The DOBlog

Tag: Oh (d)Hell…

  • Dell hell comes to an end…

    My Dell Hell has come to an end. The outcome is not entirely what I had hoped for, but at least the issue has been resolved and I understand what has beeng going on.

    Thanks to John who took the time to follow through and look at the information that I had posted on this blog about the graphics card that was installed in my laptop. I had ‘spoken with data’ by presenting a screen shot of the diagnositics utility for the graphics card. John took this information and responded in kind – he provided information to me that explained that what I was seeing in the graphics card diagnostics confirmed that the graphics card that was installed in my laptop now is the graphics card that I ordered.

    5 months of frustration on my part, half a dozen graphics cards sent to me by Dell and the root cause of the problem was a failure of the information provided about the graphics card to properly meet – or perhaps more accurately to properly set- my expectations as to the performance and capability of the graphics card.

    5 months of costs that could easily have been avoided if the information provided about the graphics card had been complete and timely.

    It transpires that the hypermemory technology used in the ATI graphics cards means that the card ships with 128mb dedicated video ram but it ‘borrows’ from the system memory as required, up to a maximum of 256MB. Unfortunately there is nothing in the laptop that shows this, leading to confusion. The bios registers 128mb, and the graphics card’s own diagnositics display 128MB with no mention of the ‘reserve tank’ that can be dipped into. There is no indication that the card has a greater capability in reserve.

    John found only one specific reference to this in the on-line documentation for the model of laptop. This was in a footnote. This is important information… it should perhaps have been put in a more prominent position in the documentation?

    In my email discussions with John on this topic we discussed various options that might be explored to improve the presentation of information about these types of graphics card technologies. He assured me he would bring them forward as suggestions to improve the customer experience for Dell customers. I hope he does so and some changes are implemented. The business case for doing this is simple.. it avoids support costs and increases customer satisfaction.

    My suggestions to John included:

    1. Information about how the cards work should be presented at point of sale. In particular information about what customers should expect to see in any diagnostics tools should be provided.
    2. The information about how ‘hypermemory’ type graphics technologies work should be promoted from a footnote to a more prominent position in on-line and print documentation.
    3. Dell should request (or even require) the manufacturers of these graphics cards to modify their diagnostic tools to display the on-board video RAM and the maximum capacity of the ‘reserve tank’ in system memory that can be utilised. I’ll discuss this last suggestion in a bit more detail in a moment.

    My suggestion regarding the change to the manufacturer’s own utilities would more accurately reflect the capabilities of the card and align what the utilities show and what the manufacturer (and by extension Dell) advertise the capacity of the card to be. This information could be displayed as follows:

    Dedicated Video Ram = 128MB
    Maximum Available System RAM = 128MB
    Maximum Graphics Memory Available= 256MB

    The maximum available system ram value could be hard-coded value based on the model of the card. This would allow a single software fix to address all models of graphics cards. The amended diagnostic control panels could be pushed to Dell customers as a software update. This is not a difficult fix and would quickly address the root cause of the issues at hand. If the diagnostic utility currently installed had shown a ‘memory audit’ like the one above I wouldn’t have raised the support issue in the first place and my blog would have been a quieter place for the last few months.

    By increasing the completeness of the information, the accuracy of it improves and the risk of consumers such as myself from raising support cases and pursuing issues which, ultimately, are a result of poor quality information leading to a failure in clear communication as to what the capability of the card is and what the purchaser’s expectation should be.

    Personally, I feel that this technology is a fudge and the way the information about the capability of the cards is presented by the manufacturers is misleading. I hope that Dell take this opportunity to implement simple changes to improve the quality of information.

    The business case for these changes can be determined easily by Dell based on the number of support cases raised, the length of time/amount of resources expended on investigating and dealing with these cases and the costs of any replacement cards shipped to customers. This is the cost of non-quality.

    The benefit to Dell of reducing the risk of confusion is the savings that would result through a reduction in these types of support calls. The return on investment would be straightforward to calculate from there, however based on my experience in information quality management I would suggest that the costs to Dell of the three remediation actions I have suggested would be far less than the costs of service issues arising simply from poor quality information.

