Improving Communications With Machine Tool
Builders
You
just purchased a machine tool that doesn’t work well – is your
situation unique? Are you somehow special in getting this particular
machine?
Say what you want about Ralph Nader but his
pioneering for safer cars has resulted in the consumer driving a
better product.
Let’s consider machine tools and the
accessory equipment, bar feeds and indexers. Sometimes machine tool
companies release a new product that may not meet customer’s
expectations.
One example of this scenario -- a U.S.
builder of machining centers shipped in a new machine to an excited
customer who immediately went to town putting the machine into
production. The only problem was that the machine could not circle
mill a hole better that 0.003 out of true roundness. When the
installation engineer was challenged on this shortcoming, the
response was, “Wow, I’ve never seen this problem before. You are
the first company that has had this problem.”
I guess the customer purchased a machine
with a unique problem.
Another company was a dedicated and loyal
purchaser of a Japanese machine tool that is built in the USA. This
company purchased several similar machine models over several years,
so they were able to see the evolution and development of the
machine design. It was with some surprise that the latest and newest
machine was found to have a much smaller main motor than the
previous machines. When the machine tool builder was challenged on
this the reply came back that the newer motor, though smaller in
size, was superior in performance.
The smaller, superior motor did not live up
to the customer’s expectations. The motor failed during the first
year and was promptly replaced free of charge under warranty by the
machine tool company. The problem reoccurred during the second year
when the motor failed again and the customer had to purchase a
replacement unit from the machine tool company.
The above two examples illustrate a
long-standing situation where customer expectation are not met. The
machine tool industry relies on the fact that customers do not often
converse with other users. Most shop owners do not talk to other
users who may be their competition. The big companies can get
control of this situation over several plants but the smaller users
can only wonder if their experiences are unique or typical. |
The automobile industry has gone through major quality improvements
over the years due to the forced recalls of cars that did not
perform as expected. Take a look at the list of forced recalls that
are issued for automobiles.
It’s a different problem with a newly
installed machine tool. You cannot drive it back to the dealers like
you can with an unsatisfactory automobile. Once a machine tool is
rigged in and installed it’s a big deal to return it, so the
machine tool companies and the purchaser try to live with what they’ve
got.
Now I am not knocking machine tool
companies, we are all trying to provide a good service. However we
need more openness to problem solving. The line, “you are the only
company with this problem” wears a bit thin.
I would like to propose a solution to this
problem in the form of a new web site “www.machinetoolproblems.com”
where users can post their problems and compare notes with other
users. We know that there are always at least two sides to every
situation, so on this web site we will be pleased to list user
problems and responses from the machine tool companies.
In today’s industry where machine tools
are changing and evolving quickly the customer needs some redress if
the equipment does not live up to expectations.
We need a JD Power-type report for machine
tool satisfaction that will address this situation.
The whole industry will improve when
machine tool companies must live up to customer demands for superior
quality and better machine tools. If machine tool companies fail to
keep customers happy they will loose market share.
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So here
is the web site, try it out. Post and compare your experiences
and let’s see how the machine tool companies respond. After all,
it’s our customers that make us all better.
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