Learning Without Scars
As a third-generation educator, it is easy to say that teaching and training are in the blood for Ron Slee. From his beginnings as a coach, through his time at McGill University, Ron developed a foundation for the work he does today. From working within dealerships, to operating a consulting company, creating a training business and running twenty groups, Ron has been directly involved in this Industry since 1969. Ron has been known as the industry expert for years, and has brought this expertise to bear through his training programs. Today, Ron provides specialized, job function based internet based subject specific classes, job function skills assessments, as well virtual seminars and webinars. These courses are designed for manufacturers and their dealers, as well as independent businesses in the construction equipment, light industrial, on-highway, engine, and agricultural industries through Learning Without Scars (www.LearningWithoutScars.com). This platform is a continuation of the work begun by Quest, Learning Centers which was established in 1996. This training is aimed at improving dealer parts and service operations through qualified people that are knowledgeable in using operational metrics and current market and operational best practice methods.
Learning Without Scars
Mastering Failure Analysis: The Collision of Human Skill and Machine Technology with Jim Dettore
Uncover the intricacies of failure analysis with industry expert Jim Dettore from Failure Analysis Services, as he takes us on an enlightening journey through the labyrinth of machine breakdowns and preventative strategies. His story, morphing from a seasoned machinist to a heralded trainer, offers a treasure trove of knowledge, emphasizing the importance of keen inspection skills and analytical problem-solving. Tune in for a captivating session that promises to sharpen your understanding of the delicate interplay between human oversight and technological advancement in heavy machinery and beyond.
Step into the realm of cutting-edge heavy equipment where Jim vividly illustrates the transformative impact of computerization and sensor technologies, yet also reminds us of the undiminished value of human vigilance. Our conversation spans the gamut from the subtle advancements in oil analysis to the consequential effects of operator conduct on machine longevity. Learn how the mastery of these domains is critical in circumventing costly equipment failures and ensuring the seamless operation of machinery across varied industries.
Reflect on the evolving landscape of operator training, the undervalued artistry of technicians, and the cultural tapestry that influences workplace safety and the cherished tradition of mentorship. Jim's insights dissect the effect of customer feedback on maintenance services, revealing surprising statistics about the underutilization of OEM dealers for scheduled repairs. Engage with us as we navigate through these topics, painting a picture of the industry's future and the underestimated importance of customer relations in shaping the perception of service value.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
Aloha and welcome to another candid conversation. Today I'm really pleased to be joined by Jim Dottore of FAS, which stands for Failure Analysis Services, a gentleman that, if you don't already know him, you're going to be pleased to get to meet him. And with that I'm just going to kick it over to Jim and have him explain to us who he is, what he does, what FAS does, and we'll go from there, jim Good to have you with me. Thank you for giving us the time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and thanks for having me on your podcast. So FAS is Failure Analysis Services, which is our company that provides root cause failure analysis training, and I'll get into a little bit more of that here in just a minute. But my background is primarily in the heavy equipment industry. That's where I started. Prior to that developed a fairly strong machining background salvage and machining repairs working for a couple different contractors in San Diego, california, which is my hometown. Then in about 1990 I got a job with the caterpillar dealer, which was Hawthorne Cat in San Diego, and boy, I just can't begin to tell you how much I learned there, roland. Obviously they trained the living daylights out of me, but also it took me applying that to be able to continue to get the training and working there.
Speaker 2:I started as a machinist in a hydraulic shop and then moved on to the component shop, building transmissions and things like that, and into the main shop where I did a lot of major repairs and, like caterpillar, certified rebuilds on large machines 992s, d10s, things like that and then into a service truck. I was in a service truck for several years for a couple of different dealers, so I worked for five different dealers across the US over the 37 years that I've been in the heavy equipment industry and one of them was Johnson Tractor, which is in Riverside or was in Riverside, california I think they're owned by Quinn Company now, but when I went to work for Johnson I spent the first 30 days working in their service shop and then the next three years working on the East Side Reservoir project, which was that big reservoir that doubled Southern California's drinking water storage capacity. So that was quite the learning experience all the way around. Very high profile project as well. Then I was recruited from there by Michigan Cat to be a technical training instructor kind of, where I got into training and it just continued on from there or so. Working for different dealers always presented the opportunity to learn more and more and more. When I finally got into service management and I had an opportunity to go through some really great caterpillar schools, such as their flagship management training program, which was excellent, and then business tools for service managers, business tools for parts managers and then, last but not least, their caterpillar production system or CPS, lean, six Sigma, domaic, black Belt Training. So that really helped a lot, especially with our business now.
