|
|
How Heating and AC Equipment Manufacturer's Approach New Product DevelopmentMar 05 '10 (Updated Aug 12 '10) Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Heaters
The Bottom Line Don't believe marketing gibberish printed in the manufacturer's glossy brochures and don't always choose the product with the newest gimmicks or best efficiency. Performance over time is the best measure.
AOHCAPABLANCA/Patrick K has a habit of prompting me to think about things I sometimes would like to leave on a dusty old shelf in my head. What good can come of taking out relic memories of my past and turning them over in my mind? Patrick, as usual, describes most of my reviews as bleak, doom and gloom, even depressing for him to read and too few ever seem to have that happy ending that we all want. Let's face it, we all like to think there's a happy ending in every story and it's a big part of what motivates us to carry on reading. Well Patrick, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you once again because I can't feel a happy ending for this review either. Perhaps you should quit reading my reviews my friend? On the question of how to make gas appliances safer for consumers, Patrick assumed since standards are created to make the products safe and installation contractors are required by regulations (for the most part) to be trained and licensed to install them, the ones who need a better education are the consumers themselves. On the surface it almost seemed logical, but I don't find myself fully agreeing with Patrick's premise. Of course, everyone should take the time to read through their owner's manuals and familiarize themselves with maintenance requirements. Let's see a show of hands from everyone who has read the manuals that came with their furnaces and gas water heaters in their homes...hmmm one, two, three...well, good for you three anyway. If only it were that simple, we likely wouldn't be having this discussion at all. The world has become a much more complicated and dangerous place than it was in the days of your parents and grandparents and I don't mean just the increase in street violence. You mentioned that Standards make products safe and installers need to be educated to the level required to install those products safely. In my formative years in the HVAC industry I would have agreed with those simple sentiments and with a few exceptions of consumer abuse (which we can't seem to stamp out completely) I would have been happy to believe that, in general, regulations and standards can protect us, if they are properly enforced. However, they should not be viewed as a security blanket to be pulled around our shoulders when our furnace or fireplace or gas water heater goes on the blink. Flash forward about 40 years from my formative years in the HVAC industry to 2010, the standards are still in place, and are even updated to reflect the new products that are entering the market each year. Dealer training schools are held by most of the more reputable manufacturers and dealers are generally anxious to take advantage of that added training. However, there are tremendous market pressures to bring out new innovative products each year at the trade shows to give them an edge on the competition and to keep the dealer network happy. R & D projects are fast-tracked, what should have been a two year product development program (including extensive accelerated life cycle testing for fatigue and control failures) has been fast-tracked to 6 to 9 months. A hand made prototype that should be nothing more than a prototype is now being tested as though it was a production sample by CSA or UL. The product meets the minimum safety and efficiency standards and is rushed into production, where it is reproduced by the 100's of thousands. The manufacturer of today faces added pressures on production costs and purchased parts costs, so out-sourcing to cheap labor in Mexico, China and Korea is common practice by all of the major control suppliers. Time and again we are faced with quality control issues with products from these sources. Issues we never had when companies for examples like Honeywell were not just based in Minnesota, SIT Controls were not just based in Italy and Robertshaw or White Rogers were not just based in the Canada and or the USA. They actually manufactured their products in those bases of operations. I have seen hundreds of thousands of controls under recall from some of the best known companies and quite a few from companies that no one has ever heard of. Particularly after most of them began closing manufacturing facilities in Canada and the US, in favor of less expensive labor costs elsewhere in the world and the list goes on throughout the industry. Recalls for gas valves (the heart of any gas appliance) pilot assemblies, gas regulators and high temperature limit controls that don't fail safe are almost expected now. I clearly recall one unfortunate instance when a new high temperature limit control failed in the closed position, allowing the appliance to run at temperatures far exceeding the limitations of the steel heat exchangers. Another where the gas valve failed, stuck in the open position allowing fuel to flow whether the pilot was lit or not. Another where the valve simple leaked at the seams of the body, around the gasket. These sorts of mass product deficiencies simply did not happen to this extent before the advent of offshore sourcing became the game of the day. Another important step in cost reduction has been reducing the gauges of materials and where possible introducing so-called