Preventitive Maintenance

[NWSERVICEGUY]

I have a question for you shop owners and managers.
This is directed mostly to those shops that do not perform regular maintenance on the machines.
What are the reasons that preventative maintenance is not scheduled or performed on the machines? Is it lack of qualified personal in house? If so then is the cost for a service tech to come out a factor? If this is not the reason then is scheduling the machine to be down for a day the main reason? If cost for a service tech to come out is the reason, what in your best opinion is a fair price point to perform a full service on a machine like a VF4?

Thanks
NWSERVICEGUY

[Matt@RFR]

Define "full service".

I do my own maintenance, but if I didn't, the main bummer is what you guys charge for travel. I'm minimum 2 hours away from you.

[locash]

I do most of my own maintenance on the machines as I have free time, or something else breaks that requires me to take down the machine anyway, so I get maintenance done too..

The Haas pricing for a PM on my 2006 VF2 with no options was $800, and after I paid it once and received 2 hours of simple work and an air filter for the control cabinet, I felt screwed.

Half of that price *might* have been fair.

[hercules]

2 hours travel each way is an obstacle for me too.

[Vern Smith]

This could become an interesting thread. By it's very definition preventative maintenance can be scheduled to happen on a predictable time table. This is routinely done by servicing organizations that travel around large territories to pull routine maintenance on equipment. It works for both parties because the servicing organization puts people on the road traveling a prescribed rout stopping off at predetermined locations that will have machines requiring routine maintenance. The advantage for the recipients is much reduced travel time costs.

This is not rocket science but my local HFO has never mentioned the availability of such service. As others have stated, their travel charges are high, as they well should be, for a well qualified technician but much of this cost can be reduced by the application of a little planning and management. They make inexpensive motels that make these planned routs much more economical than returning to base camp every night.

I realize all the HFO's are not stupid so they must not offer this type service for a reason. Possible low margins in the service department or an assumption that most of their customers would rather do it themselves. If the former, this type of operation could help their margins, if it's the latter, offering this service to 5 or 10 of their largest customers, clustered conveniently together, should be worth a pilot program.

[Matt@RFR]

They make inexpensive motels...

Pff. Those vans have enough room for an air mattress.

[haastec]

IMO most people do not see the value in such a service relative to the cost unless some type of unknown or potential problem is found during the PM.

How many people take their car/truck in to the dealer for PM work or just to have it looked over once or twice a year? If they charged you even 300 bucks and they said all was good, no problems. Most, I feel, would drive away thinking it was a waste of time and/or money, or wonder if they even did anything.

Now if they came back and said they discovered and fixed a potential problem that could have easily resulted in a several thosand dollars repair, then you would feel you got a good deal.

Bottom line is some people value the service as a true long term reduction in expenses and/or down time while others are willing to gamble that the money saved will far exceed any expenses that arise from unknown repairs.

Who is right and who is wrong? Let me know when you find out.

[haastec]

Pff. Those vans have enough room for an air mattress.

Hammocks work better!!

[extanker59]

Pff. Those vans have enough room for an air mattress.

He's wasting time sleeping?

[Machineit]

IMO most people do not see the value in such a service relative to the cost unless some type of unknown or potential problem is found during the PM.

How many people take their car/truck in to the dealer for PM work or just to have it looked over once or twice a year? If they charged you even 300 bucks and they said all was good, no problems. Most, I feel, would drive away thinking it was a waste of time and/or money, or wonder if they even did anything.

Now if they came back and said they discovered and fixed a potential problem that could have easily resulted in a several thosand dollars repair, then you would feel you got a good deal.

Bottom line is some people value the service as a true long term reduction in expenses and/or down time while others are willing to gamble that the money saved will far exceed any expenses that arise from unknown repairs.

Who is right and who is wrong? Let me know when you find out.

Overall, paying the high prices that are charged for periodic maintenance by factory service personnel is not a money saving proposition. Maybe if you had 20 machines and a dealer in town---MAYBE. Most of the customers are not located near a factory outlet and of course travel costs kill you. Right now I would pay at least 6 hours travel time for service.

I have maintained my machines for the last 19 years. My 1992 VF-1 is still in service at my former business.

Truth is that the basic maintenance of the Haas machines is pretty simple. If you maintain fluid levels like oils and note if they are not being consumed (like waylube), you can prevent almost any related problem. If I had employees now I would print out a simple daily, weekly, and monthly checklist for the operators to perform. Other than oils and filters, not much else to check to prevent anything.

Little if anything can be done to prevent electrical problems. If the cabinet door is kept closed and why would you not keep it closed, the electronics will stay clean. Sometimes you may get a cable failure, but most of those can be caused by poor cleaning practices getting chips where they don't belong. Unless a tech takes your machine apart, he will not find that anyway. No one is going to agree to replacing servo boards every five years to try to prevent future failures.

I always have operators keep the machines clean. The bulk of the chips cleaned out at the end of the day and thoroughly cleaned out everywhere at the end of the week. An operator who pushes a button then stands there watching is not doing his job. That is the time for light cleaning of external surfaces. I see machines for sale or in some shops that look like they have never been cleaned at all.

I guess the bottom line is that if the operator is smart enough to operate your machine, he or she should be smart enough to read and perform basic maintenance.

[KenFoulks]

Besides basic PM, is there a service that you would be interested in on a regular basis?

[Matt@RFR]

I'm still curious for someone at an HFO or at the factory to define what they call preventative maintenance, or full service as mentioned in the first post. Let's get a solid idea of what we are talking about here.