Column # 59 - Service Expectations Take a Beating

Ok, so let’s go back to our tale of woe. Mid-year 2000… someone finally decided to do the unthinkable and simply listen to our customers. Our customers were telling them, loud and clear and no uncertain terms, that closing Delta’s 800 line was a huge mistake. Just to recap, in 1983 Delta had created an 800 line (800-223-7278, aka; 800-BAD-PART) to service their customers. By calling that one number, the customer could get anything done, be it order parts, get Technical Service, ask an obscure question about a 50yr old machine, complain about anything, or…well, you get the idea. That little number was THE connection between Delta and the customer… and one of the first things those in charge of the “merger” had done was cut it off. The phone system was re-targeted so that, depending on where the caller was calling from, their call would then be routed to the nearest Porter-Cable/Delta service branch, who would handle their service needs. All well and good…on the surface. But then the differences in the two businesses began to show its face. As I related above, “service” was only one aspect of Delta’s 800 line, and while we are on ‘service’, there were some startling differences in the definition of that word between Porter-Cable and Delta. For instance, the PC service branches kept a pretty good stock of replacement parts at each branch. Not too hard to do with small portable tool parts. It’s a far different story when dealing with large stationary machine parts- there simply wasn’t enough room inside the branches to store it all. So the deal was that the branches had their parts stock and each week they would receive one of those huge export boxes shipped to them to replenish their supply. That worked great for them and their customers…on the other hand Delta had no service branches just a 200,000 sq.ft. warehouse in Memphis. So when a customer called and needed a part, it was shipped out to them directly, no waiting. If it was a warranty item, the customer usually had it in 2-3 days, depending on the urgency of the situation. Now, with the closing of the Memphis 800 line, customers immediately discovered a few things: their call no longer went to Delta Memphis; their parts had to be shipped to the service branch first, then to them; and (bless their little hearts) the people who answered the re-routed 800 lines were practically clueless about most things Delta. Many of these callers were long-time Delta customers and the perception (which actually WAS reality in this case) was that the “merger” had just dumped Delta customers out in the cold, without a lifeline.

Send your questions or comments to:

Toolsmartz@bellsouth.net and we’ll see what we can do to help you.
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Any views or opinions presented in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this newspaper. Neither the author, nor this newspaper, accepts any liability for the content of this article, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided.

Column # 58 - Take a breather…for now

Ok let’s take a short break from the tale specifics of the disastrous, so-called “merger” of Porter-Cable and Delta International. I think it’s time to re-affirm that my story does not necessarily cast a bad light on all aspects of this fiasco. Yes, the overall event was indeed, a fiasco and it hurt many, many employees; it ran off our customers and killed two very well-fed cash cow companies. On the other hand, it brought some new life into a few stagnant careers (mine included) and brought some folks together, that would have never otherwise met. In my case, my new boss at P-C/D turned out to be an outstanding friend and mentor. One of my new co-workers was friendly enough to strike up a conversation with the ‘new guy’ when we were on a sales meeting trip to Las Vegas and we became golfing buddies and remain very good friends until this day. Lastly, but absolutely not “least”, I met my wife when I relocated to Jackson and had this “merger” not happened I’m sure that would not have occurred. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.
I was telling one of the guys who used to work for me about my series of stories and he told me about an event that I was unaware of. It seems that the CEO of the new “Pentair Tools Group” (and this guy was one of the MAJOR architects of this “merger” – he also lost his job because of the results…or lack thereof) was in the new-fangled PC-D warehouse one day and he was standing at the bottom of one of the slides that I told you about- remember those, they started at the top of the warehouse and slid down 25 feet below, ending at a pack-out table- well, there he was, with his back to the slide and a 50lb box of nailgun nails started coming down the slide…gaining speed and momentum all the way. Just like those 80lb motors I told you about, the box of nails hit the rubber surface of the pack-out table…and…not just ‘went tumbling’…it literally exploded! Blew apart… and threw 2.5 inch-long nails EVERYWHERE…including all over the back of the head honcho. It wasn’t long after that until the slides got a conveyor-belt covering and everything just kind of moseyed down the slides...aww shoot, no more lunchtime entertainment.
I guess the main point of this week’s column is that while there were some honest-to-goodness cost savings and logistical benefits that could have been realized from combining SOME aspects of the two companies, the method of how it was ultimately done and the personal motives behind the way it was done shot most all of the positive possibilities down the tubes.

Send your questions or comments to:

Toolsmartz@bellsouth.net and we’ll see what we can do to help you.
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Any views or opinions presented in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this newspaper. Neither the author, nor this newspaper, accepts any liability for the content of this article, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided.

