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Check Out Our Website: www.TF7.com Newsletter Archives: Reliability Info Mgt.- Why Care? Managing Motor Reliability Managing Reliability Across the Corporation |
Dear Dick, News for EASA Repair Shops I'm hearing that holding on to good customers is tougher than ever with all the price competition out there today; why not join other EASA shops who are creating a sustainable market advantage by using Tango™ Repair Tracker to become an indispensable partner in their plant customer's Motor Management efforts. This month's article tells the story of one shop doing exactly that, doing something a little different to retain a major customer and building profitable business at the same time. Sincerely, Forrest Pardue, President 24/7 Systems, Inc.
EASA Shops Find New Profit Opportunities through Tango Repair Tracker
In a market where plant customers seem focused on low cost, how do you find a way to grow profitably? One strategy is to become an essential partner in your customer's equipment reliability effort. In 2006 Tennessee Armature & Electric in Knoxville, Tennessee faced such a challenge. The shop won the repair business for 6 Mohawk Industries carpet plants in the southeast from a competitor who had serviced Mohawk for several years. According to Ron Collins, Tennessee Armature's General Manager, the new business meant handling nearly 300 repair jobs per month for the 6 plants. His initial concerns included:
Collins had one additional concern: The competitor he replaced had many friends at the Mohawk plants, and Tennessee Armature needed a diplomatic way to document and communicate its performance so that the inevitable day-to-day issues wouldn't get blown out of proportion. This new challenge could have easily overwhelmed the existing systems at Tennessee Armature, and lead to profit wasting inefficiencies. However, Collins had a new Internet-based tool in mind to help deal with the opportunity. That tool is Tango™ Repair Tracker, and he felt the web-based information system would help Tennessee Armature handle the huge volume of information that would be coming in and going out for the new customer. A clerk at Tennessee Armature enters the information on incoming jobs via the Internet, and keeps the status column updated daily. Over 30 contacts at the 6 Mohawk plants use the Internet to see what jobs are open, and the current status of each job. Both Tennessee Armature and Mohawk saw immediate benefit from the web-based communication with Repair Tracker. With job status available over the Internet, Collins found he was spending significantly less time on the phone answering questions from Mohawk contacts. According to Collins, 'Repair Tracker is a great communications tool for showing the status of each job and making the repair details/decisions visible to everyone.' For Mike Bryant at Mohawk's Farland Road Motor Shop, having the status of all open jobs available in one place makes it more efficient for managing the quote approvals. Prior to Repair Tracker, Bryant had 2 people trying to keep up with a paper-based quote review system. Now it's easy for him to review quotes pending once per week and see what needs any special attention. 'Some non-PC users were out of their comfort zone at first' says Bryant, but now 'even those have come on board' due the 'point & click' ease of use. Having the detailed failure mode information in a searchable Tango Repair Tracker database has already resulted in reliability improvement for Mohawk. Tennessee Armature documents the failure modes found during the repair process and strives to identify the root causes. Reliability engineers at Mohawk then search the database to find repetitive and high cost failure issues. According to Bryant, Mohawk has already located and corrected several inverter related problems by analyzing historical motor failure information. Both Collins at Tennessee Armature and Bryant at Mohawk agree that having repair job status, documentation, failure mode, and warranty information in one place, available to the right people when needed, makes their jobs much easier. And for Tennessee Armature, web-based Tango Repair Tracker is a very important tool in keeping a major customer satisfied and the business profitable. Learn more about Tango Repair Tracker at www.tf7.com, or call Forrest or Dick at 865-681-0282. |