De contenting is as much art as science and engineering, and Apple have moved to further their already very good grasp on the art (if a significantly lower grasp on the last attribute) - while Dell's designers have moved less competently and their engineers move more slowly. Apple's unibody design for example, despite being initially more expensive to tool up for, saves money in the end while increasing consumer perception of quality (regardless of how flawed the execution is, which it is).
Simplification (fewer parts) is always a good idea. It tends to lower costs, improves reliability, and even improve performance.
Unfortunately, that's not what I was referring to. More along the lines of:
1. Parts changed from the BOM developed in the design phase for lower cost units (not exact equivalents, or parts that don't meet spec, such as a lower grade) once manufacturing begins. Anything from resistors to SoC. Sometimes it happens due to zero availability (someone didn't order the parts, or the JIT scheduling failed again).
2. Poor assembly. Multiple issues here. Bad solder joints, as it was done too fast, mixed solder (mostly occurred during ROHS compliance), or the equipment wasn't set correctly (too cold). Bad batches of boards (etching wasn't clean). Humans aren't consistent... All of this is part of QC (assembly side).
3. Machining. In the cases of metal, the bits aren't replaced when worn, and it's being processed too fast. Parts won't meet tolerances, but get used anyway. In the case of polymers, dies are used past their service life, again, won't meet tolerance. Process it too fast, and you get shrinkage. Just as bad.
It ends up with parts that won't mate up properly.
4. Testing. It's too inadequate. A "power on" test is basically useless, if no other testing is performed. This seems to becoming commonplace, and product quality suffers for it.
5. Division. To me, this is a big one. The various phases of design, testing, manufacturing, and quality control don't communicate well, if at all. They aren't able to work hand-in-hand, as everything is farmed out to OEM/ODM's, usually as separate contracts. This prevents issues from being caught early, before making it into final products.
These events always seem to center on attempts to save money. Some of it's intentional, some by circumstance. My observations at least.
