*FUN* Tall Tales Told to System Integrators

[Peter Nachtwey]

Me: "What you are asking me to do defies the laws of physics."

Them: "But the other company that quoted it said they could do it, and their bid was half as much."

Me: "Maybe they assumed this machine would be running in a place where there was no gravity."

Them: Blank look.

I had a customer do that to me once. They said a competitors controller could move the actuator faster than ours could. It was obvious to me that is couldn't by just after giving the valve a 20% output. Still they would be convinced. I showed them. I commanded the motion controller to immediately output 10 ( 100% ) volts and watched the system slam into the end of the cylinder. BANG. I then showed them the graph. From the graph it was obvious that
1. Their system couldn't go as fast as claimed. The top speed obtain would have to be 80% more.
2. The response of their actuator was no where as fast as claimed.

The customer didn't appreciate me abusing his system. I didn't like be lied to. We came to terms after that and they did use our controller. You see, the problem was that they really didn't know how fast the could move the actuator. They just believed the other guys told them without evidence. I had evidence.

 

[geniusintraining]

Wait just one sec....

Ok in defense of END USERS...

You have to admit if it was always easy we would not need system integrators, we as the end user pay you to perform your services (no mater if that is performing miracles), we make you programmers strive to be the best at what you are, if it was that easy anyone could do it.



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S7 guy, that is just too damn funny

Me: "What you are asking me to do defies the laws of physics."

Them: "But the other company that quoted it said they could do it, and their bid was half as much."

Me: "Maybe they assumed this machine would be running in a place where there was no gravity."

Them: Blank look.

 

[danny.michael]

I need it to be just like the last one. Except its different

I usually refer to that as "Identically Different".

 

[jdbrandt]

My favorite is with one of our customers who has asked us to quote the same project once a year for the past four years. Each time they meet with us, I take my meeting notes from the orginal meeting (and each subsequent meeting). They are amazed how good my memory is regarding their product and what kind of system they would like. Needless to say the quote gets easier to write and has more features every year.

TAKE HEART!
When 'corporate gives us a budget", YOU'LL be the first person we call. (Of course, you can have the job, if you meet the quote of the three other bidders they sent your old quotes to....)

 

[jdbrandt]

"When I told you how I wanted this system to work, I wasn't expecting you to listen to me."

Or, take a service call (in warranty, of course) and have to stand there and READ the manual, word for word, to people. And, then have have them say: "You expected us to read that manual?"

 

[jdbrandt]

"OK, your system worked great last week, but it doesn't work now and you need to fix it. No - nothing has changed! Why do you ask?"

"Did you touch/adjust/change anything? No, is always the answer, of course. So, a while back, convinced in my office that the customer had fiddled, I said: "OK, I'll come out and look at the PLC code, but, be aware that I can and will check to see that the code in the machine is EXACTLY as I left it. If its different at all, YOU PAY. If its the same and I fix it, you don't pay. SURPRISE, SURPRISE, he said "Let me run down to the shop and ask those guys again." (He coulda left out the ..again.. and been a bit more honest, doncha think?)

 

[ToolGuyFred]

Some of the best ones have been from the people supposed to be on your side - the sales team working for the same company as you.

SALES: Its exactly the same as the last one, so we've reduced the price a little - oh, and added these extra featues and changed this.
ME: The old repeat re-design, eh?
SALES: Yes.

ME: Why on earth have we got a flighted inclined conveyor here when a pusher cylinder and a chute would do?
SALES: Well, you can't rely on gravity, can you?

ME: Why don't you just feed all this through your random quote generator?
SALES: Well we fired him last week...

 

[dskohio]

Does anyone have a tactful way to ask the enduser: "Is it plugged in?" ? I have had that happen more than once, where the 120V plug was disconnected. At least I didn't have to fly out to the site to find that.

 

[Steve Bailey]

Does anyone have a tactful way to ask the enduser: "Is it plugged in?"

I generally ask if they have checked for a blown fuse.

 

[Big John T]

A customer called one afternoon and said the power supply and PLC don't work anymore. So we go out to the plant (local) and sure enough it's smoked the PLC power supply as well as another power supply in the panel. After some question and answers from the maintenance superviser and the master electriction we come to the conclusion that the master electriction has done something in the panel that supplied the 120vac to our panel. We walk over to the panel and in large red letters on the cover is the following warning. "DO NOT CONNECT 120VAC TO B PHASE" They have a 240 three phase with a stinger for 277 volt lighting. There in a B phase slot is a brand new breaker with nothing connected to it. The electriction had claimed that the old breaker was bad and he got a new one and connected it up and when he flipped it on it tripped...

John

 

[aikona]

Real story

Big meeting on a powerstation in construction.
About 30 contractors all need to give realistic completion dates.
So meeting goes something like this .
Contractor 1 , how long to built the room .answer about 3 weeks.what that long blablabla,
Next, contractor 2 ,how long to install the electrical cubicles , answer about 1 week , what so long blablabla ,
Eventualy my turn : How long to download the software .answer 30 seconds ....... you could hear a pin fall.

Happend way back in the 80ties

Eric

 

[Manglemender]

I once flew to Bangkok for a blown fuse, despite having had the "have you checked the fuses?" conversation.

On another memorable occasion a Korean customer insisted that I had to come and fix two of his machines that went down on the same day with the same fault. 30 minutes after the plane took off they fixed the first machine and 30 minutes before the plane landed, they fixed the second one. I shook hands, made some backups and got on the next plane home.

My personal favourite customer conversation is: "The machine wasn't working right so we re-loaded the program and it still doesn't work......"
Nick

 

[ToolGuyFred]

My personal favourite customer conversation is: "The machine wasn't working right so we re-loaded the program and it still doesn't work......"

Ah - software rot. Isn't it amazing how many non-control people believe they have a software problem with a machine which has worked just fine for the last ten years...

 

[gas]

Customer (very large co) "Send a programmer right away, the machine continues to run after pushing the stop button". Customer again "Oh yes our top guys went thru and checked everything" again "Nothing changed". customer vp "we demand that you send a programmer immediatly"
After a last minute flight across the country with too many connections and getting verbally beaten up over our "junk" machinery I drained 5 gallons of water out of the lines. Seems their plant air drier was down for 2 weeks in August. Clutch valve was full of water.

customer "You are going to charge us WHAT? That machine is still under warrenty"

Many stories like this. Seems like the bigger the company the the less IQ is required.

 

[scalelar]

OK this is a little sketchy but a true story. About ten or so years ago a friend bid a job replacing a relay panel with about twenty relays with a small (Omron I think) plc. My friend estimated the programming to be about two hours. Seriously! No HMI not alot of logic. So he bid three days on it. The plant manager said no way you can do that in three days it would take weeks if not months. He lost the job.