From BMW Airhead Master Mechanic, Tom Cutter....and AZ Beemers President Brian Boles; a close friend of SkooterG's!
This story refers to late model Airhead transmissions:
I have a theory, that is best illustrated by a little "story."
Large companies like BMW have loads of mid-level engineers who spend
all day looking for ways to move ahead in their jobs. The company keeps
telling them "save more money for us" which is synonymous with "make
more money for us." So some young hotshot takes a look at the
engineering drawing of the output shaft and says "That bearing has an
adequate press-fit on that shaft, it doesn't need any clip to retain
its position. We could save 2.75 euros per shaft if we eliminated that
machining operation, and another 0.07 Euros if we delete the circlip
from the design. What could it hurt? The bearing is sitting in a bore
in the case, it can't move, right?" All his engineering books tell him
he is right, his boss pats him on the head and says "Good job, Junior.
You saved the company a pile of cash. Here's a plastic flower for your
cubicle." Soon, Junior gets promoted to a different department, where
they design Oilhead rear drives.
Time passes, and down in the Warranty Accounting Department, Hans and
Hilde are poring over the warranty claims history. They note that the
output shaft bearing is suddenly being over-represented in the claims
numbers. Now Hans and Hilde have no clue that that bearing needs to be
retained by a now-deleted circlip. They fire off a memo to Engineering
saying "Trouble with the Output Bearing." Herr Engineering Boss walks
out into the cube farm, and dumps the memo on the desk of the new guy,
Horst, who just got out of engineering school. He says to Horst "Look
into this problem, and devise a fix. Don't spend any money." So Horst
pulls out the engineering drawings, sees that there is a circlip on the
shaft (somebody forgot to update the drawings) and sees immediately
that the large-radius bearing is hitting the circlip way out in space,
where the clip has no support. So he contacts the Output Bearing
Supplier and say s"Hey, fellas, you got a bearing with less radius?"
They reply, "We can make that for you, and since BMW buys 10,000
bearings at at a time, we will only add 0.11 Euros per bearing to the
cost." Horst shows his boss, his boss says "Here's your plastic
flower." Then the various departments get a memo about the new bearing,
which is filtered down into the Parts Distribution Department, along
with a Service Bulletin describing this wonderful cure-all bearing
design. Everybody is happy, the Warranty Claims figures drop, mostly
because BMW has abandoned the Airhead models completely, but nobody
bothers to tell Hans and Hilde that. They just figure that they took
care of the problem.
More time passes, calendar leaves float gently to the floor. The Parts
Distribution Department exhausts that supply of 10,000
special-production bearings. They call a new guy over at the bearing
supplier and say "We need 2000 more bearings to replenish our stock."
The new guys says "That is a special production item and we have to
charge you 150 Euros extra per bearing for that special production run,
because it is only 2000 pieces. Why don't you use the standard bearing,
it will take the same load, and you don't have to change any other
design elements?" So the Parts Distribution guy says to his Boss, "Hey,
I just saved us $150 Euros per bearing by using a standard part." The
Boss says "Here's your plastic flower." So now, the old part number
bearing is back in the Parts Distribution System, and the "special"
small-radius bearing is lost to history.
Meanwhile, halfway around the globe, an old BMW mechanic is looking at
this progression of part numbers, Service Bulletins and bearing
failures, scratching his head. He loses most of his hair, and says "I
should talk to somebody at BMW and see whether they know that this
situation has developed." So he starts calling people and writing
letters. Years pass, and nobody takes any action, because the old
mechanic is no longer part of the BMW "System."
Now the old mechanic makes a living, partly by rebuilding one
transmission after another that failed because nobody took the long
view, and nobody was willing to listen and act decisively.
(NOTE: I Have altered the chronology of this story a little in the
interest of Literary License, so anybody who wants to start posting
that "this change came before that part number or that Service bulletin
was in my folder "can just save the trouble. The story is intended as
humor based on a very real chain of events.)
Junior, Hans, Hilde and the others still have their plastic flowers.