Speaker 2:But what we do is we travel the US teaching failure analysis to customers in multiple industries, different market segments such as construction equipment market, construction equipment dealerships. We train for construction equipment manufacturers several different manufacturers. We also train in the mining sector. We do mobile equipment as well as process training for mines, for root cause analysis. Then we get into the remanufacturing element as well. There are quite a few remanufacturers out there and we train there folks. And then recently I guess most recently the last couple of years we've gotten into the marine industry and I got to tell you, historically you would think that the miners could tear equipment up and they can't hold a candle to what happens in those big ships when they have a large engine failure. So the marine industry has really been taken off for us. So that's helped as well.
Speaker 2:But what we do is we teach people to actually help them improve their inspection skills, for starters being able to recognize when there is a problem and then act on that problem, and we teach them to work with facts instead of things like opinions or feelings.
Speaker 2:When those things get involved they lead us astray and we refer to that as the preconceived idea.
Speaker 2:So we help them avoid the preconceived idea as well and get them to employ critical thinking skills, which I think I did a blog post on your website on critical thinking skills, if anybody would like to check that out.
Speaker 2:It tends to make people better at their jobs and they seem after the training they seem fired up and more interested about their jobs and applying what they've learned. Sometimes Ron will get, we'll get folks that'll be in class that have turned wrenches for 15, 20, 25 years and by the end of the week you know it's a barely common comment that they'll come up to me and be like oh this is a great training, one of the best trainings I've had, and I just got to say I wish I'd had it 20 years ago, you know. So I really knew what I was looking at. But we we teach them to get to the most probable root cause of component failures or equipment failures. We cover engines, hydraulic systems, powertrains, air conditioning, weld failures and weld fabricated structure failures as well in heavy equipment. So that's kind of a kind of the gist of it, if you will.
Speaker 1:I love. I love hearing people humbly review you said 37 years what they've done. You know it's kind of like the dash in the cemetery between the two years that your birth year and your death year. It's represented by this tiny little line and it represents the whole of who and what. You are Five different dealers and the thing cause I've worked that ground as well. Every dealer has different perspectives on things.
Speaker 1:Tom Hawthorne was a man I had unbelievable respect for. He did a magnificent job in San Diego and the thing that impressed me most about Tom is he controlled all the competition. He knew them, they knew him. He let them get what the amount of business was, he was prepared to let them get and that was the end of it. And they all knew it. And you'd get up to Michigan, cat. That's a completely different place in the Midwest. Good people and you're talking about years ago. You know generations change and you know it's a remarkable world.
Speaker 1:But the other side of it that impresses the hell out of me is diagnostic skills are very rare in technicians. They know how to fix things. When somebody tells them what to fix, it's kind of like surgeons. The surgeon knows how to do the plumbing in your heart. They can repair your heart, they can do transplants, they can do stints, they can do all kinds of things, but somebody has to determine what is wrong with your heart, to get the surgeon to get in there and tell them what to do.
Speaker 1:And as technology has changed now we've got voice recognition, we've got cameras in operating rooms, so everybody sees the whole deal You're teaching people how to be more effective at diagnostics and it also, to me, opens up that they're looking at the whole machine, not just the sector that the customer thinks is wrong, and that changes the whole ball game. And your comment about the guy coming up it's a small percentage that do that, that say well, I wish I'd known that 20 years ago or something. But those folks are the ones that we should identify earlier and that's why your blog last week or this week on mentoring is so important to me. How do we transfer our knowledge to other people which are so effective at doing? And the trouble I see for people like you. People get on your calendar. They never let you get off.
Speaker 2:That's an accurate statement.
Speaker 1:You've got a finite amount of time to give and that can. When I was at the peak of what I was doing, I was shared this with you. I was out three years with schedules and you're getting to the same place. So how do you transfer your teaching skills to other people? Who continues for you? Many people ask me okay, who takes over when you leave? Hello, how do you want to? You're younger than I am, thankfully. How are you considering passing the torch?
Speaker 2:Well. So that's a great question. Obviously, with the amount of training classes and the people that I get exposed to throughout the year, I've always got my ear open to the guy that may have some interest in doing what we do but also has to possess certain skills. He can't just have technical skills, he has to possess strong interpersonal skills. He has to be relational to the problems that the customer is experiencing and be that problem-solver, be able to discover what are the hot buttons, what are the points that the customer is really feeling the pain, and being able to expose those and then act on it. So I've run across a few.
