Just let us have what it
says on the tin!
Recently I got a new fence. An expensive investment made about their products? Why not say ‘we are all colour blind here
necessary when the previous one was virtually destroyed by ne’er- and haven’t a clue what you will get’. Or, ‘you can have any colour
do-wells trying to enter the mansion without paying the entrance you want – as long as it is orange’. Similar seemed to work well for
fee. Expensive but, subsequently and annoyingly, I still had to spend Henry Ford.
half a day getting it how I wanted. I’m not a perfectionist but I was So what has this to do with engineering design? Well, not a
quite keen for it to stay vertical. lot except I am getting fed up with promises about products
Anyway, a new fence needs to be protected by a timber where the suppliers have been a little ‘economical with the truth’.
treatment. There are plenty around that are not creosote, so the Attributes and features are promised that hardly meet reality.
smell wouldn’t hang around the painter for the following week. I A little while back, we ordered thousands of valves from a
chose ‘Autumn Gold’ which sounded good but when I opened it, German company. When the fi rst batch arrived, they didn’t work
it was orange. The sort of horrible orange that could only be used (poor Quality Assurance). Their comment when we complained
on the neighbours’ side of the fence should I ever fall out with was that if we wanted them tested to ensure that they worked,
them. OK, with a name like Autumn Gold it was always going to they would cost more! No, I just wanted what they had promised.
be a gamble. I learned my lesson and purchased ‘Light Oak’. Now In another case, an expensive machine (also from Germany)
I know what light oak looks like because one of my four O-levels didn’t work for the best part of a year with the various component
(and my most useful) was woodwork. I opened the tin – it was makers blaming each other as to why it wouldn’t do what we
bright orange. bought it to do. Why didn’t the companies involved decide what
I couldn’t keep buying tins of timber treatment and they don’t could and could not be done before they sold us the machine? I
do those little sample pots, so I started to slap it on. It went on now get annoyed when TV programmes, often car programmes
bright orange. Perhaps, I thought, it would dry darker. It didn’t. I state ‘well it is German, so it must be good’. My recent dealings
then thought it would mellow with ‘weathering’. Whether it does with German companies suggest that this is a ‘German myth’ and
or whether it doesn’t is too soon to say but the signs are not reality is somewhat different.
promising. Finally, I completed the job and thought I would get my Just tell it like it is, then we will know what to expect and will
cognitive dissonance in fi rst by bluffi ng the wife with ‘it looks good not be disappointed. Anyway, back to orange timber treatments,
doesn’t it?’ just call it ‘orange’. There may be tens of thousands of fence
She was wise enough to stay silent but my eldest retorted: “it is owners who would love an orange fence, if only the suppliers were
the colour of spaghetti bolognaise.” honest enough to let them know (I don’t believe it either).
What I want to know is why can’t manufacturers be honest Bill Hollins
Engineering Designer July/August 2009
15
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36