On Routers and Mothballs
From the President: On Routers and Mothballs
When times get a little tight you begin to notice little things. It could be that quality in product and software seems to be running the opposite way of reliability and simplicity, it could be that unemployment is up and plants are closing. In any case, the reasons are beyond what I am going to write about as I have only a little influence on the success of the economy as anyone else. But there are things that we can control, and in these times it is important to exercise that influence for both ourselves and those that follow.
I am not sure what consumer confidence really means. Well, OK, I did spend time looking into it as many have as it was something that came up in the news constantly. However, the kind of consumer confidence I mean can be classified more as ‘customer confidence.’ Right now, people are making choices, personally and professionally, whether they want to spend or save with a heavy emphasis on saving. So, it becomes important that a reliable and quality product is provided that the customer/consumer (customer) can feel confident in.
For example, I just spent another 8 hours working on recovering my system due to problems with a wireless router I had just installed. I had never had a problem with Linksys routers in the past, so was surprised when I had problems with this one with less than a month in place. The idea was that I would be able to have higher speed access than the broadband cards I was using with my computers – especially with all of the important work I have been doing with the IEEE DEIS Web and distance learning courses. Well, one day it just quit. I took the ‘Made in China’ box, looked up the problems on the internet and discovered how many people were having exactly the same problem. Of course, tech support is a joke – “power on, power off, nope, we can’t figure it out. You will have to plug a cable into your wireless router and attach your computer to an umbilical cord or replace it with the more powerful ‘brand x’ version so that you can get the range (I use my laptop about ten feet from the router)… etc. etc.” Basically, it must be something that I did.
So, I went out and got what I thought was another brand from Staples in Naperville. Made sure that I got a box that wasn’t returned – you know, the special circle shaped tape the factory puts on the box. Brought it home, noted immediately the fingerprints and goo that were all over the CD that came with it as I realized the fun that was about to begin. But I had a deadline to meet! And, of course, the store was closed. Yep, it was ‘Made in China.’ (Is there anything ‘Made in the USA’ anymore?)
The new software claimed that it would be really easy to install, no problem at all. So, it took only about 30 minutes to completely disable all of my primary laptop’s ability to access the internet even through the broadband card. Yep, the software took over and, to my complete surprise [very sarcastic], the software had a glitch – but you could fix it with an update that you could download from the internet… if you had internet.
Figured out how to solve it by completely wiping out the supplied software after getting the security passkey set up, having the XP and Vista systems repair the networking software and drivers, and then setting up manually with the router. With the new router stating proudly on the box – strong signal at least 1600 feet away – I am impressed that I show no bars at 10 feet. I suppose I should have to mount it at least 1600 feet away and see if that works because I am watching as in the past 30 minutes I have gone from working to not working every minute or so.
At this point, I think I would pay a lot of money for a good old USA built monstrosity of a wireless router because I know it would work. But nooooo… the general concept in business is that people want low cost junk then they can spend countless non-productive hours playing with something that should be, as it says on the box, plug and play.
So, with that, I am going to segway into a slightly different topic, but not much different as it relates to present business practices. That issue has to do with an interesting short-sighted problem that we have been enjoying lately: mothballing plants and/or equipment due to slowdowns. This is not the first time we have been through this, but the lesson learned is that those who do not pay attention to history are doomed to repeat the same problems – you will note that I did not mention successes in that statement.
It is important to understand that mothballing equipment is just as important as storing critical spares. The same rules apply. However, the common practice is to cut costs and not maintain the mothballed equipment until it is needed, at which point the cost to get it back up and running far outweighs any mothball maintenance expense, let alone the lost time bringing the machines back on line.
In one case, a large machining company shut the doors of a number of their plants during a slowdown in their industry in the late 1990s. The machine tools were massive but provided a ridiculous (yes, a technical term I have been known to use) level of accuracy. The mothball plan was to cover them with tarps, left just the way they were shut off by the operators, and then uncover them when they were needed again, which turned out to be 18 months later. To their amazement, $100’s of millions worth of equipment needed major repairs due to sagging and warped metal, no precision was left in virtually all of the equipment, and the delay was measured in tens of months before systems were up and operating properly. However, reliability still remains an issue.
