Most lazy/useless things customers have asked you

Some customers are really very very lazy to the point it's hard to believe

Here an exemple of extreme laziness :

- A customer is asking to remove two sensors from an operator workstation. There are 6 sensors detecting 6 parts of the piece, each one can be disabled by the HMI. Following a product evolution, there are only 4 parts to detect.

They are actually paying us 1 000€ or so for me to come, drive 6 hours in the same day, and remove these 2 sensors physically and in the program. Maximum 30 minutes of work but they don't want to do it themselves, and they are a big factory....


- Last year, I had to travel to the other part of the country , it took me one day of travel. They wanted to add a timer to delay one event. I had done the modification, they had the software, I had a electrician from the maintenance department on the phone who was ready and perfectly able to do it if he had the authorization of its boss. But he refused.... The modification was really plug and play, no parameters involved.... But they still had "not the time" to do it and insisted for me to come and ended to pay for it ... Result, after the travel I came at 8 in the morning, loaded the program, had to wait one hour for them to test it and left. 10 minutes of work, the time to turn on the computer... 2 days of work wasted for a program that had just to be downloaded in the CPU... And it was in a very big factory with a big maintenance service...

Have you also encountered demands like this? Often?

Worldwide standard

@Iner,
As long as YOU physically do the work, they can maintain Plausible Deniability.

You are the scapegoat.

kwade said:

@Iner,
As long as YOU physically do the work, they can maintain Plausible Deniability.

You are the scapegoat.

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I understand it to a limit: here they are placing an order for a job and spending money that they could easily avoid to spend.... It's the definition of a no risk -no skill job! It must be fun to have big money budget to throw like that

I have been called in to help customers recover from the machine being down and all I had to do was reset the E-Stop.
I once had a customer down for two days because I was involved on another job when he first called. When I finally arrived the customer's maintenance person had to retrieve his toolbox from elsewhere in the plant, so I walked to the machine alone. When the maintenance tech caught up with me I was holding a broken timing belt which I had found lying on the floor under the motor and in plain view. "I think I've found your problem", I said.

I got called in before and the mechanic after doing work had connected 2 solenoids (plug in style) backwards
The logic was very hard to follow for me as I am greener and wasn't familiar with the process but I did figure it out. they also had someone on staff able but not willing to look into it further. but I guess in the end I did get them running again.

Iner I understand you frustation, I have been working just more than 1 year in this, and I already had to "suppot" problem finding and prodivide a solution to an entire production line down for few days, problem was that 3rd shift tech guy wired a relay in the NC instead of the NO, manager alleged that was a software problem but his programmer was on holidays

oh yeah, and that time when then called me because two-hands opto touch system was sometimes failing to start machine cycle, aparently operator was not aware that both opto-touch have to be activated at the same time

@Iner - I assume you you're not the business owner. These are called 'Billable Hours'.

I had one where a stamping press kept stopping mid-cycle. I checked the 2-hand controls over and everything in the control panel.

While I was watching it being run to see it stop I noticed that every few parts the operator, with a nice beer-belly, leaned forward towards the machine while it was cycling and his gut pushed in the E-Stop. I asked his supervisor for some tape and a few thumbtacks so the operator would find out what was causing his problem. And it was "Billable Hours"

AGill said:

@Iner - I assume you you're not the business owner. These are called 'Billable Hours'.

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Exactaly. I'll go fix anything anywhere. It's all billable. I've even traveled hours to simply power cycle a PC. Seems silly for the company to pay me to do it, but that's how we make money.

Aabeck said:

I asked his supervisor for some tape and a few thumbtacks so the operator would find out what was causing his problem. And it was "Billable Hours"

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Yep. In this line of work we get paid to provide solutions. Solutions that cover the entire complexity spectrum, from eye rolling ridiculous to up for days exhausting.

The classic.. me on the phone: "Check all the E-stops, are you sure all the E-stops are pulled?" Client: "Yes, we've checked them all" Later on invoice: "Found E-Stop pushed"

Remember, those easy fixes still provide the client with value. Usually 'heroic' value.

AGill said:

@Iner - I assume you you're not the business owner. These are called 'Billable Hours'.

Click to expand...

You assume well

I understand that for the company it makes money, but travelling 14 hours in train just to download a program , staying at the hotel and all, for less than 15 minutes of effective work, is me. Especially that I was busy working hard on another project as well.

I have customers that will by a hammer and then expect you to frame the house for free.

QvixoteRoux said:

Iner I understand you frustation, I have been working just more than 1 year in this, and I already had to "suppot" problem finding and prodivide a solution to an entire production line down for few days, problem was that 3rd shift tech guy wired a relay in the NC instead of the NO, manager alleged that was a software problem but his programmer was on holidays

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You remind me a good one:

We got a call from a company that makes the maintenance of another company. When they have no automation guys, they call us sometimes to help them troubleshooting machine.

There was a machine down for 4 days before they called us. The message on the HMI gave an input number that was related to an heat sensor. First company tried to change the heat temperature on the first day but the machine still did not work.

They had no source program , just the electrical plans. One of the operator suddendly came, said that it stopped working after a cable was pulled.... The maintenance guy go to watch the cable, open the small cabinet where he was wired and say that all is fine.

When I watch the plans, I realize that they wired the heat sensor wrong, on the NO instead of the NC.... The message I was seeing since I came was there because they wired it wrong when they searched the error on the sensor....

Finally I make it to the original message on the HMI with the input number of the sensor (the message was wrong) but with the correct text talking about a motor.

I open the small cabinet that their electrician had checked and immediately see than one of three wires of the frequency drive is disconnected....

4 days of production stopped on that machine for one single wire... When I told the reason of the breakdown to their director, he was mad