    The Information Quality lessons that I would suggest people take from this saga:

    1. Poor Information Quality can impact all processes
    2. The actions that can be taken to prevent Information Quality problems are often simple, straightforward and easy to implement. The key factor is to focus on the customer and determine what steps need to be taken to ensure your processes and information are meeting or exceeding their expectations
    3. Speak with Data– when I posted the screen shot from the graphic card utility I provided information to Dell (and to the world) about what I was seeing and the basis on which I felt there was a problem. This then allowed John to validate what I was saying, and he responded in kind with detailed information (including links to wikipedia and the footnote in the on-line Dell documentation). This enabled clear, accurate and effective communication based the facts, not anecdote or hearsay and lead to me being happy to close the issue.

    I promised John I would eat some humble pie. I was wrong in my belief that the graphics card that was installed in my laptop was not the spec that was ordered. I am grateful to John and those in Dell who tried to resolve the issue.

    However the fact that the issue arose in the first place has at its root the quality of information about the graphics card and its capability. The fact that the issue dragged on for 5 months is, in part, due to the fact that it seemed that there was a lack of information within some areas of Dell about what the capability of the card was and what the situation actually was and a failure to effectively communicate this.

    And John’s explanation doesn’t address why the first replacement card that was shipped to me for my laptop was a graphics card for a desktop…

    ….that still makes me chuckle in bemusement.

  • Dell Hell Ireland (and other flavours) on Google

    So for shits and giggles I decided to google Dell Hell and Ireland. (The wife is out for the night, I’m bored, it seemed like a good idea at the time).

    http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLF_en-GBIE226IE228&q=dell+hell+ireland

    To increase the sample size, I removed the reference to “Ireland” and instead googled for “Dell Hell Information Quality”… frack me, there I am again – the top 2 (tonight, 27 July 07).

    http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLF_en-GBIE226IE228&q=dell+hell+information+quality

    So to be fair to Dell I removed the reference to “hell” to see how the DoBlog might fare with the Great Search Algorithm in the sky. This was a ‘positive control’. Wasn’t I pleasantly surprised when I was again the top 2 listed links on this day…

    http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLF_en-GBIE226IE228&q=dell+information+quality

    Not yet in Damien Mulley/SkyHandling Partners/”the server cannae take it Captain, she’s goin’ te blow” territory one can always dream…

    I googled a few other combinations… for “Dell quality Information” I was results 3 and 4 out of 16,800,000. That was a very neutral query. Still other combinations were picked but I can’t be bothered typing them … the screenshots below will show you the story.

    What I learned is that I am missing a very important tag from these posts… “Dell Quality”. That will be fixed tonight.

    Also by googling for Dell Quality and Ireland I found this pdf of a Dell presentation. I was interested to read this quote from Michael Hammer (Business Process Re-engineering guru) towards the end of the slides… I’ve highlighted a few words that leapt out at me.

    “ The 21st Century Belongs to the
    Process Organization Centered on
    Customers     and…Operates With
    High Quality    , Enormous Flexibility,
    Low Cost, and Extraordinary Speed.”

    With regards to my broken keyboard Dell are hitting the marks on this one. Quickly dealt with, within the agreed time period – the failure of the delivery is down to me… (sorry Dell, I’ll sort it out as soon as I can).

    My Graphics card issue however is a result of a failed process (assembly) as a result of poor quality information (either the assembler didn’t know to put in a 256mb card or couldn’t tell a 128mb card from a 256mb card) which has dragged on now for five months (which is extraordinary speed, just not in a good way). The fact that the issue still isn’t resolved and I’ve got a second ‘Customer Advocate’ from Round Rock Texas on the case now is indicative of how wide of their goals Dell are.

    (A big shout out to Rick and John… hope you guys are reading this as you reached out and I believe you have done your best to help with my situation. Elizabeth in Dublin… if you are back in the office could you PLEASE respond to the last few emails I’ve sent you as they are quite important… the email address you gave for the person who was covering for you kept bouncing back.)

    Joseph Juran, the Quality Management guru put it very well:

    “They thought they could make the right speeches, establish broad goals, and leave everything else to subordinates… They didn’t realize that fixing quality meant fixing whole companies, a task that cannot be delegated.”

    Joseph M. Juran, “Made in the USA: A Renaissance in Quality”, Harvard Business Review, July 1, 1993

    Deming’s Point 10 tells us “Eliminate slogans, exhortations and numerical targets for the workforce since they are divisory. The difficulties belong to the whole system”.

