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Letters

Chinese Quality

The Chery automobile you reference in your editorial “The Chinese are Coming! The Chinese are Coming!”(Last Word, Scott M. Paton, February 2005 issue) was apparently cloned from a GM model, with the Chinese ignoring intellectual property rights. I have nothing against the Chinese as long as they play fair, but I believe that corporate America has foolishly let its greed give the store away by setting up shop overseas, enabling the Chinese to capture our ideas and use them for their own advantage.

Unless there is a radical shift in the way the United States conducts its business, I would have to disagree with your assertion that it’s not too late to protect our markets. The United States as the strongest nation on Earth is a vanishing illusion.

—Tony Baldino

 

Large-Scale Assembly

Your article “Advances in Large-Scale Assembly” (Mike Richman, February 2005 issue) was an excellent introduction to an exciting technology. You mentioned the “dimensional sensitivity” of this system for aircraft assembly. How does the system sensitivity compare with assembly process requirements?

—John Yane

Editor’s note: According to Edward R. Barrientos, president of ArcSecond Inc., whose company was featured in the “Advances in Large-Scale Assembly” article, the rule of thumb for indoor GPS utilization in aircraft assembly is that users are looking for instrument accuracies that are typically four to eight times better than the given assembly tolerance requirements. With that assumption in mind, indoor GPS would typically be used when the assembly tolerance requirements are between 0.016 and 0.032 in., given that indoor GPS accuracy is approximately 0.004 in.

 

Quality’s Downside

I enjoyed the article “The Downside of the Low Cost of Quality” (Dirk Dusharme, First Word, February 2005 issue). There were solid points raised within it, specifically that companies should consider the recycling cost of a product during the product development cycle, and the implementation of financial incentives for returning discarded or broken equipment to manufacturers. The suggestions for what individuals and communities can do to help with this effort were also good.

—Amy Harwood

 

Wow… I didn’t think it was possible, but you’re worse than Patton [sic]. Let me get this straight—reusability is important to product quality because it satisfies your aesthetic longing, and you think this is a role for government?

YIKES! Another Commie.

—Mark Bronson