Planned obsolescence
Planned obsolescence is a way of doing business in which a product is designed with a limited useful life, either because it is no longer fashionable or is no longer functional (enough). The product can therefore go out of fashion, but it can also be the case that the old is no longer functional due to new techniques. GM has applied the concept to its cars courtesy of GM chief designer Harley Earl.
In the automotive industry it is generally accepted that models are continuously subject to major or minor and sometimes even only cosmetic adjustments.
The process of planned obsolescence benefits the manufacturer because the consumer is under pressure to buy the redesigned product from the same manufacturer (the new model) or from another manufacturer that also relies on scheduled obsolescence. For a manufacturer, it encourages buyers to buy faster if they want another functioning product, or just that newer model. However, there is the risk that the buyer realizes that money is being invested in making the product age faster. Such buyers may turn their backs on you and go to a manufacturer that makes a more durable product.
It term of aging plans can influence product engineering decisions. The company can use the least expensive components that meet the life of the product. Such decisions are part of value engineering. Mercedes used to talk about engineering in the 80s. They used parts that last longer would exceed the intended lifespan of the average car. This had positive effects on the image from Mercedes. They were very durable. They sold well and people often bought another model from Mercedes. For the same reason, there are still many on the road and a good supply of parts makes that possible. The later models of the 90s were not designed by the engineers but by the accountants, over engineering was replaced by value engineering. Mercedes' sales and image have suffered. The sales were never at the old level after that. Ultimately, value engineering can therefore be affect the buyer's perception of quality and may label the product as bad.
There are a number of types of aging:
Technical or functional obsolescence:
The use of poor materials, causing the product to wear out quickly, on the other hand, the failure to provide service and parts, which means that the item has to be replaced. A slightly different kind is following up with new techniques, replacing DVD to Blu-ray, or soldered batteries, but most people opt for a new product.
Systematic aging:
The planned way in which a product can no longer be used in combination with another product. This often happens with software. Eliminating service and maintenance for an older product is also an option, although there is often a 3rd party that would do the repair. can perform for which the manufacturer can then take measures by not supplying schematics of the printed circuit boards or not naming everything on the board.
Style aging:
Due to rapid changes in the designs, the buyer wants something newer faster and the old also feels old faster. The fashion industry is a good example.
Notification obsolescence:
Here the product itself indicates that it must be replaced. Examples are razor blades and toothbrush heads. This also allows the manufacturer to wait longer with a replacement product.
Programmed obsolescence:
This may be combined with functions being disabled until the item has been replaced. This applies to ink, for example, sometimes in combination with a function of the device.
Aging through consumption:
When a product uses a resource that is running out it is inevitable. For example, paper in a printer, but if this printer uses the colors as standard for a black print without the user adjusting this, we speak of obsolescence due to planned consumption.
The automotive industry and planned obsolescence
In 1924 American car design reached a turning point. The market became saturated with new cars. To maintain sales, Alfred P Sloan, president of GM, suggested that the cars should be redesigned every year to convince the buyer to replace his car. The idea actually came from the bike industry but Sloan always gets the credit, or blame...
This strategy had far-reaching consequences for the automotive industry and ultimately the economy. The smaller players in the market were not able to redesign their models so quickly due to the high costs.
Henry Ford didn't like the idea either, he stuck to the simplicity of his cars and the advantages of scaling up. Henry published a text in the media stating that it is his intention that as soon as someone bought a Ford he never had to buy anything else. He didn't understand that others wanted to make a car that would last less so that people would buy a new one. He said, 'We've been told that's a good thing to do, we're not improving our product to make it obsolete another model'.
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The frequent changes also called for body-on-frame designs instead of the lighter but less flexible monocoque design used by most European manufacturers. Sloan assigns the task of technologically improving the cars to Charles F. Kettering, the man who invented the starter motor, rendering a car without a starter motor instantly obsolete.
A nice detail is that Sloan started with a bankrupt bearing factory, which he made profitable again in no time. The first T Fords used Sloan bearings. Henry was Sloan's best customer for 20 years.
Kettering's plan to make the T obsolete caught on with Sloan. Still, his plan for an air-cooled engine was nipped in the bud by Sloan. Now faced with the fact that GM couldn't win with technological innovations, Sloan bet that styling could be the answer.
Because of the 1st world war many Americans were in contact come with European culture. Women in particular wanted to see more color and style in the cars, they became frustrated with the black T. Car manufacturers met the wishes and in addition to the starter motor, other trims, windows, interior lighting, closed engine compartments, closed and spacious interiors with later even heating . Despite these wishes, Henry continued to produce the T Ford in the same way. This one was still more reliable than all the others, but also bumpy, noisy, smelly and preferred to be shunned by women. The T even became the target of jokes, songs and comics.
Sloan was not bothered by Henry's persistence and indicated that GM would remain America's premium automaker for the coming decades. Sloan did his best to reduce reliability and accelerate obsolescence.
In 1923 Sloan Kettering asks Paint and Enamel Committee to be established. Maybe Sloan should go down in the books as the founder and creator of car design? The 1923 Chevrolet was facelifted with lower rounded lines and a longer hood that suggested a faster engine. The T looked like a tractor. Buyers also saw this and bought the Chevrolet with the prestigious design. Sloan quickly learned that obsolescence of styling was faster and cheaper to realize than technical obsolescence. He needed a Harley Earl, but he didn't know that yet. In 1925 he had Collins succeeded by Lawrence Fisher, one of the 7 Fisher brothers. Lawrence was a trouble-free bachelor of the 20s, handsome and well-dressed and in his 30s.
