WBA prides itself in the success of our customers. Nowhere is this more evident than in the success of our OEM customers. We recognize that every one of our customers’ customer is critical to our business. Upsetting just one of those customers could lead to loss of the entire account. This, we believe, leads us to provide better support than even in-house engineering staff.
Many may believe that an OEM should control all aspects of the product, and all electrical work should be done “in house”. We have a cautionary tale about this approach. In the early years of WBA Automation, WBA provide subcontract support for motion control applications for a large automation company. WBA was asked to send and engineer to Connecticut to provide assistance with tuning the tension in a line that produced the material for flat screens. The cost for a line exceeded $1,000,000.00. There were two rooms. There was a second clean room already built for the next 2 lines. A fifth and sixth line were in planning. WBA was told to tune the system only; the startup was significantly behind schedule and the line had to be running by Monday morning. Under no circumstances was there to be any changes to the program. After a day of work, WBA concluded that while improvements were made, adequate tension control could never be maintained with the existing system. Careful analysis of the program showed that the tension loops could have updates as slow as several seconds – far to slow to allow for decent tension control. The company continued to try to make the system operational for a few months before finally paying for a complete reworking of the system. What happened? The end customer had a solid relationship with the equipment supplier. The respected their mechanical capabilities and made them the preferred supplier. They had one qualification: the required all work to be done “in house”, demanding that the supplier hire a controls engineer. The first problem was that the company expertise was in mechanical design. They had no way to evaluate candidates. Once the engineer was hired, the was no way to review his work. As often happens, the project fell behind schedule and shipped before being properly tested. The controls engineer wound up working for months straight away from home. He eventually got into an argument with the customer, got thrown off site, then fired. At that point, the OEM had no idea what was going on with their control system and no path forward for completing the project.
Different OEMs require different levels of support. For some, we provide turnkey control systems. Some purchase parts, while we build panels and program. For others, we only provide programming. Regardless the level of support required, we are just pleased to lend a hand in the growth of our customers.
We recognize the cost side of the equation and strive to minimize the impact on our customer’s bottom line. We believe that the additional benefits of:
- Better Knowledge – You are hiring a company, not just one person. We will put our combined knowledge up against any individual in a heartbeat.
- Better Perspective – Companies and industries tend to get isolated. Things are done reflexively, because “that is how we always do it”. An outsider’s view is often helpful. WBA’s experience across industries allows to see things differently, with knowledge gained from one industry applied to another.
- Better Coverage 1 – Employees take vacations, get sick, etc. By using our services, you can get year round coverage.
- Better Coverage 2 – Work never comes in steady flow. With “in house” electrical engineering, a company is limited in its ability to respond to short term surges in demand. When you engage our services, short term surges are much easier to handle, since we have a whole staff of engineers available.
- Guaranteed Coverage – Employees retire, find other jobs, or have emergencies By using our services, you ensure that you minimize the difficulties that arise with loss of an employee.