"by the way, our bankers will be here in an hour"

So, I had spent the weekend refitting the hydraulics and controls on a 100 Ton press for one of my customers. I hadn't yet run the system, so on Monday morning I am trying to work out some bugs in the way the system pressurizes and the VP says to me, "by the way, our bankers will be here in an hour and they want to see the press running before they give us any more money."

There was this loud thud, as my jaw hit the floor. I hadnt even gotten the system to run properly yet and they spring this on me. So imagine me at the controls trying to hide the fact that I am manually pushing the cycle button while 3 bankers/investors are milling around the machine. Of course one of them ask what I am doing. I mumble something about testing the knooter valve, preying silently that they will all just go away.

Needless to say, later I worked out my problem and the press operated properly from then on.

They customer also got the money from the bank, how many out there have gone through ordeals like this before?

Willpower100

Situation normal for me. Although usually it is about practical completion and getting paid or the mechanical people have held the project up for months and they come waving liquidated damages paper work. "Why aren't you ready?" Sound familiar?

A complex diesel generator emergency power system with up to 90 odd power failure relays to start the system and 50 to 60 floors of the building to changeover, capacity control, load control, up to 9 or 10 networked PLCs. Good fun. Invariably have not even had time to calibrate metering. A lot of fudging goes on I can assure you.

Good one Bob, gee, it sure is fun to have your own business sometimes, hahaha. Before I went out on my own, I used to do alot of work in Pulp and Paper mills, you want to see some people get excited, try telling them they can't start up on time after a scheduled shut down. In one mill, it was nearly $100,000 per hour of down time.

Yep willpower, it is fun. I spent 27 hours on a job last week. A large computer and processing site with world wide customers and very large potential penalties for being off line. Someone threw a javelin into the HV sub nearby. The generators ran OK for several days then starting "sharing" vars of a high magnitude. I was not allowed to do anything but watch for 24 hours. Finally got the gens off line and found, as expected, a faulty AVR. Replaced the AVRs and all is well. They would not let me do a thing due to the possible penalties. Took a toatl of 40 minutes to cahnge the AVRs and set them up on dummy load when I finally got hold of the things.

Spent the weekend in bed. Not as young as I used to be, hence the Avatar suggested by one of our illustrious board members.

"The mind is willing but the body is weak!!!!"

Reminds me of the scene from The Wizard of Oz. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".

Years ago during the installation of a new machine, the Plant Manager asked us if it would be possible to run some product through the machine for a demonstration for the Board of Directors who would be meeting there a couple of days later. He realized that the machine was not ready yet, nor were we behind schedule, but it would be a feather in his cap if we could pull it off. Well, we worked overtime and busted our humps to be able to put on that dog and pony show. On the appointed day we were ready. The Board of Directors were escorted to the machine, posed for a photo op around the control desk, and went on for the rest of their plant tour. Never asked to see the machine run.

Steve,

Just remember, that if you hadn't been ready to produce some product the first board member close to the machine would have expected it to be fired up.

Everyone should be aware that this happens way to frequently in the industrial controls field (at least to me and a few other posters in this thread.)

Good work, willpower, and really I'm envious that you got some positive effect out of the firedrill.

Most of the experienced field service guys on this forum have been through several false emergencies.

My personal favorite was when I flew cross-country on July 3, canceling my big traditional Indepence Day party, to start up the controls and software on equipment that was "holding up production" at a big customer.

When I arrived, most of our machines were still on railcars and they were preparing the concrete where they would be mounted.

Ken, that one is similar to what happened to a friend of mine. He had a boiler to commission in Northern China in the middle of a really freezing winter. He got the call to go and asked if the power was on yet. Yes they replied. You guessed it, no power!!! Had to wait 6 weeks in the frozen wasteland for the power to be connected.

His next major problem was re-training peasant Chinese not to turn on that valve as steam comes out and burns you. This process had to be repeated every Monday morning after the workers had Sunday off.

One other thing he related to me was that he had to drink the local water and eat the local food most of the time as bottle water was as scarce as hen's teeth. Needless to say his wife sent packets of Imodium to him each week when she wrote so that he could at least keep the runs under some control. I guess you have Imodium over there.

We used to use the "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" Phrase as well. I had one machine that I finally had all the moves correct the night before the customer showed up. The actual arms were being put on in the morning as the customer was upstairs being told that it had been running in test for 2 weeks. The customer came down just in time to see the arms being taught the first position where it was discovered they wern't long enough to reach the product. He just looked at the production manager, said "2 weeks huh", and went back upstairs. This will cost you in the long run. This machine was quickly finished & shipped. I was sent for startup where things went well even though the customer was suspicious and let me know it. The machine worked well for that division for several years but they never purchased more equipment from us.

The Contract Says!...

We built a large assembly machine a few years ago. The company we built it for was owned by a large pharmaceutical company in another state. The contract, written by the parent company, stated that the machine must only run in their facility. This made sense at first, as it required a clean room, which they were currently constructing in that facility. The problem was that the contract didn't address the difference between SAMPLE runs for testing, and actual PRODUCTION runs.

