Monthly Archives: December 2015

A Couple of Cost Versus Run Rate Examples

Posted on 15-December-2015 by mathscinotes

I spend a fair amount of time estimating the cost of electronic components with different purchase quantities. In earlier posts, I showed how component cost quotes often reduce by ~7 % per doubling of quantity purchased. In this post, I will present quotes from two different vendors for the same part (normalized to preserve confidentiality). The component quotes from each vendor reduced by 3.6% per doubling of quantity purchased, which differs significantly from my 7% rule. While each vendor had different costs, their rates of variation with purchase quantity were identical. As I thought about these quotes, their deviation from what I usually see made sense. Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics, Financial | Comments Off on A Couple of Cost Versus Run Rate Examples

Not The Way To Take A Chimney Down

Posted on 13-December-2015 by mathscinotes

I have worked on construction sites and farms, and the lack of imagination that people show with respect to safety never ceases to amaze me. This video shows what happens when someone does not think about what could happen. Continue reading →

Posted in Construction, Humor | Comments Off on Not The Way To Take A Chimney Down

Network Availability

Posted on 12-December-2015 by mathscinotes

I was in an interminable meeting the other day where we were discussing the MTBF and availability of a system. My issue with this discussion is that each person in the room preferred to think about these terms in different ways. In this post, I will show that the four individuals in the meeting were actually in violent agreement and simply did not understand that what their arguments were mathematically equivalent. I wish I could say that this was the first time in my career that this had happened, but that would not be true. It happens all the time. Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics, General Science | 4 Comments

A Little Sandpaper Kirigami

Posted on 11-December-2015 by mathscinotes

I started using this sandpaper folding technique years ago, but I just ran across this video that does a nice job of illustrating the technique. Continue reading →

Posted in Construction | Comments Off on A Little Sandpaper Kirigami

Modeling Component Costs Over Time

Posted on 10-December-2015 by mathscinotes

I frequently am asked by marketing and finance people about how component costs will vary with time. Their motivations are clear – most market segments are strongly driven by unit cost, and the marketing folks need to determine when costs will drop enough to enlarge the Total Addressable Market (TAM) for their products. Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics, Financial, Management | 2 Comments