HIT AND RUN service calls

[JR2ALTA]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

I see it as cyclical. Service managers should only give tech reports monthly or quarterly. PITA PMs and quickies have a way of evening out.

The best way to hit 5,6,7 calls on average is to have a dispatcher who knows the city! (we don't have territories, so it's especially important for us)

[Ianizer]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

... Or to have good techs self-managing their own territories, JR.

Thanks for the Like, d7.
Ironically enough, if enough field grunts continue to refuse to take personally the success of the great big company handing out the paychecks, revenue will decline so that Mother will be paying the bill when we all move back home...

Lol... Okay, that was a stretch.

Or was it?

-I

[fixthecopier]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

I may be the master of the hit and run service call, but I have good reason. If you take my 300 plus military machines as an example, I have only a small handful that are used to their full extent.I have 3 and a half year old Bizhub 600's that have not reached their 250,000 pm mark. I have Bizhub 250's and 350's that are not to the 100,000 mark yet. Calls are usually simple stuff, or it is really broke and needs a power supply, but only has 20 or 30 thousand copies on it. Now let me state that no one uses more parts than I do, year after year. People will comment that the machine has not had a PM since it was new, and I will reply the Bizhub 350 only has 45,000 on it, and it is still like new.Aside from knocking the dust off the outside, what else would you do. Now when I am off base I seem to be following techs who love to zero counters without changing parts, and that is one way I run up my parts usage. I do have a Bizhub 600 that does 5000 every day and every 500,000 I do a complete rebuild. 3,000,000 copies and it runs like a top. So aside from dusting it, how do you guys and ladies handle service on copiers that will never reach their first drum change?

[Hemlock]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

90% of my machines go PM to PM.

Ever notice how every tech says this?

[prntrfxr]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

I'd say, from a perspective of balance, maybe you could say you service a machine as if it's your mother's -- and your mother is paying the bill.

Great perspective and in most cases it probably would work when we're speaking of caring. Be balanced and care about the client, is basically what you're trying to say. In my case, "If you had to pay for the repair, would you do it?" would be a better perspective.

If I was working on my mother's machine it would have to look new by the time I was done. If I worked on my dad's, he would ask me if it was going to cost him extra for cleaning the exterior, because if it did, I should leave the dirt right where it is.

Growing up at my house, I, my mom was the one who always said, "If you can't do it right, don't do it at all..." followed by a couple of phrases to the fact that anyone who can't do it right was a useless excuse for a human being and no use to society at all. She taught us that we don't do a MacGuyver, we buy the appropriate part and fix it right the first time. She taught me to take pains and have pride in my work. It is a work ethic that has served me well throughout the years.

My dad, on the other hand, was the one who taught us, "if it's not broke, don't fix it" (we're yankees so ain't was not in his vocabulary) followed by, "that's good enough", "got any duct tape?", and "if you jiggle it a bit you can get it to work, see?" My dad was king of the MacGyver technique.

He sent me to get a Sunday paper at the store and gave me 50 cents. He didn't believe me when I told him it was over a dollar. My mom asked him for a dime once and he asked her, "what do you need it for?" (Think about your wives for a minute and you know that turned into an argument. ) Until I met my boss, I believed he was the cheapest man in the world. But I learned that, you can fix things for the short term using a variety of tricks and sometimes these fixes can last a long time. This has helped me get clients up an running, until parts could be ordered. I have impressed a few clients, who like my dad, didn't want to put that much money on their machine, but didn't want to buy a new one either.

The problem is that no matter where I go or what I do, I have one of them on each of my shoulders critiquing my work. It is sometimes difficult keeping them both happy. I can't tell you how many times I've elected to do the quick fix or not to replace something and I hear my mother's voice all the way home. "You know you should have changed that part. You're going to be right back here next week. The client is going to think you don't know what you're doing. How can you look at yourself in the mirror, knowing you didn't change that part." or I hear my dad's voice when I've changed some things before it was their time, "That was just wasteful. You didn't need to change it. Too expensive."

It is one of the fun parts of our job. It will always be, so just deal with it. Perfect balance is impossible. Some waste will happen and some errors in judgement of how long something will last will too. The main rule of thumb is: If you change a pick-up roller, change the feed and sep roller too. If you change a roller that has a sep pad up against it, change the roller and the pad at the same time. If you're changing rollers and the fuser looks good but you're near PM time, bring to the client. Tell them what you're doing if you leave it. If they say, no go ahead and change it or that's okay leave it, it is their decision. You did your job of letting them know, so they can't come back and complain later. Mark it on your service sheet. (Example: "Fuser looks good but near PM count by 1,000 pages. notified client. Client chose to wait for failure. Replaced rollers. Tested Good") When the client signs, you have a copy that they agreed to decline the extra stuff. (Sorry for the book, but I'm never short of words.)

[mo0651]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

We had a tech that just seemed he couldn't take a cleaning rag to any dust anywhere on the machine! Tested the machine with like 1 test copy! Seemed like he refused to look at the jam counters. Of course he could hit 5-8 machines a day. The same 5-8 machines within the next week! Old manager didn't think anything about it. Old manager gone, a little re-training, you know, make him clean up his own crap. He's doing great keeping parts usage down and customer expectations high! Still have to tell him to take cleaning rag out once in a while, but much better!

