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Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061
I am concerned to read that A123 Systems is functionally bankrupt because of several bad decisions made way back in 2003 when the technology was first developed, they essentially have 6 months of capital left unless they can secure investment.
It seems that despite the batteries being safer and as a result being used in electric drill packs for a while they are still too expensive to manufacture and the expected economies of scale never materialised. As a result the expected market for electric vehicle packs and even the electric hand tools was taken over by conventional Li-Ion which wrecked any chance for long term profit, and the recalls caused by a defective pack crimper will end up costing them tens of millions due to the bad cells being integrated into EV packs sold as a single monolithic unit.
It is unfortunate but proves that if a company has a single product and something goes awry it is doomed.
Registered Member #2431
Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639
bad decision making and decision making models are quite often the causes of disaster, and as you said if they are a single product deployer, so much greater the risk and consequence if wrong. Solyndra, Ener1, Abound solar, are just a few that bet the farm... and lost.
And bringing it back to college, decision making models, leadership, failure analsys, and risk management are rarely taught or required in colleges these days, which seem to opt for more useless class path requirements.
Also, on the rare occasions when ive seen or been informed of these critical skills being taught, most often they are taught poorly even at ivy league colleges.
just hope these batteries dont kill or injury people. Chernoblye, Fukushima, bhopal UC and Titanic are all examples where better decision making would have avoided great risk to humanity or death counts, entirely.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
I think the average success rate for tech startup companies is something like 30%. Even if they do everything right, they can get screwed by sheer bad luck. I worked for one that went bankrupt myself.
Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast And Slow" is a great book on how people make decisions and respond to risks. CEOs and fund managers ought to find it uncomfortable reading, as he argues that they do a poorer job of managing than if they simply rolled dice for their decisions. But he also shows that they (and the rest of us) have a capacity for denial that would enable us to read the book and carry on screwing things up just as before.
Sample question: If you have a portfolio of stocks and you want to sell some, should you sell the lowest performing ones or the highest performing ones?
In the meantime, keep an eye out for big stocks of A123 batteries getting dumped on the surplus market!
Registered Member #2431
Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639
yep its absolutley A123's fault, implementing poor quality control is a failure of management, either choosing bad people, or the right people with insuffcient authority to validate the product/manufacturing process.
as for matters of 30% success rate, they can project the future need and market, doing it all the right way. then find out the market has dissapeared or never developed due to unkowable/unforseeable circumstances, in this case the start up just had bad luck. lead prediction and anticipation is always the hard part, even with the right people.
I think you're being too harsh to management. Shit happens.
The company I work for produces digital cameras for medical and industrial purposes. Once we replaced a rubber ring, which fastened an IR cutoff filter in front of the sensor. About a year later cameras started coming back due to smeared IR filters. We found out, that the new ring contained some volatile softener compound which had very slowly evaporated out of the ring. The whole deal cost us about half a million.
I'm puzzled about what kind of quality control could have prevented that.
Or: We mostly use Sonys CCDs. In a number of batches the bonding wires came loose after about 18 month of use. Sony replaced the sensors and paid some compensation, which didn't nearly cover the cost of getting the cameras back, replacing the chips, testing and shipping them back to the customers.
Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
Uspring wrote ...
I think you're being too harsh to management. Shit happens.
The company I work for produces digital cameras for medical and industrial purposes. Once we replaced a rubber ring, which fastened an IR cutoff filter in front of the sensor. About a year later cameras started coming back due to smeared IR filters. We found out, that the new ring contained some volatile softener compound which had very slowly evaporated out of the ring. The whole deal cost us about half a million.
I'm puzzled about what kind of quality control could have prevented that.
Or: We mostly use Sonys CCDs. In a number of batches the bonding wires came loose after about 18 month of use. Sony replaced the sensors and paid some compensation, which didn't nearly cover the cost of getting the cameras back, replacing the chips, testing and shipping them back to the customers.
The second example you give was the fault of Sony. It would depend on the warranty agreed between your company and Sony at the time of purchase as to whether they compensated you fully or not.
The first example you give, replacing the 'O' ring, was probably implemented because the replacement ring was cheaper. That's the risk you take when you start cost-cutting exercises. It almost always eventually leads to premature failure.
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061
I often wonder if many problems could be prevented if companies had a "Sanity Check Officer" who had the power to veto decisions if s/he felt that they were bad in the long term.
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A123 in trouble
