We have many widget makers like that around here. Most widget makers have very little capitol, ineffective maintenance personnel and heaven forbid implement a PM program.
Some widget makers have an employee that “knows” someone. Widget maker contacts this “someone”, who has absolutely no business touching this stuff. This “someone” and widget maker strike a deal. Widget maker was happy because he thought he was saving a pile of money. You know how the rest goes…
It totally depends on the widget process, documentation… as others have stated.
Some widget systems can be up and running within a few hours with totally upgraded hardware (PLC), while others may take a while.
We had one widget company that had an employee that “knew” someone. The task was to upgrade widget machine from an old Modicon to a ML1500, which he did, and did quite well. This “someone” was not a real company and never got paid because widget company owner was a crook. Well, one day ML1500 blows the base unit, and widget machine is dead in the water. Incompetent maintenance employee (who parked his vehicle backed up to the building so you couldn’t see the stolen license plate), swaps out the base unit, then manages to smoke both the new base unit and processor.
Being dead in the water, widget maker calls us. We’ve had dealings with widget maker in the past, and he don’t like to pay bills. Anyway, we go look at it. Service tech goes out, gets the story, sees the problem and can’t stop laughing. Repeat, he can’t stop laughing!
We get the new hardware and install. OK, you got the program? Umm, well, incompetent maintenance person, during his last tangle with this inadvertently overwrote the program with widget machine 3 program. This “someone” did 3 widget machines for widget maker. This “someone” was contacted, and no way was he going to cooperate unless he got paid. Well, widget maker didn’t want to pay. Said to do what you must do to get it running.
Service tech asks for documentation. No drawings, but have a print out of a Modicon program. Well, that turned out to be for a different widget machine.
So, I head there. It took a bit over a week to get widget machine up and running, with much higher production and more features. I got a lot of this never worked stuff, or we would like this…
Now they are making widgets at a much higher capacity because “someone” was only a programmer and didn’t quite understand the mechanical, but still did a pretty decent job.
Now, we know widget company owner doesn’t like to pay bills. Hopes if he avoids them they will go away. Not gonna happen. Boss man said to triik widget machine program out a tad. Telephone number password, and on the 91st power up, it isn’t gonna make any widgets. They drop the main power to the building at the end of each day, so on power up…
A couple weeks pass after D-Day and boss questions my stealth. No way is that making any widgets! About 6 weeks after this would not start up, we get a call from widget maker that don’t like to pay bills demanding the password. They found another “someone” that finally figured out after six weeks that this was password protected.
We are not budging and Lawyers on our side are in deposition mode. Widget company owner is defiant and has this other “someone” try bail him out. Didn’t work and doubt this “someone” got paid. Widget company owner finally sent a check to our lawyers that cleared. As far as I know, I made up a package for widget company with a lot of sunshine so they can make widgets again.