Lessons for Life - June Issue of Scuba Diving

[fairybasslet]

:

I generally like this feature in Scuba Diving, and they don't often pull punches in placing blame generally with the diver whom is often dead as a results of his/her actions. In this case however I found the conclusions to be somewhat politically motivated.

ITA. I am usually one of the SD defenders when the bashing begins, but even I was kind of put off by the headline.

 

[fairybasslet]

I dropped Scubadiving a quick email, I would be surprised if they reply however.... I may get a call from my boss


To the Editor,



I was very disappointed with your article “Lessons for Life” in the June Issue of Scubadiving.



As an Instructor, Course Director and Professional Dive Industry Sales Manager I can not disagree more with the tone and apparent conclusions drawn.



There exists today dozens of Professional Local Dive Stores that have expanded their business model to include the internet. In society today any business that ignores the internet is not realistically and objectively doing market study and consumer buying analysis. To link the unfortunate dive to buying online is disingenuous and contrary to what I am sure the author intended, will have a negative impact on the credibility of your magazine. Divers are educated and computer savvy as industry demographic studies show. This article was a transparent effort to dissuade divers from making purchases online. While it is preferable for a diver to have a local dive shop that can service their needs for various tangible and intangible reason this is not always possible.



The dive example given was more indicative of a lack of training to handle the situation and poor quality control at the manufacturing level than because the diver purchased online.



I suspect this dive never took place and question the motives behind the printing of this article. Consumers and Local Dive Stores would be better served by having the industry encourage local dive stores to adapt to new costumer expectations than continuing to stick by the very misconceptions that have driven our divers to purchase online as opposed to locally.



Best,





Chris Richardson

Oceanic Southeast Regional Sales Manager

Excellent letter.

 

[Firefyter]

Funny thing.....Scubatoys hosted SD magazine's InTenCity's Dallas show last year, now they're taking swipes at Larry's main source of income.....just something that makes me go hmmmmmmm....

 

[jpcpat]

Chris,

That took some courage.

Hurray!! Someone finally noticed that the way divers do business has changed. I take MUCH more comfort in who the manufacturer is than who sold it to me. Granted, nobody is perfect, and it's my butt, so I test gear in "safe" conditions first. So how can a LDS compete with online retailers?

When I wanted to buy a reg, my LDS owner gave me a Delta 4 that was in his rental program.I used it for my AOW dives. Sweet Reg. I bought it from my LDS and love it. No online retailer can do that.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Unless of course your pool is briney-brew-filtered (vs Chlorinated)

Back to the original poster's point ...
I'm not even sure the testing of many newly manufactured items comes into play much anymore. For example, anything built with 6 SIGMA in the electronics or manufacturing industry applies quality to each component and to assembly ... such that for example every Sony device you plug into an electrical outlet in your home, is having juice applied for the very first time. And the failure rate is thousands of times lower than in the days when they pulled every 10th or 100th assembly off the line for testing, the times before such quality assurance processes. Not having the specifics of the background or cause in the case of this regulator, I'm sure the scuba industry still applies the testing of every X item in their manufacturing execution, which means mistakes and flaws still happen for the 99 items inbetween the tests.

As a manufacturing engineer of 15 years, where do I start? No...you couldn't be more wrong. 6 sigma is, for lack of a better description, a problem solving methodology that applies statistical tools that have been around just about forever.

The wide spread implimentation of statistical process and statistical quality control has not and never will negate the need for in process audits or the incomming insprction of recieved components. In fact without those instections (measurements) there won't be any statistics. Additionally, regardless of the SPC used or the measured capability of a product or process 100% functional testing of safety related products and components is still standard oporating procedure.

As some one who has been more than a little involved with 6 sigma implimentations and SPC, I'd love to see any data you have that shows a process or product that is thousands of times less failures than before such buzz words were around for us to fill our BS bingo cards with.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Anyone who does their FIRST DIVE on a reg in the ocean is a statistic waiting to happen. All new gear should get a dip in a pool FIRST before it goes into the briney brew.

A dip in a pool doesn't put a reg through anything that I can't put it through on the bench.

That said, any reg can fail at any time. The real answer hear is to have dive skills and/or redundant equipment such that your life doesn't depend on any single piece of equipment. If a free flow can kill you, there's a good chance that you won't have long to wait no matter how much pool diving you do.

 

[TheRedHead]

My LDS had several copies of that article laminated and displayed on their counters today.

 

[serambin]

The fact that you do so freely with your name associated with Oceanic speaks highly of both yourself and of Oceanic. I greatly look forward to the day when we awake to a brave new world where the scuba diving industry gets its collective head out of the "internet doesn't exist" hole and truly embraces the marketplace. Many may not believe this, but it will not only help the industry and the divers, but also the brick and mortar dive shops. Being allowed a free marketplace to compete on prices will help the overall health of the marketplace and give smart businesspeople an opportunity to thrive in their own niches.

I guess the problem in my mind is how the LDS structures its business model. If you remove profit from equipment, and I can't see how you pay the rent on air refills, the only way to stay in business is by charging a lot more for training. When I recertified with PADI, the cost for a three person class paid the instructor $600.00 for two ten hour days of classes. In our case, we provided the training class room and pool, so the instructor received a reasonable payment for his time. If on the other hand, the instructor paid for the heated pool and classroom, I do not belive he would have made $10.00 an hour. Frankly, I don't want training from a $10.00 an hour instructor, my life is just worth more to me than that.

If certification cost $1500.00 ( check out the cost of pilot training ) plus equipment, then the LDS could survive. My fear is that with a training cost so high, the number of divers would decrease to the point of making the dive industry so small that only a few LDS internet companys could make it.

The market place always wins in the end. The problem is that profit alone doesn't drive most "passion" sports and we depend on LDS, not only locally, but when we travel to remote destination.

Stan

 

[H2Andy]

well, it just seems to me that 90% of the people who say "Pay more for the
same thing at your LDS" is in some way related to a LDS

the other 10% are those rare individuals that have one LDS in a 100 mile
radius and really can't afford to let them go out of business or they'll have
nowhere to get airfills or get their equipment serviced

 

[CIBDiving]

My LDS had several copies of that article laminated and displayed on their counters today.

but isn't your LDS the one that loves to screw anybody who has gear they didn'y buy from Them?