It seems smart at the time. Your company enters into a company-wide repair agreement (let’s call it CWRA) with a vendor that works with automation. All automation, to hear them tell it, but then your legacy Rexroth machinery needs some support.
The big automation company can’t repair the legacy components. They can’t get OEM parts, because Rexroth doesn’t sell parts. Ever. They can’t get the information they need, either, and they have never seen this kind of part before.
We know what happens next. You’ve already wasted a lot of time trying to get your machinery working under the CWRA, so by the time you call us you have no choice but to get an emergency replacement unit flown out by chartered plane.
We’re happy to do this, of course, but it costs a bit more than you would have paid if you had just called us in the first place.
We usually explain this to customers in this situation. They can see that calling us first would save them money. So next time they need some Rexroth support, they… call the big automation vendor, because they have a company-wide repair agreement.
We’ll see them in a few days, when things have gotten much worse and they need us to bring their emergency replacement unit out by chartered plane.