We are in the middle of a “teachable moment” customer service situation.  Out dishwasher died so after exhausting my ability to troubleshoot the fault, we called for service.  We purchased the dishwasher from a nationwide retailer that is known for high quality hand tools as well as appliances.  The retailer has sophisticated systems to help them manage the parts and scheduling process.  The first call I set up using their internet interface.  I typed in the model number, serial number, and error code from the dishwasher, selected a time on the earliest date available. 

The earliest date was a week away, and the times available were in four hour windows.  It didn’t make it easy to plan the day.  The initial service call went well.  The technician called about 15 minutes prior to arrival.  He was polite and knowledgeable and quickly diagnosed the problem with the dishwasher.  He told me that he would have to order parts that would be shipped to the house and he would come back and install them.   Oddly enough the fault the error code read was the same as the actual fault in the machine.  My first confused moment was when he did not have the parts on the truck.  Why did I give them all that information about the machine and fault if they weren’t going to bring the parts to fix the highest probability problem with the machine?  

The technician had a laptop computer and printer with him.  He got online and ordered the parts from his parts depot and we scheduled the follow up visit (oddly enough it was a week out).  The day before the scheduled service, we received a robo- call from the service provider saying that we needed to call to set up an appointment for the service.  The message was quick and gave the phone number so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to write it down.  There were no options on the message to replay it.  I wondered why I needed to do that since the technician had already scheduled one.  I dutifully called and entered in my phone number (I assumed so the system could pull up my records and the call take would have all the information they needed to help schedule the second visit that I already had scheduled).  After several minutes of waiting, I was connected with an individual that had some issues with the English language and proceeded to have to give her my phone number, name, address, and the reason for the call.  (Didn’t they already know that from me typing in my phone number before?)  She asked me if the parts for the service had arrived.  I told her that I thought so; I received a box from their parts depot, but hadn’t bothered to open it.  She then asked me if I would retrieve the box, open it, and verify the parts.  I complied and got back on the phone and told her that the pump was in the box.  She then said there were three other parts that were on backorder so the service could not be completed.  One would wonder why I needed to go look since she already knew the answer.   She told me to call back when I got the parts and she would set up the call.  The day of the repair appointment originally set up by the technician, I got another phone call from the service call center.  I talked to a very polite person who spoke fluent English that explained to me that all the parts were not there and we had to schedule the service call for when the parts arrived.  (I thought we had established that yesterday?)  I asked about the expected ship date of the backordered parts, but she didn’t have that information.  Waste abounds in their process.   I’m getting tired of doing dishes by hand.  

The adventure continues.

  Top 10 signs that you might need Lean….10.  You can’t leave the building you work in without employees calling asking you what to do (including evenings, weekends and holidays).

Recently we took our 11 year old truck to a shop so they could figure out what was wrong with it.  Rob was out of town, we wanted to sell the truck and paying someone to nail down the ongoing problem it was experiencing seemed like the logical thing to do.

The truck was running very rough.  It started after pressure washing the engine.  Weeks of dry time had not resulted in the problem going away.  I explained everything we’d tried and where we were now.  The amazing mechanic declared, “It’s probably a coil”. 

Well, it ended up being an electrical problem - with the spark plug and coil that are recessed in an unreachable crevice of the engine cavity.  The area where the problem was could only be reached with extremely small, dexterous hands by a person that can perch on top of the radiator without messing up something else.  Because our mechanic was more the Grizzly Adams type than olympic gymnast, we figure he gave up on fixing the problem when he got to the last coil.  He returned to the truck to us after giving it his best shot and charging us $700.  The problem was better, but was not gone.

Rob came back from his trip and finished the job - with the help of my smaller (but not quite small enough) hands, we managed to resolve the problem.  Was the mechanic right?  He was on the right track.  Did he fix the problem?  No.

This all comes to mind because I am in the process of writing an Analytical Trouble Shooting course for technicians in a manufacturing plant.  The wasted time and money troublshooting our truck were frustrating for us.  The same process applied in a high-pressure equipment downtime situation in a plant would be more than frustrating - it could set off a chain of events that could disrupt the entire plant’s operations.

Our mechanic probably thought he was pretty smart.  He had pointed to the problem right away.  He just didn’t fix it - probably because it was too difficult and time consuming.  He got the truck running better…but he didn’t fix the root cause.  He got our $700.  I guess he was pretty smart after all.

Welcome to our Blog.  It’s been ready for months but I’ve succumbed to a case of either writer’s block or analysis paralysis.  I can’t promise this will be clever….or insightful, but I’ll do my best.  At the urging of my last Black Belt class (thank you Sarah, Eric, Vahid and Dan) I will share some witty anecdotes about the world of process improvement. They found them amusing.  Maybe you will, too.