[techhelpbb]

COTS has it's problems which are often overlooked.

The United States Military is starting to discover that COTS isn't always the best idea. Sure you save money on the R&D and in the near term you offload the cost of production however in the longer term the price of that savings might be too high.

When a system that depends on COTS outlives the expected and projected lifetime it's entirely possible that the vendor(s) that provide the COTS parts will cease to be able to provide support when these systems lifetimes are extended to save money. When you are talking about systems of such enormous costs such as military systems it's possible to find yourself having to engineer parts anyway with experience that was never internal because of COTS.

So I would argue that using COTS parts engineered without full disclosure required in any system runs risks. Move the production source for the COTS part into a place where the language and style is foreign to you and that problem is magnified.

This problem exists beyond hardware. I routinely work on enormously expensive software systems that people bought and that are closed source. If you sit down and review the application of that software you'll realize you could: make it faster, make it easier, make it more reliable but you can't because no one wants to own the effort or invest beyond consumerism.

It's the same problem really. The idea you can shortcut the perspiration that leads to innovation taken a bit too far and no one wanting to accept that reality.

Also I'd like to indirectly respond to the question of foreign trade above. The issue with foreign trade is that foreign trade should not be mistaken to obey uniform commercial code or any sort of expectation of conduct. Literally many foreign 'companies' are extensions of the military industrial complexes that rule over their respective countries of origin. So in effect if these foreign 'companies' decide to rip you off realize that it is entirely possible to find yourself with no recourse (no one is going to bring military action over a box of junk). The exception to this rule is straight out capitalistic competition. For example: let's take DC/DC converters sold by several sources from all over the world. In the absence of contracts you can buy from any place at any time. So if these people want to rely on your business they best produce something adequate in that case because at any time you can walk away. Course that works fantastic till you allow monopolies on resources required to make a product at all. Of course the price to you as a product designer using COTS DC/DC converters 'protected' by capitalistic competition is that you have to design your product to accept DC/DC converters in various shapes and sizes and maybe with slightly different inputs and outputs and you have to have just enough reserve stock to buffer bad lots and additional delays (it's a balancing act). So in the end my perspective on this is not that 'Made in America' is always better. It's that my expectations of my country and the society within it are based on a lifetime of experience in my country. There are some things we don't do well here in America at any one time. If a foreign source can demonstrate to me consistent improvement over my local sources then I balance the risk/benefit equation in their favor because the show must go on.

The real risk is that everyone is too willing to think they can just buy innovation. Real innovation transcends the immediate transaction of funds and goods and leaves lasting positive impact on society. FIRST is real innovation. Look beyond the immediate product, the flow of funds and look at the long term impact. You can build a competitive FIRST robot with some cheap common tools or you can build a FIRST robot with a million dollar shop. It's not just about the money and the jobs.