I remember talking to a friend who provided maintenance for machinery in huge mining operations deep within the Earth. He explained to me the reason he paid so much for tools, as opposed to using Craftsman tools at a low price with a 100% guarantee.
He told me that if a tool broke on the job, that it would cost thousands and thousands of dollars in down time. So he paid a fortune for tools that almost never broke.
Before I had this conversation, I was ignorant, just as your post demonstrates that you are ignorant. But perhaps no longer.
Try to explain failure to an EEO type when it comes to contractors who don’t have the depth to cover failure... fact is, most contractors don’t have the depth to cover failure. Try explaining that to some piss-ant mba who wants to “push responsibility down to the contractor” and cut out the in-house project management, engineering and inspection functions.
That 100% guarantee to fix what is broken that a contractor or supplier did just isn’t enough many times. Sure, you can replace the ratchet but can you replace all that lost production?
In some cases nobody can afford failure and so you do all you can to manage the risk of it as low as possible every day without becoming absurd.
We have been at insanity and stupidity for a long time, it is just that we have so much of it now.
My late Dad was a project engineer just like I was. He had a little desk sign triangle that had three things on it:
1. “Not a good day, be warned”
2. “Great day, sit a spell”
3. “Anything is possible for he who has not to do it”
#3 was frequent
#2 was not unusual
#1 was seldom but serious