The story of a mobile phone thimble

 　　There are two interesting stories about Xiaomi's strict control of product quality.

　　At one stage, we sorted out the quality of the entire mobile phone's components, which of course included cost sorting. As a result, we found a small problem, that is, a problem with the thimble of the mobile phone.

　　What's wrong? We know that the thimble is mainly to facilitate the user to poke the SIM card slot out of the phone after buying a new mobile phone. Usually, when poking this card slot, users use paper clips the most. Of course, some men still use toothpicks. In any case, this kind of thing should be very cheap. Paper clips are sold in boxes. A box of several hundred is only a few dollars, and one is only a few cents.

　　When they saw the cost of our thimble, everyone was shocked: one yuan more than one yuan. How could it be so expensive? There must be something wrong.

　　The problem may lie in two aspects: one is that some people eat rebates, and the other is that the supplier is too dark.

　　We have always believed in teammates. It is unlikely that someone will get a kickback, so ask the supplier.

　　The supplier is actually very nervous, especially knowing that Lei Jun is catching this matter personally. They came to the company and explained in person: They basically don't make money because the needle is not profitable. There is no profit for a thimble with more than one dollar? Isn't this a trick used by vendors? Let them explain why a paper clip costs a few cents, but this thimble costs more than one yuan? The supplier replied: Your thimble is powerful, it contains several rare metals. We are even more puzzled, why does a thimble contain rare metals? The supplier said: Your product has an inspection standard-it cannot be bent after 100,000 insertions.

　　Hearing this reason, all of us were surprised. What standard is this? Users generally only use a thimble once or twice, and the test standard requires 100,000 times. Is it okay for users to use this thimble to stab the phone 100,000 times? Isn't this just a mess?

　　This is really not the supplier's problem.

　　We asked our colleagues in charge of research and development to study this matter together. The colleagues in research and development were also very aggrieved. When we started to make mobile phones, many places were learning Apple mobile phones, and many places adopted the standards of Apple mobile phones. This thimble is based on this. Produced according to the standard.

　　At this time, our supplier made a supplement: Apple’s mobile phone was indeed the standard at the beginning, and later it was lowered because it was too expensive; but Xiaomi is still very powerful, and your redmi phones with a few hundred yuan also use this kind of thimble. .

　　At this moment, we really can't laugh or cry.

　　We are pursuing the ultimate, but this ultimate has no meaning to users, it is a waste of cost.

　　Similar to the story of this thimble is the story of the screw. When making a mobile phone, 12 small screws are needed to fix the mobile phone motherboard and the mobile phone shell. Because the phone is so thin, the screws are small. Normally, such a screw costs a few cents. When we sorted out the cost, we found that the cost of such a screw was close to 1 yuan. This screw was screwed on during production in the factory, so you don’t need to use it repeatedly like a thimble. There must be a problem with this screw.

　　We still invite the supplier to the company, and everyone will work together to study what went wrong.

　　Because Xiaomi is famous for digging out the details, the supplier attaches great importance to it. This time I brought many tools, including a magnifying glass. When we asked why this screw is so expensive, the supplier friend held a magnifying glass and said to this screw: Your screw is really amazing. We asked where it was so powerful, and the supplier said: You can see it through a magnifying glass. We put our heads together, and the supplier said: Have you seen it? There is a Xiaomi logo on the surface of each screw. All of us were stunned. What kind of genius design is this? What's the use of this? Our engineers used extreme and wisdom on this, obviously in the wrong place.

　　I believe that when everyone sees these two short stories, they will think our engineers are too stupid. In fact, it is not that they are ignorant, this is a common problem of many companies' research and development. Many engineers always hope that their work can make achievements and have something to show off, but if they forget that all their work is to serve users and bring value to users, such problems will always arise.

　　Therefore, to create a product, it is best to focus on cost from the planning, design, and research and development stages, so that everyone in the company is cost-conscious. Once the design is finalized, product specifications are finalized, and R&D is finalized, the cost is basically fixed. We need to sort out the cost of each link to see if there are too many costs that are useless to users. In this way, the product cost is relatively optimal.