Fulcrum
10-22-2015, 08:25 PM
This week I landed the service work for a "new" customer (4 mills under a larger umbrella and I'm in one already). After speaking with the operators to learn the issues that they have been fighting with (primarily delivery times) I took a nice size load back to the shop.
After spending a good hour cleaning what I brought back, I start the usual routine of inspecting to see what needs to be done. 2 hours later over a third of the work has been marked and put off to the side as scrap (don't want to spend the customer's money on junk). These blades were so bad that I had to open up my specs so that I didn't pull every blade out of service.
Now, what makes this story worse is that these blades were last serviced (over the past 12-18 months) by a "professional" CNC shop. Every. Single. Problem ... on these blades was caused by poor quality control in the "professional" CNC shop. Mismatched clearance on teeth, too low clearance, flex in setup pushing the tooth away from wheel when grinding resulting in a convex shape rather than a smooth taper, special carbide wiper slot to clear sawdust that was wider than the the tooth, finishes that were so rough I could count the ridges with my fingernail (used to fail tooling that had this appearance under a 40x microscope), etc. Worst of all, these blades had their diameters reduced by up to 5/8" (16mm for those who use metric) and would no longer make a full depth cut. Things were so bad that I went beyond frustration and started laughing (maybe I should see a shrink about that) and almost feel ashamed to call them a competitor.
Am I allowed to invoice the other shop for wasting my time, my customer's money, and severely gimping the throughput that my customer needs to produce so they remain competitive?
After spending a good hour cleaning what I brought back, I start the usual routine of inspecting to see what needs to be done. 2 hours later over a third of the work has been marked and put off to the side as scrap (don't want to spend the customer's money on junk). These blades were so bad that I had to open up my specs so that I didn't pull every blade out of service.
Now, what makes this story worse is that these blades were last serviced (over the past 12-18 months) by a "professional" CNC shop. Every. Single. Problem ... on these blades was caused by poor quality control in the "professional" CNC shop. Mismatched clearance on teeth, too low clearance, flex in setup pushing the tooth away from wheel when grinding resulting in a convex shape rather than a smooth taper, special carbide wiper slot to clear sawdust that was wider than the the tooth, finishes that were so rough I could count the ridges with my fingernail (used to fail tooling that had this appearance under a 40x microscope), etc. Worst of all, these blades had their diameters reduced by up to 5/8" (16mm for those who use metric) and would no longer make a full depth cut. Things were so bad that I went beyond frustration and started laughing (maybe I should see a shrink about that) and almost feel ashamed to call them a competitor.
Am I allowed to invoice the other shop for wasting my time, my customer's money, and severely gimping the throughput that my customer needs to produce so they remain competitive?