Today I went to my local electronic store to purchase the latest Microsoft Xbox 360 game “Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter” after work. I haven’t play to many games in the last month due to some projects I have been working on (Also having fun with Autodesk Inventor 11) so I was really looking forward to this one. Well it turns out I had to go to three stores just to find the damn thing because it looks like all of the Xbox 360 supplies are still in short supply even four months after being launched. So then I thought my friend Bill Gates is selling millions of these suckers if he can’t make them fast enough to stock the store shelves. I am pretty sure they have three factories making them now and they sell for around $400 each and they are hard to find. Another interesting note is I am pretty sure they are losing money each time they sell one right now because of the cost to make one today. They do this in the hopes that materials (Hard Drive for example) will cost less say one year from now and they will make it all up then. This is a great example of the value of Engineering because if Microsoft could save just one dollar ($1.00) per system that will make them several millions in return. There are many ways they could save that dollar but engineering can help for sure. For example what if there was 3 inches less wire in the Xbox or maybe several ounces less plastic or a few less components. This is a great example of how engineering provides great value because I believe this is possible.
Stay tuned for more thoughts on the value of engineering
Dan
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