ou may be wondering how many times a machine is tested before being considered ready for shipment to your facility. While everyone’s strategies vary, this is not a process we take lightly at Morrison.
Below are some best practices we’ve come to implement throughout the years.
1. Consider In-Plant Conditions
When testing your machine, there are many factors that need to be considered. One of the biggest things to remember is the field conditions the machine will have to perform in.
What speeds will your customer be running? Are they using backlog? What type of conveyor belt are they using, or even what temperature will the facility or product be?
These factors and more all have an impact on how your machine will perform. Make sure you ask for this information up front so you can simulate the necessary conditions in the testing process. This helps to ensure that what your customers receive at their facility can stand the test of time and will perform as intended, saving you on service in the long run, while creating a customer for life.
2. No Test Left Behind
It’s easy to get into the habit of not testing “off the shelf” equipment, especially if you have manufactured something numerous times before.
Morrison lives by the standard of testing everything like it’s a custom project, even if it’s standard. This is beneficial for many reasons. It allows us to be more confident we are sending a sound solution out the door and that all components are functioning as intended.
Whether it’s a custom machine or standard product, testing gives you a better sense of how the system works, and all the things that can affect its performance. By testing machines, you can learn the application inside and out, giving you a lot of knowledge to work with if your customer experiences any issues in the field. After testing, not only are you more experienced with that specific model, but the knowledge gained can be used to improve or advance projects in the future.
3. Transparency and Communication
From larger to smaller projects, success lies in communication. Transparency is a huge aspect of the testing process. This means communication between partners each step of the way. Whether that be in person visits or sending videos, transparency helps keep things on track and all parties on the same page. Don’t guess what your customer wants, and don’t keep them guessing on the status of the project.
We have found much success in approval videos sent to our customers, it’s a great visual aid that shows our customers the final status of their machine as we intend to ship it to their facility. Their status and progress.
These approval videos act as a mini-FAT, allowing customers to have confidence in the machine coming their way.
4. Test Early and Often
In a perfect world, a well thought out design brought to life should have no issues. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Sometimes even the best concepts require a little rework.
While rework may add some time to a project, it’s nothing compared to sending out a machine, installing it, having it fail, and bringing it all the way back to fix the problem.
We recommend consistent, intermediate testing through the entire process. On larger projects, we often prototype our concepts to learn from them before going into full scale production. This type of testing allows us to gain confidence in its ability to function as intended.
Since there can be obstacles that cannot be foreseen until the actual testing comes into play, uncovering these problems and reworking a new solution early is always better for everyone. What you’ll learn in this early testing is critical to the growth of your business.
5. Lights, Camera, Action
Video is such an impactful tool in the manufacturing industry. Due to the technical nature of this industry, video is one of the best visual aids to help educate and communicate clearly with your
customers. From troubleshooting to sharing with your prospects, the benefits from taking videos are endless.
Even if you are performing an in-person test, or FAT, it is still best practice to capture video on every machine before it leaves your facility. This will allow you to share with the customer so they have a reference of optimal operation down the line, and it allows your service team to have a benchmark should something happen in the field, and you need to help the customer recalibrate.
At Morrison, a video of every system is sent to our customers prior to breakdown and shipment. This allows us the ability for our customers to validate before shipment and know beforehand what they can expect to arrive to their facility, but it also gives us a record of how the equipment should be functioning.
