I was just informed that a vendor that we have used in the past is going out of business due to the impact of the economic shutdown that has been imposed to try to slow the spread of COVID-19.
We have used this vendor to purchase Dyneema rope and various pulleys. We purchased the rope in bulk, so we probably have enough rope to last us a few more seasons (depending on the game, of course).
This raises 2 interesting dilemmas:
Can we continue to list this vendor on our BOM as the source even though they are no longer in business, or do we need to find a new vendor to list on our BOM that sells the same (or equivalent) products? The rope and pulleys that we bought from this vendor are available from other sources, and the prices are fairly similar, but it seems odd to list a vendor on our BOM that we have actually never purchased from.
We have some niche products that we have purchased over the years. If the vendor that currently provides one of those products were to go out of business, we might have difficulty finding a similar product from another vendor. If the product can no longer be purchased from a vendor, does it still qualify as COTS? The rules donât really address this particular scenario.
Letâs hope that most companies are able to weather this economic storm. But, given that I now have a vendor that was not able to survive and given that I clearly have too much time on my hand, I find myself pondering these âwhat ifâ scenariosâŚ
Example 6: A team has a COTS gearbox which has been discontinued. If the COTS
gearbox is functionally equivalent to its original condition, it may be used.
This shouldnât seem odd, the BOM rules practically require this if you want to be able to list the smallest amount possible for your robot. Many teams have been doing this for yearâs and with the 2019 change it practically became a necessity for teams near the cap.
We have not really done this in the past, but maybe we should do it more. We have been near the BOM limit the past few years so we might be able to reduce our BOM CAWST if we list alternate, cheaper sources other than the one we actually bought it from. Since shipping can be a big part of the cost we pay for parts, it is often cheaper to pay a little more for some parts to buy it as part of a bigger order to a particular vendor rather that paying separate shipping to get the part a few dollars cheaper.
Itâs a pain to scour the web for alternate vendors, so if you donât need to do it to make cost (e.g. you are only ânearâ the BOM limit), there isnât much point. However, you should definitely start with this if you find yourself over the limit or if you are trying to open up headroom for something additional that wouldnât otherwise fit within budget.
I suppose if you have concern that an inspector might approach a $4990 BOM differently than a $4700 BOM, you might want to pay the price of alternate vendor searching even if you arenât actually over.
Sometimes I wonder if GDC is seeking to know how much we spent to build our robot? or how much it would have cost another team to build our robot? or if there is some other thing they have in mind.
I think more than anything itâs to force teams with a lot of resources from using a large amount of exotic materials that a smaller team would have no hope of matching.
The actual advantage that an unlimited budget would give you when still limited on weight and time is debatable, thatâs just how Iâve always seen it.
The GDC gets no information from the BOM rules as none of the data is recorded anywhere. Maybe a few GDC members inspect a few robots a year but they arenât getting data from most teams.
Now if the BOM was part of an award(and not inspection) and submitted digitally then we would have a data source of what vendors teams were using and what parts might be good additions to the kit, etc.
If they were tracking that, theyâd be collecting BOMs. That said, they did do that once upon a time. For one or two years, the submission had to be electronic.
Wait! I know how to simplify the BOM process! Email it to the LRI (or to a central repository) ahead of time. LRI inspects and marks it as âApprove pending at-event changesâ, âThereâs an issue, letâs talkâ, or âDo you need help?â (for BOMs that are good, thereâs an issue with costing somewhere, or highly incomplete, respectively). At the event, the team is asked if there are any changes since they submitted that would impact the BOM. (Things like significantly more aluminum or changing CIMs to Falcons would qualify; adding fasteners or removing parts would not.) The team can also resubmit the BOM at the event.
After the event, the LRI sends all the BOMs to HQ, where (ideally, and for any HQ folks reading this I apologize for the extra work) theyâre set up in a database and searched through for things like what kinds of speed controllers and motors are being used, how much aluminum, are there popular sensors, and are teams really using X donation from the KOP or should we ask the donor if they have anything better for teams.
Some combination of the FMS + WPILib actually already reports this, based on the constructors in use (IIRC).
I think youâre misreading MrForbesâ use of âseekingâ - I read his post as referring to the impact GDC is seeking on the competition, rather than the information GDC is seeking from teams.
(And FIRST Marketing gets to say âIt costs less than _â)
I did not mean for this thread to turn into the usual discussion about CAWST. I was more worried about what would happen if a number of smaller vendors start going out of business due to the closure of the economy (not to mention the fact that many teams will not be buying as many parts this year due to their own issues).
Having a limit on the CAWST of the robot does prevent high resource teams from developing amazingly exotic machines that no one could compete with. But I think the real reason that there is a BOM limit is just to be a constraint (like the aggressive schedule, and the robot weight and the number of PDP slots) that teams must design within. Part of the challenge of engineering (FIRST or âreal worldâ) is to operate within these constraints and in every company I have worked for during my career, cost has always been high on the list of constraints. Certainly if the company is for-profit (as most companies are) then, in order to make a profit, you need to be able to sell your product for more than it cost to make it. Since the sale price side is generally constrained by competition (other companies making similar products) you canât just charge a really high price for your product. So, you end up needing to control the cost side in order to be profitable. The engineers designing those products need to understand those costs and often need to try to find ways to reduce cost. So, I actually think that learning to think about costs as part of a FIRST project is a valuable lesson that our students will take with them into their jobs.
I agree so letâs start by documenting all of the costs on our robots. No more $0 fasteners. No more $0 IMUs. No more $0 Allen Bradley/Rockwell Automation/National Instruments hardware. Things should be the cost they are. They should be represented as the cost they are.
Granted, thatâs living in la-la-land and we canât have that without massively infuriating some sponsors (or so some people seem to believe) so instead our best bet is to just simply drop the BOM.
Itâs easy enough to play games with the truly mandatory things (roboRIO, RSL, PDP, etc etc); adjust the limit up, list the prices, effective BOM limit remains where they want it.
If we do want to give an advantage to FIRST suppliers in recognition of their donation (and I think thatâs a good thing), there are two obvious avenues:
A list of items with stated BOM prices for that season. Still counts for something against your limit, but less than retail.
FIRST Choice credits could be used as an alternate-universe BOM, where certain donated items can be decoupled from their actual price as long as the total number stays within the available credits.
But if the BOM went away, or was refactored into only being a part of judged technical awards, I wouldnât exactly cry.
The reason I brought up the issue of what GDC is looking for with the BOM, is that if they want to know what it would cost for another team to build your robot, then it doesnât matter at all if the specific vendor you bought from goes out of business. They donât care who you bought the parts from, they just want to know what those parts would cost anyone to buy, on the open market.
Thatâs how Iâve always interpreted the rules. I hope Iâm not wrong. Not that weâve ever been anywhere near the cost limit.
The Fair Market Value definition (R15 and following blue box), sort of allows you to find the best available cost. Since the definition of Fair Market Value does not allow you to take advantage of sales that vendors might run throughout the year (a few vendors run off season sales and you can get some of the more common valuable parts at a nice discount), looking for the best in-season price is a bit of a middle road.
Iâm not sure what I am going to use for Fair Market Value for items that are discontinued or where the only vendor for that part is out of business. I guess I will use the actual price I paid for it even though you cannot buy that part any more.
Even though the rule for COTS parts says that discontinued parts still count as COTS, the Fair Market Value rule does not really cover that situation in terms of CAWST.
yeah, thatâs been a problem for yearsâŚI try to find either what we paid for the part, or what the market cost was when it was still available. Back in the olden days, companies printed catalogs, and you could just look in an old catalog. Nowadays, the darn internet has ruined that.