Speaking of boring and crisis, I solved a technical/engineering issue today, and that's not normally anywhere near my wheelhouse. But failing to solve it quickly would turn it into a big customer service issue, and customer service is where I live for these two weeks.
A customer wanted to replace a plastic bowl for a filter. The bowl is designed to catch filtered oil and deal it back to a metalworking machine in measured doses through the clever use of an automatic float switch.
I sold the guy up to a metal bowl; coolant in the air of the factory environment eats away at plastic quickly (and what does it do to people's lungs btw?) so the metal bowls last around 20x longer than the plastic.
The customer's big moneymaking machine is about to be shut down over this failing plastic bowl, so they order my metal bowl replacement next day air, the shipment of which costs twice as much as the bowl.
And that's typical low inventory, just-in-time maintenance logic: pay 5x more every year on next day air shipping than you would on extra inventory taxes if you'd instead kept some maintenance and repair items on hand.
So of course UPS screws up the next day air shipment and, without warning or explanation, takes 3 business days to deliver the bowl. A lot of these rush packages go on passenger flights, so I'm guessing the 'rona airline slowdown is causing less space to be available. Solution: fill the middle seats up with packages--but that's neither here nor there, and the passengers would probably end up swiping some.
Today, the customer calls me and tells me that his brand new metal bowl is spewing oil all over the factory floor. What do? I call the bowl mfg's tech support and they don't have the slightest scooby about what's causing the problem or how to fix it.
The owners at my old business
hate giving refunds and they especially
hate eating next day air shipments. So if I send another metal bowl next day air on our dime, I'm asking for trouble. And what if I send a second metal bowl, but there's a heretofore unknown difference between the plastic and metal bowls which makes them incompatible? That would mean sending a third bowl, plastic this time, next day air, and that would not be looked on with kindness by the owners of this business.
So I ask the customer to send me pics of his old plastic bowl. I get those and then I get to work, as I have the new plastic and metal bowls here in stock, along with pics of the old bowl: I'm going to try to play Spot the Difference.
The floating automatic drains look the same on both new and old bowls; but what do I know? There's only one little difference that I notice: the new plastic bowl has a plastic cap bolt below the drain that is screwed on tightly, and the new metal bowl has a metal cap bolt below the drain that is screwed on loosely.
What happens if my man tightens up the metal cap bolt on his new metal bowl and hooks it up to the pneumatic filter? Will that stop the oil spew, or will the pressure ramp up and blow the entire filter to splinters, spreading deadly metal shrapnel everywhere? I'd hate for it to be the latter, but it's the only functional difference I can spot between the metal and plastic versions, so...
I float the idea past the bowl mfg's tech support and they don't know nuthin. Here goes. I suggest to the customer that he tighten up the metal bolt and resist the urge to advise him to stand back at least 50 meters. And...it works! The machine's up and running, no more oil on the floor, and I don't have to send another bowl flying out through the stratosphere overnight.
Last edited by suitedjustice; 08-19-2020 at 04:38 PM.