You’ve possibly noticed that this column was missing in action for the past few weeks. There’s a reason for that. When one’s only computer decides to take a nose dive into the dirt…it causes a person to become dead in the water as far as writing columns, doing resumes, getting club newsletters finished...or…anything else that I used to do with the silly thing.
But you know, even in the midst of such a devastating event, one that I am quite sure our own Ken Ivey could use for a column idea (ie: “Have Enough Sense to BACK YOUR FILES UP”- actually I did...it was last August, tho.), I have seen God’s Hand at work once again. A friend of mine that I have known for the past 39 years found out that I would be in Jackson, TN a few weeks ago and he was absolutely adamant about meeting with me. So, we met at the Old Country Store for breakfast and had a real good time. As we were finishing up, he said, ‘stick your hand out’, so I did… and he stuffed some folded up money into my palm. He said. “Here, God says to give this to you.” Of course, I was a bit confused and said so. So then he said
”Look, what you do with it is your business, all I know is that, as sure as I am sitting here talking to you, God spoke to me and told me to give this to you - and He even told me how much.” Well, I just put the money in my pocket and we finished our breakfast and went on. Later, on the way back to the ‘boro, I looked at what he had given me and it was 7 one hundred dollar bills. Unbelievable. Ok, so I get home and like any good husband (right fellers?) I tell my wife what happened. Our dilemma was, ‘yes, we have some things that we could use the money for… but what if God knows that something is coming and we will need this for that?’ So, we decided to just stick it back and see what developed. This was on April 2nd.
On Friday night, April 8th, I came home from work and got ready to do my Reader column…and…got the dreaded Microsoft blue screen of death. I kid you not…less than ONE WEEK after getting an unexpected financial blessing. After trying everything that I could to save the computer and try to recover the data…there was no alternative but to go buy a new one… and I will only say that the cost of the new one left me with about 40 dollars. Yes, my God is an Awesome God!
Send your questions or comments to:
Toolsmartz@bellsouth.net and we’ll see what we can do to help you.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Column # 61 - Evidence of Sanity after all 3/31/11
You might notice agap between when I wrote these and when they now appear on my blog.
That's because my computer blew up in April and this blog has been far down the list of things to recreate. I was reminded that I actually do have an audience, so here we go, getting this thing caught back up... T
Now, let’s see, where were we...oh yea, the meeting with the VP…well, maybe this needs a bit of background. As I told you, the ‘powers that were’ got so tired of getting beat up by customers and dealers for shutting down the Delta Hotline that they finally decided to create a new one in Jackson.
Since I was from Memphis and used to work very closely with, and support the 800 group, I was heavily involved in passing on some knowledge about how to best set it up. Evidently the new VP was impressed and asked me if I wanted the job of managing the new call center. Early on, my response was “Well sure, I’ll manage that and Tech Service…” but he cut me off at the knees when he said “Oh no, that would be too much for one person to handle. If you take the call center, and I REALLY do want you to, you’d have to leave Tech Service.” After a couple of weeks, he finally cornered me and told me that he needed an answer the next day. Well, after over 20 years of being ‘Mr. Tech Service’…it was not an easy choice…THAT was why I was up all night. But I will testify to this, most of the night was spent praying and asking God, ‘what do I do?’
So dawn comes, as it always does…but during the night, the peace came and I knew what I needed to do. Here we go, meeting about 8:30. I went in and sat down and he asked for my decision and I laid it out on the table… “I just can’t do that…and here’s why. I AM Tech Service, I’ll manage the Tech group AND the call center, but I can’t leave Tech. Everyone who knows Delta, knows Tom and I don’t care if you hid me in a broom closet, if they needed some knowledge that I have, they would find me. So I’d have two jobs any way you look at it and you’d only be paying me for one…you just need to let me take them both’ Well, he didn’t go for that, but he did ask me who would I get to manage it and I told him that I had been talking to Delta’s former 800-line manager and she was interested in coming to talk to them. As time went on, that was exactly what happened. Delta’s former call center manager moved to Jackson and created a new department. I was tasked with getting them enough training that they could handle all but the most Technical calls. The beauty of this is that all I had to do was drag out my old Memphis training files and update them slightly. They were good to go.
Send your questions or comments to:
Toolsmartz@bellsouth.net and we’ll see what we can do to help you.
_______________________________________________________________
That's because my computer blew up in April and this blog has been far down the list of things to recreate. I was reminded that I actually do have an audience, so here we go, getting this thing caught back up... T
Now, let’s see, where were we...oh yea, the meeting with the VP…well, maybe this needs a bit of background. As I told you, the ‘powers that were’ got so tired of getting beat up by customers and dealers for shutting down the Delta Hotline that they finally decided to create a new one in Jackson.
Since I was from Memphis and used to work very closely with, and support the 800 group, I was heavily involved in passing on some knowledge about how to best set it up. Evidently the new VP was impressed and asked me if I wanted the job of managing the new call center. Early on, my response was “Well sure, I’ll manage that and Tech Service…” but he cut me off at the knees when he said “Oh no, that would be too much for one person to handle. If you take the call center, and I REALLY do want you to, you’d have to leave Tech Service.” After a couple of weeks, he finally cornered me and told me that he needed an answer the next day. Well, after over 20 years of being ‘Mr. Tech Service’…it was not an easy choice…THAT was why I was up all night. But I will testify to this, most of the night was spent praying and asking God, ‘what do I do?’
