Last week I received a call from a customer whose newly-supplied gearbox was making a very large noise during operation. After getting it back to the workshop, we found that one of the gears was not secured properly and was actually floating on the shaft. Luckily, there was not too much damage to the internals.
Looking back on the original job sheet revealed that the gearbox was required extremely urgently. This can only mean that the unit was not test-run at the factory. I know that we didn't test it when it came through our place as we had to get it straight to the customer for fitment.
When stuff is rushed mistakes are made. Unfortunately, stuff is going to get rushed all the time and limiting mistakes is an ongoing business.
Monday, 8 August 2011
Monday, 1 August 2011
The Various Skills Requirements in Mechanical Power Transmission Supply
The mechanical power transmission industry is very specialised, to the point where there is not a lot of crossover from other industries when sales is the key outcome.
Traditional methodology in recruiting people for the PT supply industry saw businesses training youngsters from scratch; giving them a solid grounding in every aspect of the sales process and developing product knowledge all the while. This is, however, a rather costly and time-consuming exercise, especially when the individual is not able to make the transition to becoming an effective salesperson.
Another school of thought has been to recruit ex-tradespeople (or those with either an electrical or mechanical engineering degree). This has also proven to be a bit hit-or-miss, as many skills required to be an effective engineer have little bearing on becoming an effective supplier. There is also the added disincentive of having to match equivalent wages which are invariably quite high.
Product knowledge is always of prime importance (as it is in most industries) but simply knowing your own product range is not enough: a solid understanding of all available supply options to a specific problem is required. This sort of understanding takes at least ten years to develop to an acceptable state, with three to five years a bare minimum.
Understanding customer requirements is just as difficult as knowing how to fulfill them, at times. This also takes a long time to harness and is one of the areas that the degree-holders have an advantage.
Good salespeople are very thin on the ground in the mechanical power transmission industry. The WA and Queensland mining boom only continues to draw evermore human resources.
Traditional methodology in recruiting people for the PT supply industry saw businesses training youngsters from scratch; giving them a solid grounding in every aspect of the sales process and developing product knowledge all the while. This is, however, a rather costly and time-consuming exercise, especially when the individual is not able to make the transition to becoming an effective salesperson.
Another school of thought has been to recruit ex-tradespeople (or those with either an electrical or mechanical engineering degree). This has also proven to be a bit hit-or-miss, as many skills required to be an effective engineer have little bearing on becoming an effective supplier. There is also the added disincentive of having to match equivalent wages which are invariably quite high.
Product knowledge is always of prime importance (as it is in most industries) but simply knowing your own product range is not enough: a solid understanding of all available supply options to a specific problem is required. This sort of understanding takes at least ten years to develop to an acceptable state, with three to five years a bare minimum.
Understanding customer requirements is just as difficult as knowing how to fulfill them, at times. This also takes a long time to harness and is one of the areas that the degree-holders have an advantage.
Good salespeople are very thin on the ground in the mechanical power transmission industry. The WA and Queensland mining boom only continues to draw evermore human resources.
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Reverse Engineering Run Amok: Chinese Gearbox Manufacturing.
Things are really coming to a head in the geared motor industry, as Chinese gearbox manufacturers continue to produce look-alike models and dump them on markets around the world. In Australia, copies of nearly every SEW-Eurodrive offering are being supplied as substitutes to the real thing, not as pass-offs but as explicit alternatives.
Not content with the SEW range, Motorvario wormboxes are rich pickings for the copiers, as are Cyclodrives and even Var-Spe units. Chinese manufacturers have reverse-engineered nearly every geared motor that is available on the market today.
Many gearbox brands are manufacturing components in China and importing them for local assembly, which manages to keep a handle on production quality. Unfortunately, the range of fully-imported copies is poor by comparison and I sincerely hope that customers do not suffer for it too soon.
Not content with the SEW range, Motorvario wormboxes are rich pickings for the copiers, as are Cyclodrives and even Var-Spe units. Chinese manufacturers have reverse-engineered nearly every geared motor that is available on the market today.
Many gearbox brands are manufacturing components in China and importing them for local assembly, which manages to keep a handle on production quality. Unfortunately, the range of fully-imported copies is poor by comparison and I sincerely hope that customers do not suffer for it too soon.
Friday, 22 July 2011
Why Fridays?
Why does every single Friday afternoon turn to mud after lunch? After a reasonably quiet day, all hell broke loose today at around 1400, with one customer requiring an urgent taxi, another an urgent point-to-point courier and another wanted something delivered after hours tomorrow.