    Firefighting does not improve quality, especially when the fire is let smoulder on for nearly half a year (and a whole new product launch).

    Dell Information Quality search results

    Dell quality Ireland

    Dell quality information

    Dell Hell Ireland

    I have others but I can’t be bothered to put them up… I think my point is made.

    Perhaps Dell should consider getting in contact with the knowledgable practitioners in the International Association for Information and Data Quality (www.iaidq.org) who might be able to share some pointers on how to address the root causes of this problem.

  • Dell Hell – a slight return

    It was announced yesterday that Dell are cutting 100 jobs in Ireland. Hmmmm…

    Dell is a company in trouble that is desperately trying to reinvent itself. However, my experience is that Dell is a company that is also deluding itself and incurring potentially large amounts of avoidable costs through poor management of processes and poor information quality.

    Regular site visitors may remember my “Dell Hell” posts. I haven’t posted much on this recently, which may give the impression that this issue has been resolved.

    Has it f**k. 5 months after I took delivery of the laptop Dell still have not completed manufacturing it to the specification I ordered. I am dealing with a single named person in Dell at this stage. 4 weeks ago I spoke to her and she undertook to send an other graphics card to me. She then emailed confirmation that she had done this to my work email address (which I’d specifically asked not be used).

    4 weeks (and 2 emails from me) later I haven’t had an acknowledgement or confirmation that anything is happening and I still don’t have the laptop I ordered and am paying for. This is NOT rocket science but Dell can’t get it right.

    To date I estimate that on a €1500 laptop Dell have spent the best part of €1000 to not fix my problem and continue to piss me off. If we assume that the laptop cost Dell €1000 to assemble & sell in the first place (assumes a 10% markup on the ex-VAT price) then Dell have LOST €500 (50% of cost of sales) on me as a customer.

    50% of cost of sales. That’s a lot isn’t it. And all as a result of poor quality information and poor quality process management.

    For my part I’ve gotten a few articles out of this and a few blog posts…

    Articles:

    Silver linings I have… all they’re seeing in Dell right now are clouds.

    50% of cost of sales… f**k me – if I had a business doing that badly I’d fold my tent and bugger off as well.

    +++Update+++
    Via The Register I found this story about Dell’s new moves to reinvent itself. Reading down through it I found the following quote. Apparently Dell…

    “..expect to ship customers a complete product. We’re not going to finish off products at customer sites with our services business.”

    Whaddefook? Why then am I still waiting for a techie to come and finish building my consumer Inspiron laptop (at my premises)? I would have expected that it would have been built to spec in the factory…

  • What the Dell… an actual response… from a human!!

    What are the odds?

    In the week that scientists tell us they have discovered a planet that might support alien life, I got a response from a live person in Dell. And not in their off-shored outsourced Call Centre neither… this one was from ‘Dell Central’. Rick (for that is his name) reached out to me from Round Rock Texas as that is his job – he is part of an Internet Outreach team. I’m impressed – it took 3 days for Rick to respond to me but I’m still waiting for Samuel (the phone support supervisor I eventually got to speak to last week) to get back to me after a week.

    They never write, they never call… don’t they love me anymore? 🙁

    Also, there is the small matter that Dell have not responded to my “Unresolved Issue” report (via Dell Support on-line) which was raised on the 13th of April – that’s 13 elapsed days… If I hadn’t heard from Rick I’d have started to think they just didn’t care, that they had my money and that was all that mattered. But Rick has, thus far, restored my faith somewhat. At least he was proactive in reaching out to me.

    Dell Wars Part IV – A New Hope (?)

    I’ve taken Rick up on his invitation to contact him about my issues. Hopefully he’ll have read the various blog posts here under Dell Hell and will be up to speed on the issues I’m having. I’ll keep my readers posted on how this Soap Opera plays out… of course, a soap opera is usually a work of fiction – this is a painful case of fact.

  • Another example of Dell not connecting the dots

    The Register has this story about a fault in Dell Laptops.

    What is interesting about the problem is that it seems to expose some ‘failures’ in the passing of information internally within Dell, not least about their Direct2Dell website.

    Some interesting comments are made about UK trading standards. I’m hoping to have a post up soon analysing the legal aspects of my (on-going and still unresolved) issues with Dell.

  • Dell Hell

    Right… just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water….

    Regular readers of the DoBlog will know that I recently bought a world of pain and torment a laptop from Dell.

