04-13-2005, 08:45 AM
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| | | Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 170
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The company my wife worked for (a well known electronics / cable manufacturer) was closing the local facilities (moving to Mexico). Months before the actual shutdown, she was calling me at my office giving me the vague updates of what was going into the dumpster. Little did I know what was going out, I left my office thinking it was going to be bent-up, rusty junk, was I wrong! I got there to find commercial grade workbenches, you know the ones with built-in power strips, and internal air lines with overhead chucks and drop downs, anti-static mats and suppressors, built-in fluorescent lighting and all this in one bench and they looked like new! After the second trip I had a total of (18) of these benches.
The maintenance supervisor knew I was starting my own shop, and would check with my wife before tossing anything in the dumpsters. The dumpsters were the types brought in on a semi and rolled back into the loading docks. They had them working in rotation with (2) in the docks & (2) going out. I saw everything from rows of pallet racking to drafting tables w/ drafting arms!
About a week before the company auction, they allowed the employees to come in and see if they’d like anything. I went thinking I’d find rolls of paper towels & bent paper clips. When I got there, I so was amazed at what they were giving away, I was on the phone trying to find a semi I could get there in a few hours, the catch was you had to get the stuff out that day. After several trips with my box truck, I came away with more benches, a 3 ton scissor airlift table. An over head air lift and gantry, 220+ feet of motorized and roller conveyor (that was less than 6 months old, set up once and taken down because “they didn’t like the way the product flowed through that part of the building”). Pallets of plastics tote bins, office chairs (they had over 300 to choose from!). I got stainless steel wire rack systems (on castors) and more! I had to leave behind so much of the bigger stuff like the programmable pallet shrink wrapper (with turntable & digital scales) and such.
Then came the auction. I watched (2) Mazak Horizontal machine centers that were only 2-3 years old, with tomb stone loaders, 80 pocket tool changers, etc and like new condition. My friend that worked in purchasing told me they were used for light work on aluminum castings and the company spent over $500,000.00 each. The gavel fell at $3,500.00 each! I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I’d run out of room in the building I had at the time, so I had to watch them go.
Everything this company bought was top of the line. Then they turn around and toss a piece of equipment because it didn’t “fit in” with something else. Yet, this same company would cry about low profits, and the need to go south of the boarder, Go figure!  |
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