Speaker 2:I got to say they're few and far between because it is a very specialized skill set. When it comes to just the analysis portion on its own, you have to know some things about the process, the failure management. You have to know some things about metallurgy. You have to know some things about wear types or tribology. You have to know some things about fracture types. But then there's the whole other aspect of loading the machine. And when I say loading the machine, how we load that machine down, you know as the operator running into the pile, the wheel loader, with the bucket four inches off the ground wide open in third gear, or is he doing it like he should in first or second gear? You know, a bucket level with the ground and getting a full scoop. So being able to identify and recognize those things is it's a skill set that I haven't seen replicated in just five or 10 years. It seems to be the person that's got 20 to 30 years experienced to have the whole set and, like I said, they're few and far between, but I have run across some folks that I have been interested in and they've also shared their interest in doing something similar. The other aspect of it is, ron, is that we're a mobile training service. So rather than the brick and mortar and folks coming to us, we go to them and that's one thing that's attractive to a lot of our customers because they don't have to buy airline tickets and hotels and meals and expense accounts and all that for all their people. So that means that if you're going to get on the road for 30 weeks a year hauling a bunch of training gear all over the country and setting up one place from week to week, different places, and to be able to do that well, I think that would be difficult to do if you were 30 something with a wife and a few kids at home. So there's challenges there as well, and I have faith in believing that I will find the right person or people to be able to continue to carry the torch.
Speaker 2:You know a little bit about our history. I'm not sure if you knew Daryl Davis. Daryl Davis was the gentleman that originally authored the failure analysis training program for Caterpillar, and Daryl was my first failure analysis training instructor and back in the early 90s, and he continued to do that until 2002 for Caterpillar. 2002, that was when Caterpillar let a lot of the industry term was oak trees go. The guys with all the knowledge and experience didn't make a lot of sense to me, but so be it. So Daryl wasn't done, so he started this business. He wanted to continue to work and he put this training program together.
Speaker 2:We simply purchased the business after Daryl's passing. And what's kind of interesting is, daryl was the type of individual just world class. They broke the mold when God made Daryl Davis, but he kept everything in his head. There was no instruction manual, there were some presentations, there were some books, there were cases of iron, but being able to have the skill set to transform that into the business that we have today. And we've made a lot of changes, the crux of the business being the presentations and what you see has changed a lot, as far as the verbiage has not changed tremendously, but Daryl did the same thing, but this was after he retired. So finding that guy to carry the torch, if you will, I feel like that's kind of what we've done with Daryl's business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. The other thing that happened over that 37 years, I think, is rather telling. Technology obviously in support services is strong, but technology in the machine, computerization of componentry sensors in the machine, all of these additions To me they seem to be highlighting the fact that the manufacturer of a thing, whether it's a washing machine at home or a tractor, don't see the diagnostic skills in their dealer technical people. They're providing better analytics through telemonics that are early warning systems on machines Is. Am I reading that properly?
Speaker 2:Well, to a certain extent, yeah, I would agree wholeheartedly, except for the other issues that happen, like machines get worked on, oil gets changed, air filters get changed, something gets missed, a rag gets left in an air inlet or contaminated oil gets put in a component. If you put contaminated oil in a component, it's fairly rare that you will see some sort of indicator other than maybe a low oil pressure event happening via the electronic control system that's going to warn you that you have impending doom or a failure happening. So definitely the telematics, the electronics, the sophistication of technology in machines that's come so far, it still doesn't seem to be able to head off the failure when something anonymally has occurred, such as the contaminated oil, the rag, you know.
Speaker 1:I agree with you 100%. And if you go backwards 1969, Caterpillar started an oil sampling and they used a tool called atomic absorption spectrophotometry. They burned the oil and measured it by looking at the flame, and I did videos on that in 1969. Can you believe that nonsense?
Speaker 2:That's interesting.
Speaker 1:And the oil sample parts per million, where that's the only thing you're going to have that contamination. But the time gaps are too great. The time when we do the test make the determination or contamination to the next event. Ok, there's no contamination today and the next event is 500 hours, some cases 1,000 hours away, and that machine can be destroyed in 50 hours.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and boy oil analysis is a whole other thing. So we teach that as well as a diagnostic component for helping us determine root cause of failures. But from the atomic absorption that you mentioned to nowadays, it used to be historically.
Speaker 1:That's all stuff, baby.
Speaker 2:We couldn't. Historically we couldn't article count diesel engine oil because it was too dark. But with the L&F technology or the laser net finds technology, nowadays they can. And also we have the PQ index, which is a particle quantifier which, if used properly, is huge, especially in mining when we're talking mining, truck rear final drives and things like that, and wheel motors, it's just, it's a tremendous tool, especially for us for failure analysis purposes, because if failures already happen, show me the history and don't send me the report that only has the last four oil samples. I want the last several years of history, because something could have happened a year and a half ago that triggered the initial root cause of this failure progressing or the premature wear out progressing over time. So technology is helping me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me focus a little bit more on that. Just so everybody knows, jim has recently been kind enough to update all of our customer construction industry technician assessments. We now cover and I guess John Deere was the first one to do it this way put out a series of books called FOSS Manuals, fundamentals of Service, and their primary focus was Engine Power Train Hydraulics Electrical. I'd like you to expand a little bit on that, jim. What else should we be concerned about, or what else are you training about, other than Engine Power Train Hydraulics Electrical?