So dawn comes, as it always does…but during the night, the peace came and I knew what I needed to do. Here we go, meeting about 8:30. I went in and sat down and he asked for my decision and I laid it out on the table… “I just can’t do that…and here’s why. I AM Tech Service, I’ll manage the Tech group AND the call center, but I can’t leave Tech. Everyone who knows Delta, knows Tom and I don’t care if you hid me in a broom closet, if they needed some knowledge that I have, they would find me. So I’d have two jobs any way you look at it and you’d only be paying me for one…you just need to let me take them both’ Well, he didn’t go for that, but he did ask me who would I get to manage it and I told him that I had been talking to Delta’s former 800-line manager and she was interested in coming to talk to them. As time went on, that was exactly what happened. Delta’s former call center manager moved to Jackson and created a new department. I was tasked with getting them enough training that they could handle all but the most Technical calls. The beauty of this is that all I had to do was drag out my old Memphis training files and update them slightly. They were good to go.
Send your questions or comments to:
Toolsmartz@bellsouth.net and we’ll see what we can do to help you.
_______________________________________________________________
Column #60 - Where did the Knowledge go? 3/26/11
So, here sat the customer; calling a place they hadn’t done business with; talking to people who had no clue as to what they were needing; and not being able to get the same level of response from the new organization that they had been used to…is it any wonder they complained to high heaven and took their business elsewhere if they could? I could not blame them.
Now, lest it seems like I am dissing the service branch employees, allow me to explain. These were Porter-Cable service branches. These folks were PORTER-CABLE experts. They KNEW their PC stuff…but they were NOT Delta experts. Delta had always used PC as Authorized Service Centers for service and there were a few branches that had folks in them who really wanted to learn Delta stuff (the Chicago, Kansas City and Dallas branches come to mind). Consequently, those branches faired better when Delta business got dumped on them, than some of the others did. But most of the branch people looked on Delta as an albatross around their neck…and even if they didn’t, they simply did not have the Delta experience that the customer expected them to have.
We even went so far as to have some ‘Train The Trainer’ classes in Jackson (conducted by yours truly) that were designed to show them the machines, how to troubleshoot them, and give them a very good reference manual that contained much of that ‘obscure information’ that customers usually asked for...then they were to return to their branch and pass that knowledge on to the other folks. Again, some branches took to it like fish in water, and others took to it like a lead balloon in air.
On top of that, Delta Memphis had employees answering the 800 line that had been there for years and years. It was a great place to work and employee turnover was very minor. Over the years, this was one of our best assets. Stay somewhere long enough and you absorb knowledge that you just can’t get in a class.
So, the customers complained, the selling dealers complained, company Presidents complained and finally… those in charge listened. In the fall of 2000 the decision was made to re-staff the Delta 800 line and house it in Jackson. Finally, a good, logical decision in the middle of all of this hoopla… I was approached about heading up the call center, but it meant giving up my role as Technical Support Manager and after a sleepless night, I went into a meeting with the VP in charge of the effort… and next week, I’ll tell you how that went.
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.
Now, lest it seems like I am dissing the service branch employees, allow me to explain. These were Porter-Cable service branches. These folks were PORTER-CABLE experts. They KNEW their PC stuff…but they were NOT Delta experts. Delta had always used PC as Authorized Service Centers for service and there were a few branches that had folks in them who really wanted to learn Delta stuff (the Chicago, Kansas City and Dallas branches come to mind). Consequently, those branches faired better when Delta business got dumped on them, than some of the others did. But most of the branch people looked on Delta as an albatross around their neck…and even if they didn’t, they simply did not have the Delta experience that the customer expected them to have.
We even went so far as to have some ‘Train The Trainer’ classes in Jackson (conducted by yours truly) that were designed to show them the machines, how to troubleshoot them, and give them a very good reference manual that contained much of that ‘obscure information’ that customers usually asked for...then they were to return to their branch and pass that knowledge on to the other folks. Again, some branches took to it like fish in water, and others took to it like a lead balloon in air.
On top of that, Delta Memphis had employees answering the 800 line that had been there for years and years. It was a great place to work and employee turnover was very minor. Over the years, this was one of our best assets. Stay somewhere long enough and you absorb knowledge that you just can’t get in a class.
So, the customers complained, the selling dealers complained, company Presidents complained and finally… those in charge listened. In the fall of 2000 the decision was made to re-staff the Delta 800 line and house it in Jackson. Finally, a good, logical decision in the middle of all of this hoopla… I was approached about heading up the call center, but it meant giving up my role as Technical Support Manager and after a sleepless night, I went into a meeting with the VP in charge of the effort… and next week, I’ll tell you how that went.
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.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
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.
_______________________________________________________________
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.
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.
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.
_______________________________________________________________
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.
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.
_______________________________________________________________
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.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
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.
_______________________________________________________________
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.
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.
_______________________________________________________________
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.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
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.
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.
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