I have ran across a few end user parts changer myself. Most large customers have several different types and configurations of trucks. Some are really great on repairs of the make mostly used while the more specialized or less used equipment kinda fall way side of wanting to be worked on. Usually when they do get "repaired", we get a call. I have a great customer base and most if not all value my opinions on different aspects of what kind of equipment is needed and what would work best in the application in which they are wanting a truck for and repair options. The way i approach the customer and to keep their employee/parts changer out of hot water is get with the repair supervisor and explain that your mechs can't will them all and it might be a cost advantage to let us do the repairs on the " not so popular " units. On the trucks mostly used i drop a hint to let the parts changer watch the sharper knife in the drawer troubleshoot. I also explain that the outside mech has more resources and contacts that can diagnose the problem than the inside man. I don't cover the parts changers rearends but i do put it in the supervisors head the the equipment may be beyond the scope of the average one brand/one system repair guy. For example i have seen where the inhouse/employee can sharp shoot a reachtruck with all bells and whistles but can be blown out of the water with a simple Curtis set up in a pallet jack. It all boils down to letting the man in charge know that overall he has a good crew and in time the mechs will get more familiar with the equipment. In the mean time let the super know that with more modern higher tech trucks and without brand specific training for his/her employees that you are there to take up the slack.

Most customers (which is the more appropriate way of describing the companies you service or may want to service some day) that have in-house technicians have been acquired from local dealers, usually these tech's are the more experienced types trained by the dealers you work for. Average hourly charge in the Phoenix area currently is $105 were the customer's burden rate for in house tech's range from $70.00 - $ 80.00 per hour. Sometimes it makes sense to farm out and sometimes it makes sense to have in house and sometimes it makes sense to combine both. It's important the dealers supply good support to the customer from parts delivery, sales, product support and qualified techs. One other thing for the younger dealer tech's out there. Please follow the safety rules set forth by the customer while you are on their property. These rules may seem unimportant to you but most have real meaning and all are important!

Sometimes the dollar cost for a repair isn't as important as the downtime associated with the repair.

The larger customers I service with in-house tech's will usually have a dollar or time cut off for their in house guy (unless he's slow & needs work) when they call me for a quote. I sometimes get the job- other times not- I know they're using my quote for a time & parts comparison. I've learned to suggest this to new customers to avoid the parts replacers senario.

duo is right- not being familiar with a particular machine usually translates to- at a minimum- longer diagnostic time as well as a higher chance of parts being replaced that aren't needed. The choice the company has then becomes, what actually is less expensive- paying dealer rate for service- relying on the expertise of the servicing tech- or paying less than half of dealer rate & hoping their tech can get it right at least 50% of the time (with the associated longer downtime).

We- as servicing vendors- have no control over which choice is better for them- we can just offer professional advise that with the proper diagnostics performed, costs will be less (in repairs & associated downtime) in the long haul.

Most customers don't check with anyone else to get pricing on forklift truck repairs so like I said there is nothing to measure against.
That is my point as well as others who have replied.
I haven't done a study but my feeling is the same with non Linde dealers working on Linde trucks. They aren't familiar with them so troubleshooting and repairs take longer and often parts are installed that are not needed.

Nothing to measure? The almighty dollar is a great measuring tool. If a delership takes $2000 to do a repair at x ammount of labour hours and the in house mechanic takes $1500 at xx ammount of labour hours would you care it took twice as long? You still saved money.

One of the biggest differences between a end user tech and a dealer tech is that the end user tech is there to save the employer money. The dealer tech is there to make the company money. That is a huge difference.
Another big difference is if it takes an end user tech 24 hours to install a ring gear nobody in the company would know if that's too much time or not. In most cases we know exactly how long every job should take. So the end user's company has nothing to measure the tech by except for downtime.