Speaker 2:So machine inspection run is a critical element which encompasses everything. So if you pull up to a machine and you do an initial walk around and you've got your eyes wide open and you're recognizing problems and that machine has physical damage on every single corner and every single panel, well, some applications that's unavoidable, but most applications it's completely avoidable and it tells us something about the operator. So when we do that inspection and we see leaks, we see lots of grease on a couple of bearing pin and bearing joints and one of them that doesn't appear to have much grease. Those are things that are red flags. That also Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Let me interrupt for a second. Do you know of anybody anywhere that has a good operator assessment tool?
Speaker 2:So I may, and that'll take a little bit of digging, yeah no problem with that.
Speaker 1:But the only thing that I operators I used to tease we don't want to touch the operator because they give us all the parts of service business. The operator probably causes more wear and damage on a machine than the average bear. You can tell by looking like you're talking about machine inspections. You go out and look at a machine. You can tell whether the guy's right hand or left handed. Sure, there's all kinds of things that it's amazing. Then, similarly, now we have so much not just primarily overseas, but then not as much here because of our distance but rental machines. You get into Europe, rental machine inspections before and after, before they go out and after they get back. Same thing in Asia. Nobody is really doing any of that yet.
Speaker 2:So there was a gentleman. Is it intriguing? I'm sorry, no, it's intriguing.
Speaker 1:I didn't mean to walk on top of you there.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I spent five years working for a gentleman named Owen Cowan and Owen was a founder of Red Mountain Machinery Company. The business is no longer. You know, owen has passed rest is sold. But working for that company and getting exposure to the heavy rents side of the industry was just tremendous for the knowledge base. And we inspected machines thoroughly before they left and upon their return and customers got billed for rental damage and a lot of times root cause analysis was involved to help determine that the customer was at fault. So, with that being said, I think I think things have changed a lot, ron, when it comes to the operator.
Speaker 2:So I come from a lot of the old school where I worked with a with a gentleman. He was an operator at Cass Construction in San Diego in the late 80s. His name was I don't know if he's still around, but his name was Sam Snow. And when you would walk up and talk to Sam he was just this grumpy old cuss but he could run a 245 excavator that it would just blow your mind what the guy was capable of doing. And then he could jump on the wheel loader and then jump on a backhoe and then jump on a trencher with with the same amount of expertise and those guys were fairly rare back then but even more so now. And one thing that I've seen change drastically and I just talked about this last month we were teaching a weld fabricated structures course for one of our customers.
Speaker 2:And one thing that we see nowadays is an operator will run an excavator until the boom breaks in two and through inspection he could see the, the rust line running down the side of the excavator boom because something's broken up. Top bare metals exposed, the rain, the moisture causes it to rust. Well, let me tell you the first contractor that I ever worked for, terry Cameron at TC Construction in San Diego there there are very large underground utilities contractor, sewer water or storm drain contractor. And Terry, if, if he was out on a job site which he was often, he cruises all of his job sites, he always knows what's going on and he were to see something like that and the operator was still running the machine, that operator lose his job. You know, nowadays that doesn't seem as big of a deal because there's somebody down the street just dying to have that guy Right, but nowadays that they'll run it to the point that it breaks.
Speaker 2:And I just don't understand that because of not not just the the cost of the replacement part, but the downtime and the inconveniences that it creates. When it's as simple as as soon as you see it, you do a good inspection. As soon as you see a crack, you call the maintenance department. They send a welder out after shift. That welder gouges it out, welds it all up just like they would do similar as a factory repair and and the machine was good to go. You didn't have that downtime and all that inconvenience and the unnecessary costs. But nowadays it's let's run it till it breaks and then just get worn to your goodwill on it.
Speaker 1:I think that also is a trigger for autonomous machines, Sure, which we're seeing in mining more than anywhere else. A good acquaintance and former client of mine is in in the industry looking after the construction industry, and one of her missions is to bring more autonomous machine operations into the construction world, which probably leads us to better defining the construction job, to the point that it can be computer driven rather than operator driven. We're seeing remarkable changes in that direction and in part it's because of the exposure that the machine is put to with the lack of skills of operators and, as you've highlighted, the world today, particularly this country, we're so short of skills. It's ridiculous, it is. My granddaughter is 22. She's taking a master's degree and we're chatting about quiet quitting, which has become an attribute of her generation not her, thankfully, but she says Poppy, you know there's people out there that are only doing as much work as they have to do to get paid, that they're not going to do anything more than that and that just means that they're leaving their brains at the door when they go to work.
Speaker 1:And operators are doing the same thing. The operator schools that we have around there's such a need for them. I think that the quality of trainers in operator training, whether it's driving tractor trailers on highway trucks, or loader backhose or trenches or what. I think we've got a huge hole there too, Jim, and you're probably seeing it. Like you say 20, 25 year guys, they're the good ones. 25 year guys yes, family constraints come in, but they don't have the scars yet, do they?