Thanks to the wording of the contract, even preliminary testing could NOT be done in our plant. It had to be shipped to 'their facility' to run off any sample product for testing. Fine, we shipped the completed machine to that facility. When we arrived to do the sample run, we realized that the machine was temporarily installed in the back of their extremely filthy warehouse, because the clean room was not finished yet...

Once they tested the samples, they realized they had to make design changes on the parts. This required some changes to the machine, so it got shipped back to our plant. When it was time for another sample run, you guessed it, it had to get shipped BACK to 'their facility' to run. Oh, and thanks to their inept part designers, this had to be done more than once! By the way, did I mention this was a LARGE machine? It had to be rigged in and out of each building each time it 'visited'. I think it spent more time on the ROAD than it did actually RUNNING!...

Even when it was explained to them (over and over) that our plant was much cleaner than 'their facility', and that they were wasting an enormous amount of time and money shipping this machine back and forth, the parent company still refused running the machine in our plant. "Absolutely not! The contract says..."

We came to find out that they eventually abandoned the project when they realized the product was not marketable...

beerchug

-Eric

I have done so many "hurry up and wait" startups and commisionings thats its not funny.

I have also been involved in the "ya we are just putting on the finishing touches to the machine" when you are miles away from being done. In these situations it is usually supreme effort from the techs that make it happen.

The best one was a retrofit of a outdated control panel we had done, our engineer had come in and designed a new pressure control system to replace the old manual valving that was on the machine. I had discussed the plan of attack with the manager at length, we even had the panel done well before the install was to start. I had told him to call me when they had scheduled the shutdown, I also called him to get updates and he never did get back to me.

Monday morning rolls around and I get a call from the Manager who procedes to call me ever name in the book and wanted an explanation as to why I was not there on the weekend to do the install/commisioning.

My responce was, " and when did you let me know that you we were doing it this weekend?"

The conversation was pretty much ended by this statement.

I think the guy must have been having a coronary over the weekend.

Several years ago, I was awarded a pointy hat and a magic wand (actually a 12 inch #2 phillips) because I was always needing to have the control system operation without having all the information or knowing what changes were being made to the machine. Sometime whole sections were being added or removed without me being told. I am sure this sounds familiar.

Communication is the key, be in control of information flow, and why can't we all just get along?

If we weren't all so talented, we could be..............hmmmmmmm

regards....casey

Sounds like Deja Vu!

We used to go through all of these problems (at several places I've worked) but in my current position we have the tightest controls I've ever been involved in. Our customers have Service Level Agreements that we have to abide by and they are very unforgiving as well as inflexible. We cannot afford to let unexpected delays cause us to miss our SLAs.

We have a Industrial Project Worksheet that we and our vendors will use to determine all timelines. This process provides "Plan B and C" scenarios and stipulates who will do what when, who will be in the plant on what date, etc. It provides for financial penalties if things get out of hand. ANY change to this worksheet must be submitted to and agreed to by all involved parties.
Since A must be completed before B can be started, this worksheet has greatly simplified our project implementation. It requires that all parties meet, discuss and plan for ALL scenarios, good and bad, BEFORE any work begins.

We build Saw Mill Equipment. We were on a start up in South America. There are many stories associated with this start up. This one is about a small gang down stream of a vertical twin band. There are 2 banks of 3 saws with different net cuts. We were ready to run the first piece through a machine. We had a timber close that fit with in the envelope size of the gang that would put all 6 saws in the cut. As we prepare this test here comes the mill/project manager and the corporate VP and others out of the company noise bleed section down the catwalk.

We were the only thing running in the mill so they gravitated to us. They were directly above us when we ran the first piece. It made it in about 2 feet before the arbor stopped rotating and the v-belts started to smoke. A cloud of smoke rouse directly up into the crowd on the catwalk.

What are you going to do? We shut thing off and just had to laugh our asses off. That did not set well with the project manager. Could arrest us, didn’t send us home.

These are great stories, I am laughing at all of them, I have yet another one; I was tasked by the sales department to install the piping and power unit built for a customer.

They had a large excavator that they had affixed an attachment that was going to clear the roof of subway tunnels in Chicago I think. This attachment was shaped like a pineapple, about 3' diameter at the base with about 100 carbide teeth on it.

I had doubts about how well it was going to work expecially since the customer had provided the driving motor for the pineapple, when I tried to get specs for it they said they didn't know since they had bought the gear motor second hand.

Our illustrious sales crew had designed the desiel driven hydraulic power unit, I don't know how they did any calculations to size the pump if they didn't know the motor size or reduction. But I was told to "never mind about that". What did I know, I am just the dumb tech.

Anyways, I had completed the install and we started things up for the test. There seemed to be a bit more speed on the pineapple than what was expected, and since this thing was not balanced a fair amount of vibration.

The owners were hot to trot so they decided to continue the test. They pointed this thing at the ground with about 10 people in attendance for the test. I had slowly began moving away from this thing as soon as it started up and began to shake, I think the excavator must have weight in excess of 20 tons and its really moving across the ground.

They hit the gravel with the pineapple and it was like a wild west movie, gravel shoots everywhere, richosheing off of cars, building, the excavator, people, you name it.

Everybody hits the dirt, and they quickly shut it off.

I didn't say a thing, I just packed up my truck and drove back to the shop. When asked by the salesman how it went, I just smiled.