Shopsmith Forums

Well, there is common sense. Anything can be taken too far, sorry your company didn't see that.

A few years ago SS did in fact hire a consulting group that cost them a lot of money but saw nothing in return. In fact, sales dropped and SS let them go (fired) but still lost the money they paid (a couple million if I understand it correctly) this so-called consultant group hired to turn the company's sales around.

The consultants had the big spin on how they can save SS, but they ended up hurting them instead. Good salesmen that can talk the talk but have no substance equals disaster.

I'm sure SS won't go down that road again for a long, long time.

First Shopsmith is alive and still doing business just received part of my order today. I made the order Sept 30. Not bad 6 days.

Second I have seen the things Connok talked about. If someone has no idea of what is going on they look for the easiest thing to measure/track and often that has nothing to do with production, sales, or turning the business around. They often used new words, in the late 80's early 90's it was ythe words 'paradigm' and 'sigma'. The Exec's didn't want to appear stupid so rather than questioning the use of the words they jumped on board and everything that could be measured was measured including things that absolutely revealed nothing.

I was often given the task of developing tracking spread sheets, designing graphs and visual displays of things that frankly if they were 0% or 100% wouldn't effect business. But people could be measured, evaluated with tangible numbers. Managers could also be measured and evaluated as could divisions, manufacturing groups, sales, and support. In the meantime the product quality, customer service, and resources to accomplish all of this continued to dwindle. before long we had all our paradigm's identified, and established and our sigma numbers headed in the right direction but the company was getting further and further in trouble.

The company wanted to define their customer's needs rather than allow the customer to define them. They wanted to tell the customer how they wanted their products, service, support instead of letting the customer tell them. Of course they had a way of measuring all of this.

I'm a firm believer that no one should trying to run a business unless they totally understand that business, understand the customer's wants and needs. Can someone that doesn't know that run a business? Yes they can, for a while . But after a while that company will start to see it's business decrease and then they will start belt tightening, try consultants and etc. However what they need is someone that knows the business to be in a decision making process.

This is one reason I was so glad to see Nick come to Shopsmith. I thought through his feedback SS leadership would stop listening to the those that pretended to know what they were talking about, those that would run the company into the ground.

Can Shopsmith come out of this? I think so but it will require the Bob Jr. to learn the basics and take his company back to the basics that his father first established when he reopened Shopsmith.

I had placed an order last Friday. I checked the shipment order details today and the order was already shipped. Should be there when I get home today.

BPR

I placed an order over the weekend for 5 items. They all have shipped!

I remember reading a short time ago that Shopsmith was going to eliminate some of the older model equipment. I'm hoping that is what they mean by cleaning house.
The 80's OPR that was mentioned would be a good example.

If you reread the first post it says the manufacturing equipment for the old style overhead pin router (standalone model). It doesn't mention replacement parts or repair parts.
Ed

"If you reread the first post it says the manufacturing equipment for the old style overhead pin router (standalone model). It doesn't mention replacement parts or repair parts.
Ed"

Ed
If you look again, there is a period after the OPR. The manufacturing equipment is a separate line item.

Dick

I placed one order on 9/29 and a second order for some additional items on 10/2.
The 9/29 order still shows "In Process" while the 10/2 order shows "Being Shipped."
Not a big deal as the items in the second order are actually the ones I need more.
I did receive e-mails regarding both orders apologizing for the delay and assuring me that this was not the norm with SS and I could expect all items to ship asap.

dicksterp wrote:"If you reread the first post it says the manufacturing equipment for the old style overhead pin router (standalone model). It doesn't mention replacement parts or repair parts.
Ed"

Ed
If you look again, there is a period after the OPR. The manufacturing equipment is a separate line item.

Dick

Well! Now we are getting picky over a little black dots!
Sorry! I missed it.
Ed