Speaker 2:That tends to be the case.
Speaker 2:One other thing that we're seeing with operators nowadays and it's really not the operator as much as it is the machine manufacturers with several of the major manufacturers in North America and Japan, we see the auto machine function, meaning that they get in the machine, they bring up the monitor, they look like a large iPad and they go into a particular digging mode and all they have to do is release the safety lever and touch the lever one time and the excavator digs the ditch for them, and a lot of times it's flatter and more precise, with less wasted movement and less fuel burn, than the operator could do without it.
Speaker 2:Right, and we see that it started that traditionally, that stuff started in mining products, the large high dollar mining products, where it started, and we see it start to trickle down. It's trickled down to the point where we see medium size machines with those capabilities now and that tends I believe that tends to invite the operator that is maybe just looking for the job and looking for the paycheck rather than looking for the skill set, because what skills does he really have to have? He or she really have to have?
Speaker 1:I think that's the whole point, isn't it?
Speaker 2:That's how you turn on the video game and the buttons that you push to get it to start and let it go through its paces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was really funny. The first place I saw it in mining up in Quebec in some of the larger iron ore mines, but I saw it more regularly in Europe with Timberjack. The mechanic, the driver, the operator of those machines was almost respected like a medical doctor was, and we don't really have that respect here.
Speaker 1:I remember I was with a group a long time ago and we were at a Christmas party for the dealership and the guy said look around. He said, okay, what am I looking for? He said look at the guys who have their hands in their pockets. He said, okay, is there?
Speaker 2:anything common about them.
Speaker 1:He said, yeah, most of them are technicians. He said, yeah, they're hiding their hands because they're embarrassed, because their fingers are just covered with black grease and they're done that. Oh, I understand that. And then today in California, it happened there first, at least to my knowledge, lanolin lined gloves that the technicians are wearing. Things change, sure, and that statement that you made about the manufacturers are making the machine. So we got the iPad, the Game Boy, dipadeal, and the operator doesn't have to be an operator anymore. He just sets it up, sets up the game, pushes the button and sits back and watches, makes sure something unusual doesn't happen, in which case he hits the stop button, and that really is not applicable to everything and that misses a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah, a lot of truth in that.
Speaker 1:This transition. These transitions are always interesting, but this one, I think, is more interesting. It's a study that you are aware of that offers training like you do on the internet.
Speaker 2:Um, I believe that ASM, american Society of Metals, offers their classes virtually, but I do want to say this Ron is is our business is much more of a niche, simply because of the iron and the component experience that we have.
Speaker 2:I agree, yeah, so, um, so they're going to show you, you know, broken pieces of of this gear, or this frame assembly, or this crane boom or this particular bearing that failed, and the reality is is that the road signs are still similar. If it's a fatigue fracture, it's going to have some kind of stress concentrator and then ratchet marks and beach marks and be smooth and things like that. But sometimes guys have a difficult time putting the pieces together from seeing that on one piece of metal versus seeing it on a, a wheel loader, lift cylinder pin that's broken. For, say so again, with with the web training, web based training as well, there's definitely a place for it and uh, and I am a proponent of it. However, for the skills that we teach, the hands on portion is, uh, is what people really get excited about. I just you know, I can't lie about that.
Speaker 1:So let me, let me equate or draw a picture and see if this fits. I think what you do is if we look excuse me, if we look at a pyramid, the bottom of which is the ground and there's no knowledge. So somebody comes into the period pyramid and they want to be trained in the world of technicians, technical repairs, technical rebuilds, evaluation, analysis, the whole thing. The first level is real, fundamental. Where you are, you're right at the top of the damn pyramid. There's nobody, there's no skills beyond what you're teaching that are beneficial to a technician in their work. Is that a fair comment?
Speaker 2:What's an interesting comment. I've always liked to remain humble, but thinking about that, I've never really looked at it that way, Ron, but I would say that that's fairly accurate.
Speaker 1:So when we start out, let's go to the mentoring world. A young person decides that they want to become a mechanic. They can go to a technical school. They might be too far away from a technical school to get access to one, so they hire on at a repair facility, a dealer or some such company that does repairs, and they're given to somebody who trains them an apprentice for the guy, and that guy is his mentor. Okay, let's stop there for a second, because the blog you wrote, I think, was really telling, because I don't see mentoring much anymore. Do you see it more or less than it used to be?
Speaker 2:So I'm going to say that with our customers. We see quite a few of them that still do apprenticeship programs with mentors. There are other places where the tribal knowledge runs rampant and tribal knowledge can be a double-edged sword. So if you've got a guy that's worked in the shop the longest, immediately he has the most experience. Well, the reality is he has the most time in service, not necessarily the most experience and the most training. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's stop there for a second. Somebody used to throw that at me when I was much younger. Well, you don't have the experience George over there. He's been here 23 years and I'd look them in the face and I say George has had 23 years of the same experience. His experience level is one year and they'd look at me strange. But I mean that and I believe that that's still the case.
