IJMC - How to Build a Better Toaster

I'm simply not even going to comment any further about how accurately 
this describes product development nowadays...                  -dave









Toaster Software Development Project History 
 
Day 1: My boss, an engineer from the pre-CAD days, has successfully brought a 
generation of products from Acme Toaster Corp's engineering labs to market. 
Bob is a wonder of mechanical ingenuity. All of us in the design department 
have the utmost respect for him, so I was honored when he appointed me the 
lead designer on the new Acme 2000 Toaster. 
 
Day 6: We met with the president, head of sales, and the marketing vice 
president today to hammer out the project's requirements and specifications. 
Here at Acme, our market share is eroding to low-cost imports. We agreed to 
meet a cost of goods of $9.50 (100,000). I've identified the critical issue 
in the new design: a replacement for the timing spring we've used since the 
original 1922 model. Research with the focus groups shows that consumers set 
high expectations for their breakfast foods. Cafe latte from Starbucks goes 
best with a precise level of toast browning. The Acme 2000 will give our 
customers the breakfast experience they desire. I estimated a design budget 
of $21,590 for this project and final delivery in seven weeks. I'll need one 
assistant designer to help with the drawing packages. This is my first chance 
to supervise! 
 
Day 23: We've found the ideal spring material. Best of all, it's a 
well-proven technology. Our projected cost of goods is almost $1.50 lower 
than our goal. Our rough prototype, which was completed just 12 days after we 
started, has been servicing the employee cafeteria for a week without a 
single hiccup. Toast quality exceeds projections. 
 
Day 24: A major aerospace company that had run out of defense contractors to 
acquire has just snapped up that block of Acme stock sold to the Mackenzie 
family in the '50s. At a company wide meeting, corporate assured us that this 
sale was only an investment and that nothing will change. 
 
Day 30: I showed the Acme 2000's exquisitely crafted toast-timing mechanism 
to Ms. Primrose, the new engineering auditor. The single spring and four 
interlocking lever arms are things of beauty to me. 
 
Day 36: The design is complete. We're starting a prototype run of 500 
toasters tomorrow. I'm starting to wrap up the engineering effort. My new 
assistant did a wonderful job. 
 
Day 38: Suddenly, a major snag happened. Bob called me into his office. He 
seemed very uneasy as he informed me that those on high feel that the Acme 
2000 is obsolete - something about using springs in the silicon age. I 
reminded Bob that the consultants had looked at using a microprocessor but 
figured that an electronic design would exceed our cost target by almost 50% 
with no real benefit in terms of toast quality. "With a computer, our 
customers can load the bread the night before, program a finish time, and get 
a perfect slice of toast when they awaken," Bob intoned, as if reading from a 
script. 
 
Day 48: Bill Compguy, the new microprocessor whiz, scrapped my idea of using 
a dedicated 4-bit CPU. "We need some horsepower if we're gonna program this 
puppy in C," he said, while I stared fascinated at the old crumbs stuck in 
his wild beard. "Time-to-market, you know. Delivery is due in three months. 
We'll just pop this cool new 8-bitter I found into it, whip up some code, and 
ship to the end user." 
 
Day 120: The good news is that I'm getting to stretch my mechanical-design 
abilities. Bill convinced management that the old spring-loaded, press-down 
lever control is obsolete. I've designed a "motorized insertion port," 
stealing ideas from a CD-ROM drive. Three cross-coupled, safety-interlock 
micro switches ensure that the heaters won't come on unless users properly 
insert the toast. We're seeing some reliability problems due to the 
temperature extremes, but I'm sure we can work those out. 
 
Day 132: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. We've replaced 
the 8-bitter with a Harvard-architecture, 16-bit, 3-MIPS CPU. 
 
Day 172: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. 
 
Day 194: The auditors convinced management we really need a graphical user 
interface with a full-screen LCD. "You're gonna need some horsepower to drive 
that," Bill warned us. "I recommend a 386 with a half-meg of RAM." He went 
back to design Revision J of the PC board. 
 
Day 268: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. We've cured 
most of the electronics' temperature problems with a pair of fans, though 
management is complaining about the noise. Bob sits in his office all day, 
door locked, drinking Jack Daniels. Like clockwork, his wife calls every 
night around midnight, sobbing. I'm worried about him and mentioned my 
concern to Chuck. "Wife?" he asked. "Wife? Yeah, I think I've got one of 
those, and two or three kids, too. Now, let's just stick another meg of RAM 
in here, OK?" 
 
Day 290: We gave up on the custom GUI and are now installing Windows CE. The 
auditors applauded Bill's plan to upgrade to a Pentium with 32 Mbytes of RAM. 
There's still no functioning code, but the toaster is genuinely impressive. 
Four circuit boards, bundles of cables, and a gigabit of hard-disk space. 
"This sucker has more computer power than the entire world did 20 years ago," 
Bill boasted proudly. 
 
Day 384: Toast quality is sub-par. The addition of two more cooling fans 
keeps the electronics to a reasonable temperature but removes too much heat 
from the toast. I'm struggling with baffles to vector the air, but the thrust 
of all these fans spins the toaster around. 
 
Day 410: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. We switched 
From C++ to Java. "That'll get them pesky memory-allocation bugs, for sure," 
Bill told his team of 15 programmers. This approach seems like a good idea to 
me, because Java is platform-independent, and there are rumors circulating 
that we're porting to a SPARC station. 
 
Day 530: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. I mastered the 
temperature problems by removing all of the fans and the heating elements. 
The Pentium is now thermally bonded to the toast. We found a thermal grease 
that isn't too poisonous. Our marketing people feel that the slight 
degradation in taste from the grease will be more than compensated for by the 
"toasting experience that can only come from a CISC-based, 32-bit 
multitasking machine running the latest multi-platform software." 
 
Day 610: The product ships. It weighs 72 lb and costs $325. 
 
Bill is promoted to CEO. 



  Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps. --