I remember doing a couple of weeks of shipyard work for the US Navy in the early 1990s. It was a brief stint as I negotiated a plant manager position with Dunkums Electric in Richmond, Virginia. I had been on the US Navy side of the building of the Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) from 1985 to 1989 (commissioned in 1987, we were still under warranty by the time I left) as a Plank Owner. My job was to evaluate the condition of the electric motors on the mothballed fleet of ships that is maintained, which includes medical vessels that are presently being used, on one of the rivers. We were assigned a ship and I had to go through and due insulation to ground and continuity checks on all of the motors. When we found grounded equipment, or if anything else was determined to be wrong, such as noisy bearings when we rotated the shafts (part of the job), we needed to return the equipment to ‘operational’ as quickly as possible. The concept was simple – the vessels had to be ready to move if a crew showed up that day.
I remember the electrician I was assigned to and how his whole purpose in his work-life was to make sure that his part of the job was complete and as good as he could make it. He was an old timer and I was 24 years old, yet he listened as I showed him a few new tricks I had been shown on how to insulate motor connections to eliminate some of the problems we were finding, and he made sure that I learned some of the process of doing things accurately, right, and understanding that our small part could eventually save lives.
The question is: What are you doing to maintain equipment that is being mothballed during the economic slowdown (or whatever you want to call it)? Go to http://www.motordoc.com/mdmhblog/index.htm and post your answers. Yep, I know lots of people read the blogs, now I am getting pushy about people leaving comments!
Rule for the day: No matter what happens – smile. They will wonder what you are up to.
Sincerely,
Howard W Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP
President, SUCCESS by DESIGN® Reliability Services and Publishing
President, AllAmericanHybrid.com
Editor-in-Chief, IEEE DEIS Web
And all that other stuff
When times get a little tight you begin to notice little things. It could be that quality in product and software seems to be running the opposite way of reliability and simplicity, it could be that unemployment is up and plants are closing. In any case, the reasons are beyond what I am going to write about as I have only a little influence on the success of the economy as anyone else. But there are things that we can control, and in these times it is important to exercise that influence for both ourselves and those that follow.
I am not sure what consumer confidence really means. Well, OK, I did spend time looking into it as many have as it was something that came up in the news constantly. However, the kind of consumer confidence I mean can be classified more as ‘customer confidence.’ Right now, people are making choices, personally and professionally, whether they want to spend or save with a heavy emphasis on saving. So, it becomes important that a reliable and quality product is provided that the customer/consumer (customer) can feel confident in.
For example, I just spent another 8 hours working on recovering my system due to problems with a wireless router I had just installed. I had never had a problem with Linksys routers in the past, so was surprised when I had problems with this one with less than a month in place. The idea was that I would be able to have higher speed access than the broadband cards I was using with my computers – especially with all of the important work I have been doing with the IEEE DEIS Web and distance learning courses. Well, one day it just quit. I took the ‘Made in China’ box, looked up the problems on the internet and discovered how many people were having exactly the same problem. Of course, tech support is a joke – “power on, power off, nope, we can’t figure it out. You will have to plug a cable into your wireless router and attach your computer to an umbilical cord or replace it with the more powerful ‘brand x’ version so that you can get the range (I use my laptop about ten feet from the router)… etc. etc.” Basically, it must be something that I did.
So, I went out and got what I thought was another brand from Staples in Naperville. Made sure that I got a box that wasn’t returned – you know, the special circle shaped tape the factory puts on the box. Brought it home, noted immediately the fingerprints and goo that were all over the CD that came with it as I realized the fun that was about to begin. But I had a deadline to meet! And, of course, the store was closed. Yep, it was ‘Made in China.’ (Is there anything ‘Made in the USA’ anymore?)
The new software claimed that it would be really easy to install, no problem at all. So, it took only about 30 minutes to completely disable all of my primary laptop’s ability to access the internet even through the broadband card. Yep, the software took over and, to my complete surprise [very sarcastic], the software had a glitch – but you could fix it with an update that you could download from the internet… if you had internet.
Figured out how to solve it by completely wiping out the supplied software after getting the security passkey set up, having the XP and Vista systems repair the networking software and drivers, and then setting up manually with the router. With the new router stating proudly on the box – strong signal at least 1600 feet away – I am impressed that I show no bars at 10 feet. I suppose I should have to mount it at least 1600 feet away and see if that works because I am watching as in the past 30 minutes I have gone from working to not working every minute or so.