I'm not going to link to anything corny about Fridays, such as this, this or, heaven forbid this, but it would be really handy if customers could break things on Monday or Tuesday mornings and give suppliers a one day heads up.
In the washup, not everything managed to get out as some of ATT's suppliers had knocked off early for a traditional Friday beer. One requires all of their diplomacy skills in relaying this information to the customer.
I'm not going to link to anything corny about Fridays, such as this, this or, heaven forbid this, but it would be really handy if customers could break things on Monday or Tuesday mornings and give suppliers a one day heads up.
In the washup, not everything managed to get out as some of ATT's suppliers had knocked off early for a traditional Friday beer. One requires all of their diplomacy skills in relaying this information to the customer.
Friday, 15 July 2011
Risk Management in the PT World
Yesterday (July 14th, 2011), the courier company Couriers Please had a technical meltdown which resulted in the inability to receive bookings - both on the phone and the internet.
All Torque uses Couriers Please for the majority of our daily pick ups for a number of reasons: they pick up and deliver three times per day, the pricing is reasonable and bookings are normally trouble-free.
It is only in times of crisis that one realises how much they rely on something. We had expected seven things to be coming in for customers, as well as two things going out, when we found that the Couriers Please system had failed. In desperation, we had to triage the most important jobs and organise point-to-point couriers to keep things coming in. This was only achieved well into the afternoon, when the Couriers Please website eventually gave word of the problems they were experiencing.
Couriers Please are normally quite reliable, but yesterday's delays proved that relying too much on one supplier can be hazardous. From now on, we will have to keep two courier companies on the hook for our business, cost economies of scale be damned.
All Torque uses Couriers Please for the majority of our daily pick ups for a number of reasons: they pick up and deliver three times per day, the pricing is reasonable and bookings are normally trouble-free.
It is only in times of crisis that one realises how much they rely on something. We had expected seven things to be coming in for customers, as well as two things going out, when we found that the Couriers Please system had failed. In desperation, we had to triage the most important jobs and organise point-to-point couriers to keep things coming in. This was only achieved well into the afternoon, when the Couriers Please website eventually gave word of the problems they were experiencing.
Couriers Please are normally quite reliable, but yesterday's delays proved that relying too much on one supplier can be hazardous. From now on, we will have to keep two courier companies on the hook for our business, cost economies of scale be damned.
Thursday, 7 July 2011
School Holidays - Fantastic!
Well, school holidays are playing havoc with the All Torque roster; with Craig already part way through his break and Greg about to enjoy two weeks on a Pacific island. Added to this is the bout of flu going around at the moment, with the occasional day off thrown in.
We run a fairly lean operation so any staff shortages require everyone else to step up. School holidays are great for the flow of traffic in the morning but for some reason there is no equivalent reduction in workload. Can anyone explain it?
We run a fairly lean operation so any staff shortages require everyone else to step up. School holidays are great for the flow of traffic in the morning but for some reason there is no equivalent reduction in workload. Can anyone explain it?
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Only the One Price Rise
All Torque has a range of suppliers, chiefly Bonfiglioli, Baldor, WEG, Flender, Warner, Comintec and PIV. Most of these are exclusive or shared distributorships and are important to our continued growth.
Of all of these, Baldor are the only supplier to have a "New Price List" for the new financial year. With most of the product range coming directly from the United States and the skyrocketing Australian dollar, it is a wonder that most of the Baldor offering has risen in price (there are some notable exceptions, where the price has actually reduced).
The question now is: how many suppliers have reduced their prices based upon the stong Australian dollar?
We have seen recently that bringing stuff in directly ex Europe or the States for one-off jobs has been quite lucrative for our customers. Many are buying in new equipment to replace existing that only two years ago they would never have dreamed of doing.
I'm sure the business to be in at the moment is international freight forwarding.
Of all of these, Baldor are the only supplier to have a "New Price List" for the new financial year. With most of the product range coming directly from the United States and the skyrocketing Australian dollar, it is a wonder that most of the Baldor offering has risen in price (there are some notable exceptions, where the price has actually reduced).
The question now is: how many suppliers have reduced their prices based upon the stong Australian dollar?
We have seen recently that bringing stuff in directly ex Europe or the States for one-off jobs has been quite lucrative for our customers. Many are buying in new equipment to replace existing that only two years ago they would never have dreamed of doing.
I'm sure the business to be in at the moment is international freight forwarding.
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