how do you ensure that neither of these have been compromised.


    Thirdly, what if be self-repairing you cause the performance to be degraded?  Do you accept that it's now your responsibility if it no longer works to the optimum.  LCD's are very sensitive to the forces and stresses on the screen during assembly.  A self-repair of a LCD is fairly likely to result in the colours (particularly black) being somewhat off.


    Going to Andy’s comment about smaller processes causing issues on semi-conductor longevity.  Yes, this was something one of my semiconductor specialists mentioned to me about 10 years ago.  I work in the automotive domain and our products are expected to work for 10 or 15 years (depending on the OEM, not going to divulge who asks for what!).  However, the expectation from the end-user of the vehicle is that car systems can provide similar levels of functionality and performance to smart phone devices.


    That said, my smart phone works fine but it’s battery is dying.  But I can’t replace it because its fixed in place to provide what proofing – not that I intend dropping it in a puddle (although one colleague has the same phone and has accidentally dropped it in water and reports it still works fine).


    Mark
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    Another aspect of this is the availability of spare parts. For a currently manufactured item spare parts supply requires an additional branch to the supply chain (which carries a cost) but is possible. When production of this item is to stop the manufacturer has to decide what and how many items to manufacture and stock as spares. This stock holding carries a cost. If an item in this stock runs out what then? Does the manufacturer set up for another production run (if still possible maybe the components or machines are no longer available) which carries yet another cost?

    I, like Andy, am a repairer of broken things but I also understand some of the problems behind 'Right to Repair'. I support it but as ever the Devil is in the Detail.


    Best regards

    Roger
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    Roger,

    A very good summary. We need to accept that at some point the repair option is no longer going to be viable. but I am a firm believer that this should not be three weeks after the warranty has expired. We will just need to sit back and wait for developments on this subject to see where we go.

    Alasdair
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    Hi Roger,


    I do totally agree - I've sadly in the past, as Product Owner, had to take the decision to discontinue support for my company's products because the cost of re-engineering spare parts (circuit boards) to use available components was almost equivalent to designing a complete new unit - and the customer simply wasn't happy to pay that price. Although equally there has been at least one memorable occasion when they did.


    It's reaching a sensible compromise between on the one hand making things unnecessarily hard to repair, and having an unnecessarily short service life, and on the other expecting the earth of manufacturers. I always think back to my Mk III Escort which I replaced with a 1988 model Corolla. Cars aimed at an identical market, with a pretty similar selling price, but the former kept breaking down and was a pig to work on, the latter was ridiculously reliable, and when it did need repair was (as much as any car is) mostly a pleasure to work on - certainly routine servicing was much easier. (I did all my own repairs and servicing in those days, including an engine rebuild on that blessed Escort.) The difference was the thought that went into the design of the two cars.


    So it's very difficult to enforce, as it's all about ensuring a certain culture and attitude in the D&D and production engineering teams in any manufacturer, and how do test whether they have truly considered the best options about what will happen to the product outside the warranty period? (Other than disposal which is covered by WEEE.)


    Thanks,


    Andy
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    Hi Mark,


    I used to work with a colleague who - as a hobby that also made a bit of money - used to repair phones, digital cameras and the like. I was always most impressed, personally although I'm pretty good at soldering I wouldn't take on any but the simplest SMD board. (I also used to have a friend who repaired - or at least life extended - incandescent light bulbs by twizzling the broken wire ends together.)


    But I think the intention is more to consider module (or big component) level rather than BGAs. Also, aside from the atmospheric bombardment mechanism discussed above, I'd contend that if electronic components are correctly rated they really shouldn't be the weak point, and that should only be a marginal cost issue in the design time rather than the component cost. I particularly remember our dishwasher that packed up due to an underrated resistor - on that occasion I'd contend the person who made the repair made a darn sight better job than the manufacturer. (Yes, I did trace out the circuit and prove that it was underrated, and fitted a massively overrated part. And no, it wasn't intended as a protective fuse smiley But of course I agree that 99.99% of repairers wouldn't have had the skills, experience, or sheer bloody-minded pigheadedness to do that laugh And that if I was to cost my time at the hourly rate I'm now charged out at we could have bought three nice new dishwashers! All the more reason for the manufacturer to get it right in the first place...)


    Again, as in my reply above, I do of course agree with you that this isn't a black and white issue, it's just about reversing the trend and - particularly - attitude that engineered products only need to last a year and a day.


    Cheers,


    Andy
  • 0
    Final P.S. and weekend thought: At the other extreme, I used to work with a Californian colleague who refused to sharpen pencils. If a pencil broke, or went blunt, he'd throw it in the bin. He thought I was completely mad for rescuing them and sharpening them. It's all about culture - my parents started work in the depression of the '30s, and brought up most of their children during and after the second world war through the period of rationing (I was a bit of an afterthought).
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    Andy,

    Just to put another spin on this discussion, looking at it from a manufacturers perspective (not that I am one) they are in quite a difficult position. If they were to make an item that was good for say 20 or 30 years then they will only ever get a single customer once or twice buying their product. There are only a finite amount of potential customers/buyers in the market for their goods. Companies listed on the stock market are always looking for year on year growth. Having an extremely reliable and long lived product does not necessarily match the share holders desire for ever increasing dividends.

    Technology is always advancing and although the latest widget seems to be the best thing today, in a very short period of time it will be eclipsed by the next best ever widget. The consumer is then left with the choice of brand loyalty and perhaps losing out on some super new functionality or to trade in/dispose of their current product and getting up to date. Making a product that would last 20-30 years in this instance would not make a lot of sense so maybe making it easier to mass produce (but not repairable) would suit the manufacturers and share holders better.


    I do remember the good old days of being able to work on your car and do involved repairs. I have rebuilt a Ford Pinto engine for a Capri I had, changed out the dashboard for a sportier version and incorporated new wiring and generally did all my own servicing. Now everything is all tied back to an ECU that you would need a laptop/interface cable and software to diagnose and reset most faults.  As another contributor said, in 50 years our natural resources may be so depleted that we have to look to longevity of products and make them repairable but until we get to that place I imagine the current trend of easy to break and hard to fix will be the manufacturers way.


    David Howard MIET (new member and my first posting)

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