At this point, I think I would pay a lot of money for a good old USA built monstrosity of a wireless router because I know it would work. But nooooo… the general concept in business is that people want low cost junk then they can spend countless non-productive hours playing with something that should be, as it says on the box, plug and play.
So, with that, I am going to segway into a slightly different topic, but not much different as it relates to present business practices. That issue has to do with an interesting short-sighted problem that we have been enjoying lately: mothballing plants and/or equipment due to slowdowns. This is not the first time we have been through this, but the lesson learned is that those who do not pay attention to history are doomed to repeat the same problems – you will note that I did not mention successes in that statement.
It is important to understand that mothballing equipment is just as important as storing critical spares. The same rules apply. However, the common practice is to cut costs and not maintain the mothballed equipment until it is needed, at which point the cost to get it back up and running far outweighs any mothball maintenance expense, let alone the lost time bringing the machines back on line.
In one case, a large machining company shut the doors of a number of their plants during a slowdown in their industry in the late 1990s. The machine tools were massive but provided a ridiculous (yes, a technical term I have been known to use) level of accuracy. The mothball plan was to cover them with tarps, left just the way they were shut off by the operators, and then uncover them when they were needed again, which turned out to be 18 months later. To their amazement, $100’s of millions worth of equipment needed major repairs due to sagging and warped metal, no precision was left in virtually all of the equipment, and the delay was measured in tens of months before systems were up and operating properly. However, reliability still remains an issue.
I remember doing a couple of weeks of shipyard work for the US Navy in the early 1990s. It was a brief stint as I negotiated a plant manager position with Dunkums Electric in Richmond, Virginia. I had been on the US Navy side of the building of the Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) from 1985 to 1989 (commissioned in 1987, we were still under warranty by the time I left) as a Plank Owner. My job was to evaluate the condition of the electric motors on the mothballed fleet of ships that is maintained, which includes medical vessels that are presently being used, on one of the rivers. We were assigned a ship and I had to go through and due insulation to ground and continuity checks on all of the motors. When we found grounded equipment, or if anything else was determined to be wrong, such as noisy bearings when we rotated the shafts (part of the job), we needed to return the equipment to ‘operational’ as quickly as possible. The concept was simple – the vessels had to be ready to move if a crew showed up that day.
I remember the electrician I was assigned to and how his whole purpose in his work-life was to make sure that his part of the job was complete and as good as he could make it. He was an old timer and I was 24 years old, yet he listened as I showed him a few new tricks I had been shown on how to insulate motor connections to eliminate some of the problems we were finding, and he made sure that I learned some of the process of doing things accurately, right, and understanding that our small part could eventually save lives.
The question is: What are you doing to maintain equipment that is being mothballed during the economic slowdown (or whatever you want to call it)? Go to http://www.motordoc.com/mdmhblog/index.htm and post your answers. Yep, I know lots of people read the blogs, now I am getting pushy about people leaving comments!
Rule for the day: No matter what happens – smile. They will wonder what you are up to.
Sincerely,
Howard W Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP
President, SUCCESS by DESIGN® Reliability Services and Publishing
President, AllAmericanHybrid.com
Editor-in-Chief, IEEE DEIS Web
And all that other stuff
posted by MotorDoc at
9:33 AM
4 Comments:
As for your router fiasco, you might try paying for your engineering time up front: use a Mac with Airport. It'll even run Windows.
Already started using Mac's in my business. Still working with what I have in the meantime. You are right, though. Setting up the Mac took about ten minutes versus umpteen hours. Still, the problem was the wireless routers failing not the computers.
I am now on my third router in 6 weeks as each one failed physically under warranty.
The initial failure was the router. The second failure was software engineering on the part of the router manufacturer to provide a router/computer/human interface which works properly.
A Mac paired with an Airport Wireless base station provides the enginering up front which is paid for up front. I find it much better than trying to troubleshoot a poorly engineered product that may not even have a solution. And I'm surprised by how many people balk at paying the higher engineering price but also complain about messing around trying to fix or reformat their computer on the weekends.
Wally no URL
Wow, I didn't see the part about third router in six weeks. I'd quit while I was behind and just return it.
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