No subject

[Bill Coleman]

On 11/1/01 3:09 PM, Brian Conrad at beijconrad at GDINET.COM wrote:

>I remember an "Article" in a Heath pub about why Mr. Johnson felt the kit
>business was declining was because so many electronic pieces used IC's,
>accordingly less 'interest' in board stuffing.  I never felt that way.
>I've stuffed many boards with lots of IC's.  I'm assuming that was what he
>was told to say.

The main reason that the electronic kit business declined is simple
economics.

Back in the 40's, 50's and 60's, the labor required to assemble a piece
of electronic gear was quite extensive -- particularly those that used
point-to-point wiring.

Along with the miniturization caused by the introduction of solid-state,
many pieces of equipment went to a printed-circuit (PC) board. These
still required a lot of labor to assemble.

In that environment, it is not surprising the kit market flourished. Once
the labour was removed from the equipment, and supplied gratis by the
builder, a piece of equipment could be had for a fraction of the cost --
if you were willing to put it together.

But, sometime in the 70's and 80's, electronics production went to
automated manufacturing. Components were inserted automatically,
soldered, clipped and stacked. The labor required to produce electronic
equipment went to virtually nil. Indeed, in many cases, component-level
repairs become cost-ineffective. It was less costly to replace entire
boards than to try to ferret out the faulty component.

In this environment, there is no labour to be saved in a kit. Indeed, it
often costs MORE to package a piece of equipment as a kit than to produce
the final product.

In the 90's and today, matters are worse. A desire for further
miniturization and cost reduction has created an industry full of SMT
parts that can be assembled by an automated factory for nothing. Those
same SMT parts are difficult to impossible to assemble by hand.

--

There are places where kit production still thrives. In the light
aircraft industry, where product liability significantly increases a
manufacturers costs -- people can save the cost of product liability by
building the aircraft themselves. And thousands do every year. This
market has been booming for the last two decades.



Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901

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