Speaker 1:We have people that get in a job and they do the same damn job every year, the same way every year, without modification or growth every year. And as a result of that, to me that experience has a life, it has a beginning and it has a useful life. Expiration dates right when we have to regenerate, whatever the heck it was that brought them to the game in the first place and that to me now. So I've got a group of 100 mechanics at a dealership. I've got maybe 15 that are really experienced, I've got maybe 25 that are close, I've probably got 35 that are in growth and I've got maybe 10, whatever the remainder is that are just starting, but that 25 and 35 in the middle every year. They need either refreshing or expanding their knowledge. Fair comment.
Speaker 2:Well, I agree wholeheartedly. That was something that well. When Hawthorne first hired me, in the job interview they made a couple of statements. One of the first statements was you know, you work for a cat dealer for five years. You can go to work at any cat dealer. Right, that was interesting to me. But the fact that they said we'll train you. Caterpillar has some of the most sophisticated service technician training programs you know in the world. So I held their feet to the fire on that. I was the squeaky wheel. Hey, you know, I haven't had any classes this year. Can I get some training? Can I get some training? And sure enough, you know I was the guy that got it Kind of funny. Other guys in the shop would complain well, why is he getting all the training? Why was that scooping for it? Those guys that were in their job for 15 or 20 years, they knew their job well. A lot of them didn't want to leave home for a week to go somewhere to train. So you know there's that whole element of it as well.
Speaker 1:So let me interrupt there for a second. How often, when you were working with dealers, did you get a performance review?
Speaker 2:That's going to depend on the dealer and who my supervisor was, of course, but some of them it was annual, one of them it was quarterly and some of them it was, you know, every once in a while whenever they kind of felt like it.
Speaker 1:So let me make that three groups, quarterly, annually, haphazardly. Which should the industry, which should the world of technicians have happened to it? Which one of those three?
Speaker 2:In this day and age, I would say quarterly, but the supervisors, the supervisors aren't going to want to hear that.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, that's the problem. The people that do the performance reviews and you indicated it in the answer that it depended on the person the people that are leading teams of people don't get training on how to do performance reviews.
Speaker 1:And that's another area that is problematic and too many of our old school thinkers, like my generation, that I'm here to critique you, not promote you. I don't want to overcome weaknesses that you have. I want to highlight them to you and that's just upside down. You and I talked about this. There was an article when the Federal Reserve started making noises about raising interest rates. On the front page of the Wall Street Journal was an article headline. These are revisiting their annual performance review to determine which people they should let go, which is exactly the opposite of what I believe a performance review should be. How can I help you get better?
Speaker 2:Capitalizing on strengths. Absolutely, yes, sir, absolutely. So you know who does a good job of that and is very helpful. My guess is do you probably know Lynn Daniel? Yeah, the Daniel Group surveys.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So Lynn was. Lynn is a good friend and a bit of a mentor as well. When he brought his program to the dealer in Mississippi I was service manager there of the corporate headquarters store at Puckett Machinery Company in Jacksonville.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And Lynn brought in the surveys with the NPS score and educated us all on that. That was all well and fine and great. We did really well at it. We were number one in the country several years running. But what really helped the most is when Lynn came to the table with the rest of the questions that were on the survey. Because you know, then the net promoter score was based on one question how likely would you be to recommend this company to someone else? But all of the rest of the questions were answered by the customers as well, throughout the survey. So he would bring us those numbers and he would put them in a spreadsheet and graph them out for us so we could see where the areas were that, yeah, we were weak, but also the areas that we were strong, what we were doing right.
Speaker 2:So what I did with my crew and I say my crew, this is my team, my service planners and my service foreman, probably about six or seven people altogether is when we would do morning walk-arounds. Occasionally we would talk about the surveys, but one day we would make it specific that we would talk about the surveys. Okay, this customer is in the shop. How did their survey look last. You know what were we doing right for that customer? They gave us a tan across the board, so they were a promoter. So what are we doing right for that customer that we're not doing right for the customer in the next bay? That is a detractor. How can we change that? How can we capitalize on the things that we're doing right instead of just holding the stick hey, you're doing this wrong, you need to get better at it. That is, it's ineffective. And I hate to say you know I've done that too, you know in the past.
Speaker 1:but what happens, jim, is you get busy doing other things and we don't have the right head counts. We're using the wrong metrics to determine staff levels. But you know, here's another off-the-wall question, related but different how many dealers do you know that call two or three days after the machine's back at work by the person who supervised the work, or actually did the work, to say how's it going?