    The very first problem I had was with the graphics card – it was not what I had ordered. After a litany of screw-ups Dell eventually got me, a technician and a replacement graphics card in the same point in space.

    I thought that battle was over.

    Stone me but I was wrong. While doing some diagnostics this morning after replacing the defective DVD Drive I noticed that the base score in Windows Vista hadn’t changed since the new graphics card was installed. So I took a look at the bios and saw that the ‘new’ graphics card was a 128MB model x1400 ATI Radeon Mobility… exactly what the technician took away with him when he replaced the original erroneous part. I was… I’d like to say shocked but the feeling was more like the dismay a parent feels when their child brings home an F in fingerpainting.

    I have discussed the issue with my Samoan Attorney and he advises me that

    1. I should have listened to him and bought a Mac. (But he’s a lawyer so not to be trusted) 😉
    2. I should gather my emails, my original order specification and all my blog posts and put them in a registered letter to the head of Dell in Ireland. (there goes my weekend)
    3. I should tag all of my posts here with “Dell Hell” as there are pixie minions in Dell watching for these things and ready to leap in to action to put things right

    That’s a bit like shutting the door when the horse has bolted (hang on, where have I used that phrase recently?)

    Surely the appropriate response is not to firefight (which is what this team appear to be about) but to prevent the occurence of the problems in the first place? At this point, any profit margin Dell had (including the cost of the finance package I used to fund the purchase of a laptop of a given specification) has evaporated. Putting additional cost into the supply chain by employing people to inspect the defects out does not make sustainable sense.

    My recommendations for Dell, based on my experience:

    1. Imrpove your processes. They are deficient. If a product can ship that does not meet the ordered specficiation then there is a weakness in your processes
    2. Break down barriers between areas so that your actual root causes can be addressed
    3. Improve the quality of your information. Everything I have experienced has been due to poor quality information within the supply chain, from the incorrect card being shipped, to a desktop card being shipped to replace that, to the incorrect replacement card being shipped. There were attributes of all of those things (number of MB of RAM, type of card vs type of machine it would go into etc.) that could have prevented me having any problem but at the very least would have triggered a different flow of events and a different outcome for me the customer.
    4. Create a constancy of purpose about improving quality and building quality in from the point of order capture (where the defects might first arise) through to the manufacturing process and onwards to the customer service processes (which can’t seem to operate with the fact that a person may be located at more than one address, particularly if they have a laptop)

    The courier who delivered my replacement DVD drive today told me that he dreads doing deliveries for Dell as there is always a very high chance there will be some information wrong on the delivery notes. For example he had some packages for delivery in a rural part of my area (non-unique addresses) so he required a telephone number. The phone numbers had been mis-transcribed and as a result were not numbers in the area he was delivering to. Some of them were office numbers of the people in question – who had requested delivery to an alternate address.

    For any Dell person who might happen upon this post, here is a link to the rest of my posts on this.

    Another question raises its head now that I have a broken and unusable DVD drive that needs to be disposed of, that of the WEEE regulations. Dell have provided me with no means of returning the faulty component (nor did they do so for the graphics card that was taken out originally). As these components can contain hazardous material they fall under the remit of the WEEE regulations and, according to my Samoan Attorney, Dell should provide me with a means of returning said components to them for disposal (or for reuse in other machines in the case of the non-faulty but just incorrect graphics card).

    Despite repeated requests to Dell support by email no-one has given me any information. Indeed, the email from Dell re: the DVD-Rom specifically told me that “you do not have to return the old drive to Dell”. Sounds like a potential breach of EU law there…

  • Oh Dell (the return)

    The DVD drive on my Dell laptop failed (again) over the weekend so I requested a replacement as per their warranty.

    The technician requested my address and an alternate delivery address and also asked for details of my availablility over the 48hr period from Tuesday.

    I provided my home address (Wexford) and the address of the office building I work in in Dublin. I also SPECIFICALLY stated that I would not be available to accept deliveries at the Wexford address until Friday and that if the drive was being delivered on Thursday it should be delivered to my office.

    Guess where it went to.

    Courier will deliver it again tomorrow (Friday). From my conversation with him on the phone it seems that this is a regular occurence in Dell.

    They had a perfectly sound process to gather information to meet the expectation of their customer. However somewhere along the line they managed to screw it up and ignore important pieces of information.