Well said Jplayer- very well said!

let see now...
i am going to assume you are using the term 'parts changer' in the context that the tech does not have any 'real skills' in troubleshooting and he is just throwing parts on a truck to fix it?

well in a case such as this i think the prudent thing to do is to try and advise 'in a subtle way' to the tech if you see him misdiagnosing a problem on what you think it might be and try to sway his diagnosis in the right direction. Of course in the end he will make up his own mind what he's going to do in the line of the repair. But as far as 'your role' in whether or not you should do anything about it?
If you are an outside contractor in 'thier shop' then there's not much you can do about it. Its thier management's responsibility to monitor and make evaluations on thier techs and decided if the tech is doing his job to the best benefit of the company. One thing I've learned over the years is 'nobody likes a tattle tale' and when dealing with something like this? let them discover and decide what to do about this 'parts changer' tech.
Your intentions may sound noble enough for trying to help out the company by identifying a flaw in thier tech force but being the outsider your information may not be taken so well by any and/or all parties involved in that company's maintenance force.
If it IS that important to you about the situation and feel that strongly about notifying them there is a problem i suppose there are ways to get that information to the right people so 'they can' make that decision among themselves but in the end its going to be thier responsibility to deal with it... not yours. I'm sure eventually the company will see his inexperience and hopefully offer him some training options (if they are a fairly managed company that cares for thier employees well being of course)

As was previously stated, these types of situations can backfire on you as well as work in your favor, not that you'd have any kind of hidden agenda mind you. I'm sure you don't.... right?

so from my point of view i think I might just make an indirect suggestion or two and then let them sort it out themselves. You do your job and let the others do theirs and don't meddle in their affairs that don't really directly concern you and your role there too much.

I CAN fix forklifts, i just CANT fix people, trust me i tried for years, it just doesn't work and requires way too much energy i could be using for other things i CAN do something about ;o)

You know as a field tech for 30 years (dealer field service) and an "end user" for 10 (that totals 40 years) I take exception to some of the posters here and their apparent "bad" attitude towards customers. Is this the trend were looking forward to in the future? If it is I feel for future end users. As far as selecting which local support "I" allow onto the property to help service "my" equipment and to aid "my" techs I'm very selective because I know sometimes local dealer support can be anything but supportive at times. So it's my job to make certain dealer support can handle our application and if they can't their gone! When I select local dealer support I look for PEOPLE first, dealer second, brand third. Just remember we pay you and your company $100-$110 per hour for SERVICE. Edward T; well said you have the kind of attitude I look for and demand!
Customer Service: provision of assistance to customers or clients
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward T,
Echo's my sentiments and help the customer tech, not every nut and bolt comes out the back of your van to get the job away and that tech may have one in his workshop, not only that you may need a lift out with an arkward drive or hoist motor he will be the man to help you so why alienate him, also I bet your parts department is not complaining about the parts there selling to this customer, one way or another your company wins so go with flow and keep the customer happy.

Regards Titus

I would offer the 'in-house tech' anything I could in the way of help or education/chewing the fat about the forklifts he takes care of. I would want to become their friend, as well as their being my customer, (take them fishing if they spend 6k a month with your company).
It always seems important to me to remember that the the butt you kick when you are on the way up may be the butt you have to kiss on the way down.
You may wind up working for that 'parts changer' some day, and any help/education you gave them when they were in need of "Special High Intensity Training" (or the acronym thereof), is/should be 'a good thing' [even if "no good deed goes unpunished"]. Besides, your company may hire him one day and you will need him to cover for you while you go on vacation...

In the end the customer only wants his equipment up & running as much as possible for as little as possible. They want no headaches, no waves, don't want to know nuthin from nuthin.

Part replacers really are a good marketing tool for us outside vendors. If used correctly, management should see directly through time vs parts that correct diagnosis is key to saving money & time- but let them come to that conclusion. If force fed the information- they'll question your intentions- I found this one out the hard way.

