Grinding Journal - Fall 2007 - (Page 31)

Problem Solver: Harold Tuttle Customer Support Supervisor, United Grinding Virginia F lu season? Roads closed due to a foot of snow (a big deal in Virginia)? After 6 PM? It doesn’t matter when you visit the customer support center in Fredericksburg, “Iron Man” Harold Tuttle will be calmly helping someone somewhere over the phone. He even takes emergency calls after he leaves for the day! But he doesn’t boast or talk about himself. Maybe that’s because he started his career repairing electronic gear for secret government agencies around the world. He joined Walter on the production floor in May 1996, moving into field service six months later. After three years of constant travel (ask him about the time he drove from Guadalajara to Puerto Vallarta via the “direct route”) he helped create Virginia’s phone support system and soon became a supervisor of that group. production. Plus we write lots of service bulletins that document problems we’ve seen in the field and their solutions. Speaking of trends and technology, what else do you foresee for service? As we cut the number of mechanical components by using linear motors and as machines get smarter the need for electronic and PC expertise continues to increase. But grinding, by its nature, will always be hard on machines. That’s why we put such an emphasis on preventive maintenance. We recently visited a customer who has run his machines with very few problems since 1996 because he has an extensive PM program and fine filtration. You can plan PM around quiet times so your machine will be productive when you need it, whereas neglecting it virtually guarantees that it eventually breaks down during peak demand when you really have to get tools out. Contrast field service and telephone support As a field service tech you have to take care of pretty much anything, even if your strength is focused in one area. That’s what the phone support team is here for. When a field service guy runs into a problem he can’t handle, there’s always a specialist in the home office who can assist them in working through the problem. But with nearly 2,000 machines in the field, the majority of calls come directly from customers and not the ten field service techs. What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you in grinding? I once asked a customer to perform a number of steps in troubleshooting an electrical problem. After a while, I realized something just wasn’t right because we weren’t getting anything. So I asked if the machine was on and he answered “No, you didn’t tell me to do that.” So being on the phone has taught me the importance of asking the right questions! You have to visualize the whole machine and what the customer is doing in order to help him over the phone, don't you? That’s one of the challenges. As products change we have to adapt. It usually takes about a year to visualize a new machine, but the customer is also trying to describe things to you. And many now have a digital camera and internet access, so they can take a picture of their problem and send it to you. That’s a big help. Why review all field service reports? We track the running time on each machine to predict future service needs. We’ve been collecting data in SAP for over seven years and we can see trends. Mechanical components wear and we have a pretty good idea how long each item will last. We also track items by vendor and assess the failure rates of each. The goal is to be proactive in solving problems before they affect a customer’s Grinding Journal 31

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Grinding Journal - Fall 2007

Grinding Journal - Fall 2007 Contents From Virginia: Apparently no credit crunch for machine tools Why measure cutting tools Other perspectives on CNC tool measuring Productive grinding of superalloys SUPER service grinding BIG rolls Problem Solver

Grinding Journal - Fall 2007

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