high temperature plastics for certain parts, over the past 40 or 50 years the average gas furnace has lost a heck of a lot of height and weight, but it hasn't necessarily been healthy weight loss. Today, gas appliances that are trimmed down, shorter, lighter, rarely life cycle tested, (anymore) fast-tracked from conception to production and critical components (if not the entire appliance) are being assembled by people who really don't give a tinker's darn, are being wrapped up in a pretty little package and offered to consumers at unnaturally low retail prices. Their focus being on annual volume, not longevity of the appliance. For the record, most large heating and air conditioning appliances are still assembled in North America (with outsourced, offshore safety controls, fan motors, etc.) just because the freight costs would not be cost effective and many of these mega HVAC companies are using state of the art robotic assembly lines instead of those old fashioned factories that used people. Funny thing though, when I was working in manufacturing it was often those people on the assembly lines that brought curious problems to my attention and caught mistakes in a CAD/CAM programs early enough to resolve them without significant material and labor losses, or something simple like a worn out die or a shifted jig was causing parts and fit up issues. In those days, we pulled one out of every hundred units from the line and thoroughly tested it for safety and performance. A new product was always subjected to a harsh life cycle test, that involved over-firing it for hours and then rapidly cooling it and repeating this over and over 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, for at least 30 days, before stripping it down and inspecting any suspect weak spots for metal fatigue or outright failure. Only then, when completely satisfied, did we release it for production and sale. We need only to look at the many furnaces and boilers with their cast iron gas burners, and 14 to 16 gauge heat exchangers that are still in operation today, after 30 or 40 years of faithful service. It isn't uncommon today to hear of a 10 year old furnace being condemned to the scrap dealer's yard in favor of a newer, lighter, thinner and more efficient product. Often with LED diagnostics that help guide the hapless service tech to the computer chip that has failed. A few hundred dollars in repair parts later, and the appliance is back up and running. Sure some of the old products I refer to would not comply with current energy efficiency standards, however, if they ran relatively trouble-free for decades at about 75% steady state efficiency, is a high efficiency disposable and problematic furnace more cost effective? Who's to Blame? I, for one, would gladly pay more for a product I knew was being conceived. designed, thoroughly tested for safety and longevity and fully manufactured under the same roof. It's only when one of those elements is subcontracted out, to save money, do we begin to see the failure of that logic and what I view as regressive product development. I don't know if I am the first person to point this out, but I do feel I am one (?) of the first persons to understand that there are government departments (federal, state/provincial and municipal) high tech manufacturers, nationwide distributors, highly regulated dealers with licensed contractors (and often less trained sub-contractors) and then the lowly consumers (who willing foot the bills). Along the line, of this chain things can go very wrong and whether the government agency, the manufacturer, the distributor, the dealer or the consumer is to blame for injuries or even the deaths of people, they can all be avoided and subcontracting key components or safety products to third world countries is not currently helping the problem. As a consumer myself, I don't know whether to view our current situation as suckers, victims or the beneficiaries of our own greed. Let's face facts, we all want more,... for less...and that formula does not work. It's an absolute given that when you pay less, you get less, for one reason or another. As a sidebar, I own a Hoover upright vacuum with a cast aluminum body, no plastic parts, a thick cloth bag that was built in the 1950's and still works like a champ. Even the headlight still works. I think I must have replaced the belt a few dozen times, but it has the original motor. How many of those plastic uprights have you ever seen on the shelf do you think might last for over 50 years and counting? Hoover built a reputation based upon quality, not based upon built-in obsolescence. Why can't furnace and gas appliance manufacturers of today, do the same thing? So Patrick, educating the consumer is always a nice thought and I repeat, they should be willing to at least take the time to read through planned maintenance requirements and safety precautions in the manuals that accompany their fuel burning appliances. People who build these products know the consumer rarely reads the manuals that are included, which makes it even more important that safety controls will fail-safe. However, it's the manufacturers who need to look down the road at the direction they've taken and think about where they want to be positioned in the market 50 years from now. Do they want to succeed and be remembered like the Hoover's of yester-years or do they want to follow companies like CFM Corporation in the abyss. Thanks for asking the question. Be safe. Regards, The Gasman  |
| Read all comments (11)|Write your own comment |
- Top 200|
Ads by Google
|
