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28 SMT Magazine • August 2017 sets of books—one for customers in the high la- bor-rate world and one for those in low labor- rate regions. Do the distributors have dual pricing struc- tures because the component manufacturers charge them more if they are distributing to as- semblers in high labor-rate areas? Is it because of distributor overhead costs are much more in high labor-rate areas—material cost variable number 2? This was looked at in detail and the material price disparity could not be justified by this factor. 4 That leaves material cost elements 5 and 6. Item 5, import and export tariffs, is generally applied to assembled products, not raw or man- ufactured (inseparable) material such as elec- tronic components. However, this is a complex subject and is dependent on the specific materi- al of interest. It will be addressed in more detail next month in the final column on the subject of analyzing the cost of material. Then, what remains to explain the signifi- cant difference in material pricing for product assembly depending on where that assembly is done? Without the curiosity to first obtain the data and then challenge the data, we stop here and say, "It's just the way it is." Data Explosion and Assimilation I remember in the early 1970s, at the dawn of the digital revolution, some suggested that twice as much data and information existed in 1970 as in 1960. And, therein lies the rub. Data and information are pretty much useless until codi- fied into knowledge. Applying critical thinking to the knowledge can allow it to be transformed into wisdom. This is what is commonly called the DIKW (data, information, knowledge, wis- dom) hierarchy or pyramid. In my view, it is the responsibility of the educational system to provide the students with knowledge and teach them how to find the path to wisdom. How does a public education system grapple with these geometric data and information ex- plosions? The massive amount of information added to the public domain certainly hasn't stopped since 1970 and shows no sign of doing so in 2017 and beyond. An educational system can capture the data and information in a digital format and store it on hard drives. It can teach the student how to access the information and require the student to glimpse into this cloud, memorizing certain information strings. However, unless the edu- cational system can successfully help the stu- dent construct ladders to convert the informa- tion into knowledge, and then the knowledge into wisdom, their job is woefully incomplete. This is the challenge facing our educational system. It will not be met by continuing a sys- tem that is failing or trying to improve by nib- bling around the edges. The system must find a way to engender all students' curiosity and de- velop in them a love for learning that will last throughout the student's life. It is tempting to say everything will change so why bother. Either just start by teaching the student the latest 'gee whiz' data, or continue to teach what is obsolete and is of little value to them in the real world. Since relativism is the soup du jour, you are what you think—there is no absolute. An alternative is to suggest certain basic te- nets and values will transcend the onslaught of new data and information—the wisdom will al- ways remain true. There is not one ladder that leads to that wisdom, but many. On the jour- ney, we jump from one ladder to another like Mario on a Pac-man™ screen. In his 1995 book, Nicholas Negroponte dis- cusses an economy based on atoms versus an economy based on bits. 5 We are taxed and the market assigns value to the magazine we buy at the newsstand, but not on the content on the hard drive in our laptop. What would you say the value of your laptop is to you? Is it the $3000 ANALYZING THE COST OF MATERIAL IN TODAY'S GLOBAL ECONOMY, PART 3 " Then, what remains to explain the significant difference in material pricing for product assembly depending on where that assembly is done? "