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JANUARY 2024 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 71 be accepted immediately." He spoke in a mono- tone and showed no emotion. "How can you [expletive] not know what the best and worst parts are?" "I know the cost chart down to the smallest part," Hughes said quietly. "I just don't know the cost of the raw materials of those parts." " W hat are the wor st f ive par ts?" Musk demanded. Hughe s lo o ked at hi s computer to see if he could calculate an answer. "No! Don't look at your screen," Musk said. "Just n a m e o n e . Yo u s h o u l d k n o w t h e p r o b l e m a t i c parts." "There's the half noz- zle jacket," Hughes offered tentatively. "I think it costs $13,000." "It's made of a single piece of steel," Musk said, now quizzing him. "How much does that material cost?" "I think a few thousand dollars?" replied Hughes. Musk knew the answer. "No. It's just steel. It's about two hundred bucks. You have very badly failed. If you don't improve, your resig- nation will be accepted. is meeting is over. Done." When Hughes came into the conference room the next day for a follow-up presenta- tion, Musk showed no sign that he remem- bered reaming him out. "We are looking at the 20 worst 'idiot index' parts," Hughes began as he pulled up a slide. "ere's definitely some themes." Other than wringing a pencil, he was able to hide his nervousness. Musk listened quietly and nodded. "It's mainly the parts that require a lot of high-precision machining, like pumps and fair- ings," Hughes continued. "We need to cut out as much of the machining as possible." Musk started smiling. is had been one of his themes. He asked a few specific questions about the use of copper and the best way to do stamping and hole-punching. It was no longer a quiz or a confrontation. Musk was interested in figuring out the answers. "We are looking at some of the techniques that automakers use to keep these costs down," Hughes continued. He also had a slide that showed how they were applying Musk's algo- rithm to each of the parts. ere were col- umns that showed what requirement s had b een questioned, what parts had been deleted, and the name of the specific person in charge of each component. "We should ask each of them to see if they can get the cost of their part down by eighty percent," Musk suggested, "and if they can't, we should consider asking them to step aside if someone else might be able to do so." By the end of the meeting, they had a roadmap to get the cost of each engine down from $2 million to $200,000 in 12 months. Elon Musk, by Walter Isaacson, pp. 363-365, Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. SMT007 Ronald C. Lasky is an instruc- tional professor of engineer- ing for the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, and senior technolo- gist at Indium Corporation. To read past columns, or contact Lasky, click here. Download Lasky's book, The Printed Circuit Assembler's Guide to… Solder Defects. You can view other titles in the I-007eBooks library here. Musk started smiling. This had been one of his themes.