Speaker 2:So they're few and far between, but we do have some that attend our training classes. The service planner is actually the person that does the follow-up, but again, as you said, it's going to depend on head count. You know, if there's one service planner and you've got a 17-day shop and you know 15-20 technicians out there, that service planner is just buried.
Speaker 1:So let me go a different direction altogether. Of a hundred hours that are put on a machine for repair or maintenance, exclude the daily maintenance. For repair maintenance, what percentage does the OEM authorized dealer get Of the hundred hours? How many hours go back to the dealer?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's interesting. I don't have any inclination on that one.
Speaker 1:Pick a guess. You've been at this a long time. What's your inclination? What do you think?
Speaker 2:Are we talking? I think it's easier.
Speaker 1:Higher or lower than 50%.
Speaker 2:So one question are we talking during the warranty period or outside the warranty period?
Speaker 1:The whole machine life.
Speaker 2:The whole time. I'm going to say 20 years ago it was probably less than 50% and nowadays it's probably more than 50%.
Speaker 1:Okay. So today you're going to say it's more than 50%.
Speaker 2:That the dealer sees.
Speaker 1:yes, Okay, Let me ask the question how many get more than 25%?
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Obviously all of them, then, right.
Speaker 2:I would say yes, yeah, you know what the number is. Oh, this is going to be brutal. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:High performance dealers get 30. Wow. Mid performance dealers get 15. Normal dealers are eight or nine.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's awesome, okay so let me broaden it.
Speaker 1:Amazing At the AD we did the survey every five years. We did it for 25 years. What I was involved and maintenance. What percentage of the OEM dealers get the machine maintenance, the operator, manual, scheduled maintenance as specified by the OEM? How many of the OEM dealers get that? What percentage of the 100 hours Greater than 50%?
Speaker 2:No, I'm going to say that that's going to be less. We see dealers that are very strong in that area, and then we see dealers that have no interest in it.
Speaker 1:It's less than five. Wow yeah. And what's even more intriguing about that, 90% of the customers that do their own or have it contracted other than with the OEM. 90% of them say if the dealer offered that service at the same price or slightly more than what they're paying today, they would give it to the dealer.
Speaker 2:Understandable.
Speaker 1:So what do you think the problem is with maintenance at the OEM dealer?
Speaker 2:Well, I think a lot of that initially boils down to relationship and communication.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm going to make it real simple, I call it price point.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:We're having a journeyman mechanic dealer definition do the maintenance work and journeyman mechanics labor rate Understandable and the customer doesn't think they need to have a journeyman mechanic do maintenance.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess there's a couple of different ways to look at that. What type of maintenance are we talking? Because I've worked for dealers that are. Well, we'll just say they're a non-union dealer and the extent of the preventive maintenance is oil and filters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I call that drop in fluids and changing filters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've also worked for dealers that are a dealer. That was union. And if you were in a truck in field service, you were a journeyman technician, which meant that if you were in a PM service truck, you did the valve adjustments, you changed belts, you did minor repairs, yep, outside of just changing oil and filters, because you did that too, but you also being a journeyman mechanic, you probably cut the filter and squeezed it and inspected it for particles and and smelled the oil and got a visual representation of the oil sample that you took instead of just taking it, filling out the label, sending it on. You know it's going going a little bit further. So that's where I believe it comes down to communication what value is the customer receiving and do they really understand the value or they are they focused solely on price point? And in the relationship people? Reality is people buy from people. They like right. There's a lot of truth in that.
Speaker 1:So, of course, well, you have to have trust. Yeah, you know, once you, once you have the trust, then it continues as long as you like the person. So let me shift gears on you a little bit and tell me what you think would be beneficial here. I'll sell every machine with a five year warranty, unlimited, providing that I do all the maintenance on that machine as prescribed in the operators manual. And your question is is that a good idea or a bad idea?
Speaker 2:I think for some customers it's a good idea, for some customers it's a bad idea. But you know you're going to, you're going to hopefully know that customers history and maintenance practices before, before you make them an offer like that, because I've seen some customers when I get a long warranty like that and they'll run the machine into the ground.
Speaker 1:Well, the interesting thing is why do I not have a lifetime warranty, Jen, it's against defects and material and worship.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting. You say that, Ron. I bought a new truck this year for our business and usually we roll them out every couple of years. They get a hundred thousand miles on them and we need to be in something new and reliable, with powertrain warranty, preferably, Preferably. So we roll those. We roll those trucks out every couple of years and and this year we bought a new one and, unbeknownst to me until I signed the paperwork, the dealer manager said oh, by the way, this, this truck, comes with a lifetime powertrain warranty and it's got a Cummins diesel engine and an ice and heavy duty transmission in it. So how likely do you think I am to keep that truck over the ones that I that I would roll out? Yes, Of course, a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:And I'm a maintenance guy so I make sure I oil sample, I do my maintenance on time. The the the thing is to maintain that warranty. The stipulation is is that I have to change my engine oil every 10,000 miles and I have to call the company who the warranty or insurance is through to let them know where I'm having it done and what the date and the miles are on the truck. So I stay within the warranty statement guidelines. Right, but that's that's. That's an interesting topic, ron.