Column #57 - Is it really THAT heavy?

Well, from the tumbling, rumbling of an 80 lb motor free-sliding down a ramp and then blowing out across the warehouse floor, we have this tendency; let’s say that as the parts come to the down ramp and there are parts backed all the way up the ramp. This keeps the motor from sliding down…it just follows the chain of parts to the bottom rather slowly. Once it gets there, the packout person puts the 80lb motor box into that big ‘ol 4x4 export box that’s full of parts for the Service Branches. Under that heavy motor was bandsaw blades, motor brushes, envelopes of small parts, etc. Do I need to describe the condition of those small parts after being squashed by a heavy motor for hundreds of miles? I think you get the idea. There was no telling how many tens of thousands of dollars of product had to be junked because of damage like this. There again, in the minds of the ‘new guys’…the computer ‘told us how the stuff had to go in the export box’- instead of treating the Warehouse system as a TOOL, they treated it as the Master…and it cost us dearly. One could make a good case, that neither Porter-Cable nor Delta ever recovered from this fiasco.

So OK, after several months of time (like 6 or 8), extra computer professionals being brought in, the P-C Distribution VP losing his job (as he should have), the President of the new Porter-Cable/Delta losing his job (as he should have), we FINALLY started shipping…sort of rationally. Parts were getting out and they had the light-weight stuff on TOP of the heavy stuff, we sort of settled down…or so we thought.

Oh, as a side note, us Tech Guys had our Tech-Lab in the warehouse, right outside our office…underneath that overhead conveyor that contained all those parts that were headed to the down ramps. Well, we would be out there working and all of a sudden we hear a CRASH, right beside us. We looked around and there on the floor was an 8 lb router inside its box.
What tha???
As it turned out, the conveyor would fill up with items headed to packout and things would stack up and jam up and eventually something would jump the side rails and come crashing down at us. We had several close calls and it finally led to us placing a trapeze net under the conveyor, over our Lab area, to catch the incoming missiles. What “fun” that was…

More of the continuing adventure, next week.

Send your questions or comments to:

Toolsmartz@bellsouth.net and we’ll see what we can do to help you.
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Any views or opinions presented in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this newspaper. Neither the author, nor this newspaper, accepts any liability for the content of this article, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided.

Column #56 - Yes, Martha, there IS a difference..

So we left last week by mentioning that Delta means stationary machines and Porter-Cable means portable power tools…the largest part of a P-C tool was maybe the body of a Porta-BandSaw. Weight maybe 6 to 8 lbs or so. On the Delta side, there were many 60 to 80lb motors, castings that could be 200lbs, stuff like that. So, we mentioned this huge box that ALL of these parts are going into…at the same time, to be shipped out to the Service Branches. [I need to inject a detail about the way the warehouse was made. Remember it was state-of-the-art. There were several ‘picking stations’ scattered around the warehouse. The pickers would pull the product from the rack/bin, place it on the ramp, where it would then go up to a track that was around the top of the warehouse (app. 25 feet up in the air). From there, it would ride the conveyor belt around to the front of the warehouse, where it would run into several down ramps that let the scanners direct it to the right packout station down on the warehouse floor. I think there were 8 packout stations along the front.] So, here come the parts along the belt, the system would direct & deflect the item to the proper down ramp and the part would slide down the ramp to be met by a packer who would then put it into the export box.

Now, get the picture of a 6lb part sliding down one of these slides. The slide is polished metal and it ends at floor level to be stopped by a rubber-covered packout table. All well and good for that 6lb part…but what do you suppose happens when the part is an 80lb electric motor? I’ll tell you what happened…the motor went sliding down the ramp-uh, gaining speed all the way-and when it hit the rubber, the bottom of the motor’s box stopped…but the top kept right on going. In case it’s not clear, this is better known and a ‘tumbling box, with an 80lb motor inside it’. Yep, the boxed-up motor proceeded to start flipping and rolling with all of its might and then flew out across the warehouse floor. Scratch one 300-400$ motor…oh, and anything else that might have been in its way…including worker’s ankles.

If this had been an isolated incident, it might have just been ‘one of those things’, but it got so commonplace that it was our lunchtime entertainment.

Pretty sad, huh? Well, it just gets more ‘interesting’.…

Send your questions or comments to:

Toolsmartz@bellsouth.net and we’ll see what we can do to help you.
_______________________________________________________________
Any views or opinions presented in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this newspaper. Neither the author, nor this newspaper, accepts any liability for the content of this article, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided.