Clueless Field Service

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Mon Jun 8 21:36:27 1998

<rearranging RAM in others (so the SIMMS were no longer paired). Noone
<solved this. Better yet, the next issue, they published a letter
<saying that these were clearly artificial problems, and I quote,
<"IDE cables just don't fail". The guy said that a tech would never
<think to look at it.

Poor, while unlikely the obvious is the problem.

<BTW, do you train service techs?

Sometimes if they needed someone in my specialty on short call. More
often the trainers were part of my product development team and I was
managing technology transfer and strategy for repair. I was tasked
mostly with developing the service process/plan.

Remember: Good, Fast, Cheap pick any two. Here in the USA the cost to
repair often exceeds value on unit, of comes very close to it. A new
boom box 125$, an hour of service time is typically 35-50$ plus parts
(usually a subassembly). If the set is more than x many years old the
feature of a new one and the cost to repair... In some places where
goods are scarce or expensive that level of waste can't exist.

I've gotten some good equipment for this reason. I also have some old
equipment because I could fix it real cheap. My first 11/23 was made
from failed FS spares returns that were 'shot to the chip level. That
includes the RL02 I got on a bet. It was mine of I could fix it, it had
been totally taken appart by several people that couldn't fix it...
problem was a bad crimp on a spade lug to the motor start cap. It's
still running and I've never used a alignment pack that one of the
people that took it apart said it would need despite the heads never
being desturbed.

Then again I can solder too.

Allison
Received on Mon Jun 08 1998 - 21:36:27 BST