(01-14-2018 03:20 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(01-12-2018 05:10 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  The high end german stuff for years tended to be way over engineered with an eye towards initial performance but no reasonable heed paid to the fact that parts may someday actually need to be removed, replaced or maintained. You'd find yourself asking WTF the sadistic designers were thinking when having to pull the front half of an engine apart just to change a fan belt or spark plugs.

German machinery is made with superstructures twice as heavy as any made elsewhere. Germans understand that the carriage of a machine is crucial to dampening vibration and holding tolerances. Simply stated...German machinery is built to LAST and be accurate. I have nothing but admiration and praise for the engineering of the machinery that I work with every day....much of it over pushing 30 years of service.

Much of the criticism here is dealing with the auto industry. I can attest the machine tool industry in Germany is far superior to anywhere on the planet.

when in doubt, the old adage of "tossing more metal at it" comes to mind.....that's what my PE told me when I was in doubt during consultation....

what has become the problem is the cost of mat'l vs. design vs. competition vs. mat'l reduction mandates.....

my response to the upper tier heads was simply, "I can only pull out so much mat'l before the problem becomes a bigger problem....you guys need to cut cost in another area" the management dipshites have no clue what a "constant" demands in design....

that dipshite mandate came at the height of the china's overbuilding before we could react to raw mat'l cost increases.....what a nightmare that became....