Archive for November, 2007

Thanksgiving stories

Steve Meyer
November 20th, 2007.

Anybody have any really bizarre holiday stories from the workplace? If so, drop me a line, I would like to read them.

Years ago I got a phone call on the Monday of Thanksgiving week from a guy that was looking for an obscure gear reducer for a stepping motor. It seems they were planning their annual maintenance shutdown and were going to pay triple for anyone who was willing to come in on Saturday after Thanksgiving to help with maintenance. The problem was, the customer had been looking for the gearbox on a major piece of plant machinery that needed to be replaced, and couldn’t find it.

I saw that there was one in our warehouse in New York City and asked our operations person to confirm that it was really there. I told the customer we could have it shipped by air to the nearest airport for pickup Tuesday afternoon, but it was going to be expensive. He authorized the extra cost for the special handling. It was picked up by courier late on Monday, delivered to a freight forwarder at LaGuardia airport in New York City and arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth airport Tuesday afternoon. Needless to say, the guy was ecstatic, and I got to do a lot of maintenance and repair orders for his company.

The special handling has come in handy many times over the years. But more importantly, I’ve been blessed with many opportunities to help people be successful in the workplace. Take a minute as you get ready for the holiday weekend to reflect on the opportunities you have had to make a difference in people’s lives.

No Comments

Ratings and Performance

Steve Meyer
November 08th, 2007.

I tend to rant a lot about manufacturer’s ratings. In future articles and posts I will address some of the analytical things that can help you make your applications successful. Manufacturers want to present their products in the best possible light.  But sometimes the real meaning of the ratings is obscured or manipulated.  So understanding the details becomes more important in achieving our end goal.

Will it work? Even before your project is approved, you will have to answer the question; will it work?

That’s the tough one. You can do all the paper analysis you want, but the only thing your client wants to know is; will it work? (anybody detecting an emerging theme here?)

Try asking your supplier; will it work? Watch the pupil dilation, you may want to put a blood pressure cuff on his (her) arm. Watch for the use of conditional phrases, such as “It should …” or “in my experience this is not a problem.” All you guilty parties (myself included) can raise your hands now. Yes, I’ve said things like that.

Better still, ask for a guarantee of specific performance, get a supplier to put it in writing that it will work! The next phone call you get will be from an attorney. Because this requires the supplier to commit. And there could be some liability involved if it doesn’t. Yes, I’ve done some of these types of contracts as a supplier. Thank God, they all worked. We got to charge extra for contingencies, but the customer was satisfied, because in the end, we did what we said we would do and the client got to make product 24/7, with no unscheduled downtime.

Its tough to guarantee anything in this life. Yes, death and taxes. But in our work life, we should all hope to be able to stand behind the work we do. Its hard to depend on others. But lets keep our eye on the real objective. Our jobs are, to make things work. When we make successful products, we all do better.

No Comments