    Why waste my time asking for an alternate delivery address and details of my availability when they will be ignored?

    Dell…. oh dear.

  • Oh D(H)ell… a slight reprise

    got this email from Dell yesterday

    Dear Valued Customer,

    Thank you for contacting Dell Customer Care on 27/03/2007 with a question or need for Dell. We appreciate the opportunity to assist you and are interested in your feedback concerning our performance.

    Dell has asked TNS Prognostics, a customer satisfaction research company in the IT industry, to help us conduct a survey regarding your experience. To help ensure we are providing expert assistance, please provide your feedback in this brief survey. This survey should take approximately 5 – 7 minutes to complete.

    To complete the survey, please click on the Web address below. If that does not work, copy and paste the entire Web address into the address field of your browser.

    https://dell.prognostics.com/s.asp?ID=F3FA3D808C094F2EB997744E7861C2C5

    If you are an AOL user, please click on the following link:

    {Link to AOL version of survey removed by me}

    NOTE: Some e-mail programs may split the above URL onto two lines. If you are prompted for a PIN, please cut and paste the following into provided space:
    {pin for survey removed by me}

    We look forward to your feedback.

    Yours sincerely,

    Dell Support Team

    All fine and dandy except that I didn’t contact them on the 27th of March. On the 27th of March I had the visit from their techie who installed my graphics card and then getting an update call from tech support about my DVD drive issues (which I’d fixed myself).

    Needless to say I’ll be scoring them quite low on the quality of their products. I pity Lucy (my erstwhile Tech support maven) and her colleagues who seem to be left as much at sixes and sevens as customers.

    All I’ve previously posted still stands. And I will be filling out the survey… oh yes… I will.

  • Oh D(h)ell… an update

    Dell Technician came to my office today. This was after a techie had called to my home last Thursday. When I was in London presenting at an Information Quality conference (does 2 speaking slots count as a keynote?).

    The fact that I was going to be away had been clearly communicated to Dell’s support people on Tuesday of last week. But a technician called to my (empty) home all the same. Even if my cat had been inclined to let him in (for only the cat was in residence), the laptop was with me because my presentations were on it.

    So a technician called to me today. He rang me and (shock) double checked where he was to go (my home or my office). Luckily I had beene expecting him and had the graphics card with me.

    So at this count, the cost to Dell of finishing (please note FINISHING, not FIXING) my laptop is at least the cost of 2 technician call outs and the cost of a graphics card. I gave Seamus (for that was his name) the 128MB card to take away as in my office, like many others, there is a resident technology guru/’liberator’ who would gladly have taken it home to put in an old machine of his. That has saved Dell a few euros.

    I will be packaging up the Desktop card and posting it to Dell at the weekend – increasing the cost to me of this laptop by the cost of that postage. However it is the honest and ethical thing to do, particularly as they have not given me any indication as to what the process is for returning things they sent me in error.

    What else would I do with a desktop graphics card in a house where my wife and I both have laptops?

    What else indeed?

    And I’ve also sorted out my DVD drive issues (on my own). As I had diagnosed back in the beginning, the culprit was the Roxio driver that Windows Vista was surpressing due to incompatibility. I uninstalled all of Roxio (for now) and everything worked fine again. I found on the Roxio site’s discussion forum that the real culprit is the Roxio “drag to CD” utility.

  • Oh (d)Hell, here we go again…

    So, prompt and efficient, Dell Post-Sales Customer Support shipped me the graphics card for my laptop -the one they should have put in while it was still in the factory. It arrived this morning at 11:00am as promised. It was shipped from their factory in Limerick – a city and County I know well. About 20 minutes before the courier arrived I’d had a call from my support team contact in Dell to set up the technician appointment to come out and finish building my laptop.

    The sun was shining. My dentist hadn’t come over all Marathon Man on me. I am starting a short holiday with my wife… all was well with the world.

    Until I opened the package. To find that it included a graphics card, which I assume is a 256MB card. So far so good…

    … it is a card for a Desktop machine not a laptop. It will not fit the computer I have. It is as useful to me as a chocolate fireguard, an ice teapot or a kosher sausage roll. I expect a technician to call me soon to confirm their appointment. I will only be able to confirm my disappointment.

    So what information might Dell in Limerick have had available to them to ship the correct thing?

