Fun with TCOPAUL GILLINAs reported in ComputerWorld, September 1, 1997, www.computerworld.com |
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Fun with TCOPAUL GILLINAs reported in ComputerWorld, September 1, 1997, www.computerworld.com |
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| There's been a lot of talk about total cost
of ownership (TCO) lately, but I think it's been way too focused on computers.
With this being Labor Day and everyone focused on those important people
costs, I thought I'd see how some of the TCO metrics hdd up in real life.
I picked my coffee pot. The results will shock you. The TCO of coffee is totally out of control. I'm a six cup-per-day coffee addict. So I broke down my workload: It takes me six minutes to grind the beans and make a pot of coffee first thing in the morning. Two refills are four minutes each (there's a flight of stairs involved). Add two minutes looking for a misplaced coffee cup. At 16 minutes per day times about 185 home days per year, I will spend 76 hours in 1987 on coffee. At work, I drink three cups daily at roughly three minutes each. Add two minutes rummaging through the refrigerator searching for half-and-half. |
Weekly cup cleaning adds three minutes. That's
about an hour per week times 31 weeks in the office. A pound of coffee a
month adds $72 per year.If I replace the coffeemaker biennially, kick in
$7. Figuring a reasonable $40 per hour for my time, my annual cost of ownership
of coffee comes out to $4,399, or $12.05 per day. Equally striking, the cost
of the hardware (the pot) and software (the beans) is less than 0.4% of the
total. It's the 108 hours of annual hidden labor costs that kill me.
The good news is that the TCO of most consumer items isn't nearly as bad as it is for coffee. When you calculate time and cleaning charges, for example, each dress shirt costs me a modest $8 per year to wear. The cost of spilling coffee on the shirt? I don't want to think about it. Clearly, the TCO of coffee is way out of whack. I think it's time for the coffee industry to address this outrageous expense. Or maybe I'll just switch to tea. |
