I agree, Chuck. I usually go online for troubleshooting. Out on the forums, I find that users have found work-arounds that are more useful than product manuals.
It doesn't surprise me that the troublehooting guide was worthless. Too often, tech manuals and troubleshooting guides appear to be afterthoughts. By the time someone puts the manual together, the company is already itching to get the product out the door, and they end up doing a poor job on it.
Good point on the brand name blurring, JimT. It is hard to tell. And if it's hard to tell what brand name blends with other brand names, then the whole notion of the value of brand names seems to go away.
This is a very timely story for me because I just spent my Saturday morning replacing a broken switch in our Washer, so this article caught my eye right away. You have to wonder about process flow in appliance manufacturing, as your example indicates a sever break in communication between development engineering (the product), technical publications (the manual), and manufacturing (Magnet-? What magnet-?). It's also very confusing today as to whom the actual manufacture is. A closer look into Corporate Names will show very blurred lines between the major plays, Whirlpool, Maytag, Kenmore, Frigidaire and others. Folks in the industry know the interrelationships but the public doesn't.
As energy efficiency becomes more and more a concern for makers of electronics devices, researchers are coming up with new ways to harvest energy from sound vibration, footsteps, and even electromagnetic fields in the air.
The government wants to study your brain, and DARPA wants to use similar information to give robots true autonomy beyond any artificial intelligence developed to date. Sound like science fiction? It's not.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 3
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
0 