Speaker 1:Oh I, I agree with you and and I think this is something that, as dealers, we can offer as a service to the customers by getting involved with how they operate jobs. You know, we've we've had job cost analysis type of things for years. We've had job. You know layouts and system planning for a construction job for years, but we never really get there. And then we don't intervene with the customer relative like Mr customer, you don't need mechanics, I'll I'll hire every single one of your mechanics, it'll work for me and whatever you pay them today, I'll pay them that plus 10 percent and I'll guarantee that price for the next five years. And I have never done a shop cost analysis study and I've done hundreds of them where I have not been able to be lower than the customer's price and more than what my standard labor rate is.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's interesting, that's really interesting, and part of this is they don't run the business.
Speaker 1:It's the same thing with technical service managers. I don't view them as business managers, I view them as technical managers, and there's a world of difference. Interpersonal skills is only a piece of it, but when I get to a job site with a customer, they use them like you say. They use the machine. They come at it six inches above the ground with the bucket. They do not know how to do it properly and they've been able to get away with that because their prices are strong enough. Sure, it's an interesting world. Everything that we're doing is getting cheaper, lower priced. Life of everything that we buy is getting longer.
Speaker 1:But it's like what I use is the parallel going from the you know the old engine, the steam engine, to the electric engine. It takes a generation or two. Before we take advantage of the technology. Sensors and telematics need to have a control room, a mission control room out of dealership that's monitoring that machine that the customer pays $49 a month for, or whatever the devil it is. There's so many things and you're looking right down the throat of those guys. The best guys come out of your class because they've had the best training that's in the industry. I'm not just saying that to pump up your ego, but you're the only one that's really doing that anymore, which is a hell of a statement. What the heck's the matter with us? The manufacturers don't do it like they used to, Jim, that's accurate.
Speaker 2:Or they do some of it like they used to. It's just a very small amount and the reason for that is the individual.
Speaker 1:They don't have the individual that can conduct that training the way it used to be done. Sure, sure yeah.
Speaker 1:It's I applaud the hell out of what you do with FAS and I wish you all the success in the world and anything that we can do to help. We're here, but everybody who's listening to this. If you don't know who Jim Dottori is, he's one of our contributors on the website so you can find his information there, or Jim will probably put it out in the in words for you to write it down and he might repeat it so that he's sure that you get it. But thank you for listening and, jim, this has been a pleasure for me, I hope. I hope you've enjoyed this and have enjoyed this, and I hope you've enjoyed this and haven't taken too much of your time.
Speaker 2:Ron, as always, I enjoy our conversations and, yeah, this was a great one, so I hope that the folks listening get a lot out of it, and if they'd like to learn more about our business, our website wwwfas-trainingcom. So, wwwfas-trainingcom, you can follow us on Facebook under failure analysis surfaces or on Instagram under failure analysis training Are you on LinkedIn. I am.
Speaker 1:Twitter.
Speaker 2:Not Twitter, and I just well. So recently I deleted my Twitter account from my phone. I was just getting a bunch of garbage and it was eating a bunch of time and I need to use that time elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I've got pretty good filters on those things, because I get bombarded, as you can imagine. So wwwfas-trainingcom correct.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:And it's Jim Dottori. And, with the way you know, any last name that ends with a vowel has got to be Italian, it's got to be old country. So I'm just going to attribute Jim to be an Italian and just be careful when you do work with the Italians. There you go, thank you.
Speaker 2:We're on, I will say. I will say one more thing as far as our training classes, you know I mentioned that we we deliver our training at customer sites but on our calendar, on our website, you can also find our open enrollment classes. So if you just want to send one person to check it out, to validate it, or you want to send a small group of people instead of having a large class, you know we can accommodate you there we do them and currently we're doing them in Fort Worth, texas, in Pittsburgh, pa and Colorado Springs, colorado.
Speaker 1:Wonderful and just while you bring it up, and wanted to open this up for a long time. But when I first started, we had a 40 foot trailer this is in Quebec and we rigged that thing out as a training classroom and we hauled it to each store, to customer sites, and conducted training on site in places that didn't have facilities to accommodate us. So that opens up a part of the world. You know, it's not. It's Colorado Springs, pittsburgh and Fort Worth. We used to do it in Charlotte, las Vegas, dallas, chicago, and we just narrowed it down, said the heck with this, we're going to go into Chicago and Dallas. That's it, because transportation was the issue. But thank you very much, jim, for your time this morning, today and everybody who's been listening. Thank you for listening to us at this candid conversation and I hope you join us at another one in the very near future. Mahalo.