[prntrfxr]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

We had a tech that just seemed he couldn't take a cleaning rag to any dust anywhere on the machine!

I had a tech that had a vacuum he refused to use in a machine. We had vacuuming out the machine as part of our service contract. We found out from a client one day that he opened the top of a printer and blew (yes folks, with his own pucker) into it to clear the toner out. Client was all upset. Felt he should get a discount on his service since "our techs weren't doing their job." The next morning I asked all the techs to bring in their vacuums. I told them it was vacuum filter inspection time. He was the only one with a brand new looking filter in it. After a discussion of why we should use our vacuums I sent them out. I waved him over and we had a private chat. Needless to say, he used his vacuum pretty regular after that. I also began doing surprise ride-alongs to make sure things were getting done right.

[mo0651]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

Hilarious printfixer!!!! That is this techs other problem. Averaging 1 vacc filter a week. Seems to suck all developer out of dev. units!
The rest of us dump first and then vacc up the remainder. Not him. When the vacc is running it runs for what customers say is about 1 HOUR!! His excuse....." the vaccuum got heavy to carry."

[JR2ALTA]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

I use it for developer, but I empty it many times before I replace it.

[habik]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

This is a thing that really annoys me. You get two types of engineer on a team, one type that "hits and runs" and the other type that services and repairs a machine properly. You follow a "hit and run" engineer in, print off the SMC and the machine needs half of it replacing. It makes it slightly easier when the call repeats on them and you get the satisfaction of knowing you have repaired the machine properly and keeping the machine running.

The flip side is you can't do anything about the HAR's. Their figures look fantastic on paper, 6-7 calls a day, barely any repeats, no return to fits because they fix the machine to a standard where it doesn't repeat for a week, usually with glue and sellotape. Those of us who follow these assholes in usually end up lumbered with an RTF or several hours work to sort it out.

As someone once said, there's no I in team, just lazy bastards.

Fully Agree.

..and I don't care I am sticking to my do it once and proper.. carry for call out as much stock as I need in case I really need it. Had the incident when a lot of machines went out and my boss was helping me and there and then it happened, for him to find out actually what a how it is done. Now he knows 100% that hit and run and do it proper is a hell of a difference. One downside to this kind of work is YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN FIX THINGS...as you have few RTF's in a year not a month or a week..and the lazy c.nts get still away with it.

so in my particular case I have 3 options:

1, Take over my managers positions and change structure of work and as FORD used to do it. bottom 10% gets fired...so if you do 100 calls and 10 are RTF..you are shit.

2, Beat the c.ap out of the one who was 3 times there before you and still did not bother to have a proper look and do a proper fix.

3, Start my own company, be my own boss and if I hire someone then the above would be applied at all times.

..and I can tell you it took me a year to get my college's to bring back to base at least status jam/service prints so whoever comes back from call at least next person has a chance to get on track without RTF.

But I still Love it. Feel superior ...sometimes

[blanka]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

As a copier tech you have pride in your work but at the end of the day employers always look favourbaly at the techs who spend the least on parts and talk the most crap. To fix a mach properly even when streching parts takes alot of experience. Its all about the figures. To put it bluntly, where i am, my employer thinks the tech that does the most calls and spends the least money on parts is the best tech but if you factor that they attend to the same mach at least 3 times as much to do the same job which should of been done in the first place. According to me, i spend a little longer on my machs but have to go there less times but am quiet most to the times. They think when we are quiet we are not making money. I think when we quiet we are making money as we are on service agreements. I am at the point where i do what they think is best even though i dont agree. Its their business in the end. Sux to be them

[jonezy999]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

They think when we are quiet we are not making money. I think when we quiet we are making money as we are on service agreements.

My boss says, if us techs are joking around in the work shop with no calls to attend, then the customer is happy, the machine is running and best of all, the machine is making money. Similar thing if the workshop is a total mess, he knows us techs are flat out getting to calls and it will get cleaned up before we start joking around again.
All in all, it's a great place to work here, pretty much left to our own discretion for parts replacement. Never been hounded about spending too much money on parts or time on machines.

[fixthecopier]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

i totally wore out my first vac, and made them buy me a new one 2 years ago that looks like shit and usually has a pound of toner in it, I am sure I would pass prntrfxr's inspections. My manager keeps complaining about the amount of paper shop towels I use, and I remind her it is because I am cleaning things.

I found the service managers vac, that he has had since before I was employed there, left at a call I was following him on. Nice clean and tidy to be that old.....just saying!

[Dark Helmet]

Re: HIT AND RUN service calls

Ever notice how every tech says this?

You cant?

[Ianizer]

Just ask Alice... when she's ten feet tall...

You cant?

All of mine do. All of them. In fact, what I fix stays fixed. Forever. I'm pretty sure a lynch mob is forming as we speak. It's a curse, really...

Lord, it's hard to be humble...

-I