I don't see how we as outside contractors/vendors for a company can say or dictate how a company operates its business....they own and operate/run it it is theirs to do with as they wish. Just because we don't like they way they do things dosent make it look good for us to go in and complain to them that they are not doing things right......would be like you going to the store with your kids and having the store manager come up to you and say your not raising your kids right and your a bad parent.......if we are at a customer that has an in house Technician then they must know his capabilities aren't what they should be or else we wouldn't be there in the first place...if he does want to be just a parts changer then so be it it's the company that put him in the position and for them to deal with...is better for a dealership company on the parts sales end anyways but I don't see how we as a service contractor to a company with a technician can dictate how they do their business......there just thought I would throw my thoughts on this into the soup...

from forkingabout "It annoys me when parts get replaced / money gets wasted because people haven't a clue, they always seem to get found out for being useless in the end sooner or later."

My sentiments exactly and double on the last sentence.

My cynical response is:
If you are a dealer with some corporate backing, offer some FREE factory training at the customer's site to rectify the problem.
Otherwise, accept the fact that the "technician's" shortcomings may be a product of his company's management shortsightedness.
Inept managers beget inept workers in a lot of circumstances. And if nobody in the chain of management can recognize inefficiency (or on the other hand, proficiency), the company is destined for some hardship, if not outright failure anyhow.
The thing about inept people trying to hang on to a position is that while they KNOW very little about the job they are supposed to be doing, they often THINK that any suggestion to make changes in their area is an effort to remove them from their position........they are already paranoid to some extent and an outsider offering unsolicited advice is rarely received in a welcoming manner.
Now if someone from management at that company asked (however pointedly) you questions concerning why "such and such" a part or component seemed to always need replacing or why it always takes an entire group of parts to get a truck going again...................that would be an invitation and opportunity for you to set things right. Unless you are personal friends with high management in that company, it might be best to wait until you are asked for an answer or opinion.

A solution that worked for me: Generated a report using our database of another customer with a similar forklift fleet and application and did a cost and downtime comparison, which showed how much less expensive their fleet was costing in terms of parts, labour and lost productivity. At our annual review meeting with the "problem" customer we presented the analysis with cost savings solutions. Part of the presentation was a case history involving the same fault on both customers machines and how we were able to rectify the fault at half the cost by quicker diagnosis and using reconditioned rather than new parts. To avoid alienating the in house technician we presented the report to him prior to showing it to management and suggested he make some of the proposals contained in the report in advance of the presentation. One thing to keep in mind make sure you have a solution for any problems/concerns you raise. Management tend to react negatively to problem raisers with no countermeasures

If the parts changer is the one calling and ordering the new parts maybe have one of your guys make sugestions of possible things to check to make sure that is what they need. They may be receptive if they think you are trying to help out.

I've worked with a few part's changer's before.

I've seen a new £700 traction motor fitted instead of replacing the worn top bearing on the old motor.

New complete platform safety switch assembles fitted at £60 a time because people are to lazy to fit a easily replaceable broken spring or micro switch that costs a couple of £'s.

New £1500 gearbox fitted for a leaky hub seal that's less then £10.

I've seen a llop have new traction motor, both control cards, contactors, throttle pot & switches fitted all for a blown 10 amp fuse.

It annoys me when parts get replaced / money gets wasted because people haven't a clue, they always seem to get found out for being useless in the end sooner or later.

Well it is what it is...
I think mr customer would have more respect for you for being honest with him than telling him a lie or not saying anything at all.
But in reality it is the customer management responsibly to monitor their technician productivity isn't it?
If they were to ask me I would tell them like it is.

Unfortuneately there's not much you can do. Their tech is their employee, he's there all day, every day & no matter how good you service their account, he can plant the seed that somehow you're not doing your job.

I've had this happen to me. Don't rock the boat. Just do what you've always done & let management do their job & figure out that the tech isn't good.

So that' what you would tell your customer! Most companies that have their own techs are large customers. I doubt you'd keep many of them by telling them that there tech is a parts changer. Most companies have greater allegiance to their employees than they do to their suppliers.
And I will say that end users don't have a monopoly when it comes to parts changers. There's more than enough to go around.