Supporting Our Customers Is A Key Priority.
Three days until we ship a lot of machines to IMTS 2018
There is 4 days to go until we do the packing of the truck. For those who are new to following my blog, it is a day that is filled with a lot of satisfaction. All of us at Royal Master have worked for 9 months to get to this day. We welcome the truck into the lot and when it leaves, we exhale. Rich and I split the show up into three sections, the 9 months of prep, “the show” and then the “after show”. The actual show is enjoyable for me, and it is the least amount of stress. I love talking to the people that come into the booth discussing the different projects that we are presenting, and past projects that are applicable to their particular application.
We are fortunate that our team at Royal Master is fully invested into he success of our company at the show. There are a lot of late hours, and people asked to do jobs that they normally don’t do, but the results speak for themselves. We are happy to share the results with our employees as they were a large part of the success of the show for us.
We are introducing our GX3 machine at the show. Its dual grinding wheel set-up allows for applications such as endodontic files be ground in 1/3 the cycle time of conventional systems. Its primary grinding wheel creates the initial part of the file, and then the secondary wheel creates the flutes in the part. Its pretty cool! The machine cones with a completely new look enclosure which makes the system look sleek and modern.
Our New Hi-Acc machine has a new operator interface. The 24” touchscreen interacts in a new way with the operator where as multiple screens can be open at one time making navigation easier. There is total customization for each operators preferences. Just like a memory seat in a car but for machine tools.
Of course will have a robotically loaded machine, Fanuc and Keyence are strategic partners on this project . We will also have a TG-12×8 thrufeed machine grinding 8000 parts per hour feedrate. You must stop by to see how we are doing this! In addition to all of this we have a lot of variety in equipment. Simple Thrufeed machines to highly automated systems. Our machines are not one size fits all propositions.
what happens when you bring your kids ...
Customer Service?
Customer service is one of the things within a company that everyone says to do well. You see television advertisements about how your local car dealership has an internet lounge while you impatiently wait for your car to be serviced or the plumber who boasts “30 minute response time”- with the exception of mealtimes, nap time and overnight. Recently the phone company was challenged by the cable company to deliver phone service to homes in our area. In my own house, the phone went out about a month ago. We called the phone company, to fix it and were put on hold for an hour. We finally got someone who then told us it will be three days until they can fix it and the only time they can be at our house is between 9 and 2. We said, “Are you kidding me?” We basically gave up. We switched to the cable company and saved $70.00 a month and are happy.
Last evening my daughter and I went to the local mall to get her snow boots because last year’s boots instantly were too small for her 8 year old feet. We went to the mall on a quiet evening so that we could go into a store and be the only shoppers. However, we found that we had to constantly battle for attention with the clerk’s phone as he or she texted away. Eventually, we just walked out without buying the boots. My daughter was as equally annoyed as me because she liked the boots. I was annoyed because I just really do not like to shop.
We ended up at a Sports Authority sports store where we got our boots and went to pay. At the register we noticed that on the bottom of our receipt, if we filled out a survey and gave the store a “Very good” for customer service, we would receive a $10.00 coupon. Enough Said.
I got an e-mail from one of our top 5 customers last night and it was stated in plain language:
“You are correct – the last few weeks we have received in many ******* along with the remaining ******. I appreciate everyone at Royal Master working so diligently to get these out to us. Also, Alan has been doing an excellent job in going above and beyond in checking out the delivery schedules and expediting items in ...
Skidding machines, Sounds Simple Enough
Skidding machines, one of the most difficult jobs when it comes to IMTS. We call it packing ten pounds in a 5 pound bag. We have talked about in previous blog postings about the jigsaw puzzle that our truck is, but fitting everything on the skids is an art form. On the bigger projects like the bedrock we have the machine, JIC Cabinet and coolant filter. We fit all of that on a 64” x 96” skid. Nothing can hang off especially on the 96” dimension as it would hang off the side of the truck.
We keep all of our machines on the skids at the show. If you look at the show photos you will see that they are all on platforms, these are the skids, we pop off a tiled side and the forklift can just get under it and drive away. Easy. We do not need any spotting of machines which saves around $2500.00 in rigging costs on the inbound and outbound. It also saves a ton of time. The machines come off the truck, and get put right into the chalk line markings. Truck to booth and spotted, less than 5 minutes per machine
On Saturday we skidded all of our machines, plus packed a few other Miscellaneous Skids for Saturdays ship date. With the Help of 6 guys this is the equivalent of asking your buddies to help you move for the 12th time in a year. Not a fun job, but it has to get done. During the course of the morning we found a few things:
- A misplaced cross beam means we get out the Herman Munster Homemade Sledge Hammer ( 4×4 Steel block Welded to a 4’ long pipe) to put another cross beam into the skid.
- It is possible to get stuck under a skid trying to put a bolt in. I will forever think I was set-up for the photo that is shown here. They had to pull me out by the feet.
- Sometimes the best laid plans and autocad layouts just do not work out as originally planned.
- Bedrock + Coolant and Filter+ Electrical Cabinet = more that a 5,000 lift can handle. Solution: Machine bed counterweights. Number needed … 8 to keep the back wheels of the forklift on the ground.
By 1:00 we were all pooped and happy its finished. Un-skidding them happens September 25th come join the fun if you ...
With two weeks to go before shipping a lot is going to happen. The basic plan in place for this week is to get all the machines finalized and running, then on Saturday everything is to be re-skidded onto their pallets. In our booth we leave the machines on their pallets and make them look nice. It is less expensive to do it that way and to be blunt no one really ever notices or says anything.
I am fortunate that I am Involved in the Association for Manufacturing Technology. This trade association is not only instrumental in the production of IMTS, but they have an arm that looks out for Manufacturing’s best interests in Washington. Some of the Tax cuts that aided machine tool builders in the past 10 years were lobbied for by this association.
As part of AMT on Thursday I went to Chicago for a final meeting to review the show with 8 other exhibitors. We all have been around the trade show world for many years now and we range from large companies like Haas to companies like ourselves. Our goal is to give a voice to the exhibitors and help the direction of the show from a behind the scenes. During our visit to GES we saw a lot of the ideas we discussed for two years come to life. It should be a really good show with can’t miss Keynote speakers, and a really cool Emerging Technology Pavilion. Lockheed Martin will have a Fighter Jet on the floor also in the West Building
From concept to reality, we have been talking about the Bedrock series for a while now. This new machine platform besides being really cool looking offers a ton of advantages for production grinding. You can see that the machine is done and is getting tooled out for the show this week also. In about a week you can visit our web site booth6646.com for videos of all our machines in our booth.
If you cannot come to IMTS 2010 this website will give you the same experience as if you were in Chicago . Once the machines are on site we will re-take the videos for all to see the parts grinding , and the booth up and running. Until then we ...