    1. They might have had the asset tag of the laptop, from which the model and configuration details could be determined.
    2. They should have had the model of the laptop
    3. Perhaps they had details of the complaint, including the original order number and my customer number

    Any of those items of data would have enabled someone picking the components out of the storage bin to say “We want a graphics card (check) for an Inspiron Laptop (oh… wrong thing)”.

    If that information was not available to the people in Limerick, then it is inevitable that a mix up would happen. In this Information Age almost all processes that we run in business or that we encounter in life require complete, consistent, accurate and timely information to run as we expect. At assembly, there was information available that my laptop should have had 256MB video RAM. The quality failure in that instance was that that information was not referred to to make sure that the real world thing that it described met that expectation.

    Once the support people understood the problem, a graphics card was dispatched to fix the issue. However, due either to unavailable information (did the request to ship the replacement card specify the model of the card and that it was for a laptop?) inaccurate or inconsistent information (does the pick-list master data show that the desktop card I’ve received is the correct card for my laptop?), or inaccurate interpretation of the information, I wound up with the wrong card – a solution to my problem that does not solve the problem.

    This is a significant cost issue for Dell. It has to be. So far, to get my laptop to the specification I actually ordered it, they’ve incurred the cost of an additional graphics card (estimate €100) plus the cost of the courier (estimate €30 for overnight delivery) plus the cost of the support call center person (estimate €10 so far) plus the cost of the technician (estimate €120 based on ex-warranty call out charges) and so far it has cost Dell an additional €260 (my estimate) to perpetuate a screw up. If Dell can ship me the correct graphics card before the technician arrives then their cost will only be around €390.

    To put that in perspective… that is 25.2% of the cost of the laptop I purchased so unless Dell are operating at 30% margins on their business (in which case they have some leg room their competitors don’t or their machines are over-priced) they have lost money on my purchase. A fortnight in and already I’m a below-zero customer in terms of my lifetime value to Dell (and that’s before you factor in that I might not buy another Dell given the difficulties I’m having).

    Even with the cost of finance over 3 years to me (god bless the never-never finance), Dell are just about breaking even on me as a customer. Based on my estimates of course. And assuming they get it right before the technician arrives to try and fit a square peg (desktop graphics card) in a round hole (laptop). If Dell’s costs for hardware are 50% of retail, they are still looking at around 20% ‘evaporation’ of their margins… that is an unsustainable business overhead that seems to be accepted as the ‘cost of doing business’.

    Assuming Dell shipped 1000 laptops last week and 10% of them were mis-assembled and have had similar issues with replacement components, Dell could be burning 100 X €390 = €39,000 a week in avoidable scrap and rework. That equates, in my industry, to around 40 to 45 full-time-equivalent staff in ‘clerical’ roles. The cost of non-quality is easy to measure. That’s a direct cost to the Business that is avoidable. It’s just harder to measure than headcount and not as easy to cut. You can’t fire your data.

    The root cause of all of this cost is the quality of information and the quality of the culture in which that information is used… if the metric for assembly teams is how fast something is shipped versus how quickly the right thing is shipped then corners will get cut at 16:45 on a Friday to get that product boxed and out to shipping before the shift ends. If the customer complaint follow ups don’t have sufficient information about the product that is being complained about then screw ups are perpetuated.

    Dell are feeling the analysts pinch on the short term numbers (quarter on quarter growth and profits). In my opinion, it is time to bite the bullet and look at the root causes of their information supply chain problems before they cut head count – because who knows what other information ills headcount might be masking. They need to build quality in, both in terms of the product and in terms of their information management. They need to do it now. Cutting headcount will fix the bottom line. For now. Fixing these fundamentals fixes the bottom line for ever – while increasing efficiency and (perhaps) avoiding the need to prune back headcount as aggressively as currently forecast.

    The management approaches needed aren’t rocket science and they aren’t an unproven quantity. Neither is the failure of a business because it costs them their profit margin to inspect defects out of a product after it has shipped. Hopefully some Dell manager will happen across this blog post and might put the simple Excel spreadsheet together that shows the true cost to Dell of non-quality information and poor management of information. Perhaps that might prompt some thinking about how best to meet market analyst expectations in a sustainable way.

    Failing that, Dell will inevitably enter a head-count reduction death-spiral of managing by the easy numbers which is difficult – if not impossible – to pull out of.