[time-nuts] HP Reliability

Gregory Muir engineering at mt.net
Sun Feb 14 14:28:43 EST 2016


Having been in the product design world (both MIL and commercial/medical) for most of my life, I developed a very deep respect for HP quality and reliability over the years.  It wasn't uncommon for management to peek into the lab and find me poking around inside a piece of HP equipment to see how the "big boys" did their designs.  It was a wonderful learning lesson.  As a matter of fact, Tek was just as much in there as well but HP always seemed to trump Tek's quality with respect to the robustness of  both the electronic and mechanical aspects.

There were many times when involved in a design review than I would lug a piece of partially disemboweled HP test gear from the lab into the meeting room and say "see how it can be done?" to convince the other engineers and management that a product can truly be developed without considerable effort that will not only be more reliable but also simply be put tougher with more thought.  And it is a well known fact that electronics engineers do not necessarily have the best ideas when it comes to putting circuitry in a box.  And in smaller companies, there is often a belief amongst managers that packaging engineers are not an affordable luxury so that responsibility is thrust upon the electronic gearheads to do their best.

As a sidebar (with additional respects to Mr. Vollum and company), Bill and Dave managed to foster a very Spartan company with a life and products which not only greatly assisted the engineering and service communities with their professions but also became a model for many businesses to follow.  It is unfortunate that a CEO had to come along who had little understanding of this tradition and manage to pillage the company and leave it as it now stands.  But the HP tradition has persevered to a great extent and the new fledgling is still continuing to produce products of outstanding quality.  So I look at the present standing of that ex-CEO and am silently happy that they have lost their political bid for office given a possible fate of the whole nation to follow in the same path.

Greg


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