Harley Earl
In 1926, Sloan took the advice of the Cadillac president that he should hire Harley Earl, a custom car designer. GM had a styling advantage thanks to the conflict with Ford. The flamboyant Earl was a welcome guest at parties. When Larry Fisher visited the company where Harley worked, he boasted to Fisher, successor to Richard Collins, Cadillac's president, that he could make a Chevrolet look like a Cadillac. This was 1925, Fisher offered Earl the job. He liked him, five years younger, but just as handsome and well-dressed as himself.
At GM's Detroit headquarters, he revealed the secrets of design to executives. Fisher sends him to the Paris salon. He returns with some notes. First he checks the model of the LaSalle to to know for sure that no one had modified the model. He then designs 5 full size clay models for Cadillac, this gave him more freedom than the usual wood and metal models.
After this, he returns to California.
Earl liked to make his cars low and long, drawing a line from the front through the windows to the rear of the car. The 1927 LaSalle was a luxury car design for one-sixth the price.
Earl put Sloan's slogan "A car for every purse and purpose" into practice. Sloan wrote in 'Printer's Ink': 'More and more beautiful products will come on the market and will influence the buyer to replace their car a year or more old with the latest design'.
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A month later, Sloan asks Earl to come to New York to discuss a permanent job at the new styling department.
After this, Sloan founds the first design department in the American auto industry. The Art and Color Section headed by Harley Earl. From that moment on, Earl is involved in the annual renewals. Whole new models came every three years.
Years later, Earl explains his role in planned obsolescence: 'Our biggest job is to age the products quickly. In 1934 a vehicle is owned for 5 years, now in 1955 2 years, if it is 1 year we have a perfect score'.
In 1927, Ford closed the factories for the modifications to build the Model A. The introduction with Charles Lindbergh and Gertrude Ederle, Queen of Romania, ensures a flying start. The car has many innovations, laminated glass, aluminum pistons, hydraulic shock absorbers and a body resting on rubbers. This made it a smooth and quiet car.
GM was on the move again. GM passed Ford in 1931 in terms of sales. Sloanism replaced Fordism. Ford lost its lead to GM. In 1936 GM claims 43% of the US market. Ford had fallen to 3rd place by 22%, behind Chrysler by 25%. Despite the depression, GM had made a profit every year. GM remained in the lead until Ford overtook GM again in 1986.
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After the war there was a huge demand for new cars. During the depression and war, cars were repaired longer and needed to be replaced. New models and options were more important than technological innovations. The cars became longer, heavier, more powerful and more luxurious, more expensive to buy and use. This is because large cars are more profitable than smaller ones. Engineering was secondary to unimportant restyling at the expense of running costs and safety. Quality had deteriorated so much that by the mid-1960s a car with an average of 24 problems was delivered to the customer, mostly safety related. The high profits on these cars came at the expense of air pollution and the rapid decline in the world's oil reserves.
The era of annual renewals came to an end with the imposition of government safety standards (1966), emission requirements (1965 and 1970) and energy consumption (1975). With the rising fuel prices after the oil crises of 1973 and 1979, and the increase in imports in the 1970s of Japanese cars with a longer lifespan and the VW Beetle, the Americans had to respond with more durable products. People had spent too long on just changing the design. There has been no innovation for years.
After a peak of 12.87 million units in 1978, sales fell to 6.95 million in 1982. Imports increased from 17.7 to 27.9 percent. In 1980, Japan became the world's largest producer of automobiles. In 2011, China alone produces 14.5 million cars and Japan 7.2 million. America only comes in at number 6 with just under 3 million. Even Germany produces 5.9 million.
The solution to the depression
The origin of planned obsolescence certainly goes back to a 1932 pamphlet by Bernard London (Fr.) 'Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence'. The intention was that the government would apply obsolescence to consumer products in order to stimulate repetitive consumption.
The phrase was first popularized during a speech by Brook Stevens in 1954. From then on, it became his catchphrase. By his definition, it was the buyer's desire for a slightly newer, slightly better product, slightly earlier than necessary. Towards the end of the 1950s it was often used in combination with poor products or rapidly aging products. Volkswagen used the phrase in its commercials of the time. 'We don't change a car because of the change'
In 1960, cultural critic Vance Packard published "The Waste Makers." A story about corporate systematic attempts to turn us into wasteful, indebted, permanently disaffected individuals.
Packard divided it into two categories: aging of desire and aging of function. The first was accomplished by the marketers by aging the product in the minds of the consumer. The second by changing the styling, especially if nothing else could be improved.
The strategy was to generate sales by reducing the time between repeat purchases. Companies believed that the additional investments for R&D certainly outweighed the turnover. This is certainly not guaranteed, the buyer can also switch to the competitor.
In addition to opponents who believe that it exploits consumers, there are also proponents who believe that it contributes to continuous innovation and contributes to material well-being. She argue that planned obsolescence and rapid innovation should be preferred over sustainable production and slow innovation. In a competitive market, it is a requirement that products be made redundant by actively developing successors. Waiting for a competitor to make products obsolete is a guarantee of short-term demise.
The main concern of the opponents is the possible postponement of introductions of new technologies. They are afraid that marketers will refrain from developing and/or introducing new products, or postpone it, because the payback period has not yet ended. This is only true in monopolistic markets. In a competitive market this will not happen as quickly as the competitor will benefit from the delay unless the developments remain secret.
Planned obsolescence can be attractive to producers, but it can also have a negative effect. Not repairing but replacing products leads to more waste, pollution, use of raw materials and consumer spending.
The system is understandable from the manufacturer's point of view. Will they ever say that GM makes money and not cars? In fact, this applies to every company. The consumer must be smart not to fall for the marketing of the producers. An almost impossible task.
GM was proud of its annual model changes, Volkswagen liked to mock the concept in its commercials. Below you see famous Tri Chevy models. The Bel-Air of 1955, 1956 and 1957. Due to small changes, a new model could be made every year.
