DON’T MAKE ’EM LIKE THEY USED TO

Sloan gets the credit

Whether you’ve ever uttered the phrase “They don’t make ’em like they used to” truthfully or ironically, you’ve unknowingly espoused deep wisdom and highlighted a horrendous engineering practice that dates back almost a century. In fact, more than alive and well, this practice has been refined over decades to become standard in most major design and product engineering processes, albeit under different names. Once heralded as a breakthrough in design and economics, this practice now possesses a dark underbelly that adds to the ever-growing list of problems wreaking havoc on our environment and contributing to climate change.