The Familian Co?

Well, let's hope not. However, a national firm resembliong that one in name and operations is having problems with inventory and stocking of materials that suggest they should be consulting .... or at least commiserating .... with Volkswagen AG. My plumber/contractor is an extraordinary mechanic with 6 years in plumbing school, Runs a great business and is Y2k savvy on top of it all. He's been workiing on a number of projects around my place relative to getting the house "prepped": including the installation of 2 woodfired hot weater heaters, propane/kero deep freeze; pressure tank; woodstove, etc. Got to talking with him a few days ago about the progress and lack thereof of some of the jobs. He said the following:

The problem has been a delay in the effecient supply of parts to the ******** company store in our locale. this is caused by THREE SEPARATE problems they seem to be having with their somputerized systems:

FIRST: INNACURATE FILLING OF ORDERS: He'll order the parts, say 3 units of item XXX; but the warehouse ships and the local store receives only 1 of the same item. Or he'll order a 3/8 inch flared fitting and a 3/4 inch gets delivered. Doesn't sound like much, but over the course of the last 2 months he sez its becoming a real drag on his effectivenessas a businessman and the use of his time. It happens repeatedly -- with virtually every order he puts in, there's a problem in the delivery. It's compounded by the other two problems:

SECOND: PHONE SYSTEM GOING HAYWIRE: the same firm has an almost fully automated phone-asnwering system for routing of calls -- the sort of thing you encounter everywhere. What's started cropping up this mopnth, he sez, is that when he calls into the stolre -- which is becoming more frequent because of the repeated delays and misfires in fillling orders (see No. 1 above) the phone system accepts his call, but in doint so AUTOMATICALLY DROPS THE PRECEDING CALL. he then is able to talk to the front desk as long as no one else calls in while he's ion the line. As soon as someone does call in, the phone system disconnects his call, and he must dial in again to try to complete the complaint or conversation. Sometimes he'll try 4-5 times to get his order in or complaint lodged, and eventually has often had to drive down to the store -- 12 miles off -- to get the communique across. When he reaches the physical plant, he syas, ther is now anywhere from 20-40 contractors standing around trying to receive meaningful service on complaints just like his. Incomplete orders, incorrent orders, and no way to get through by phone.

THIRD: RETURNS NOT ACCEPTED. The stock/inventory system, whichis of course computerized to the UPC code, has a built-in feature evidently to prevent embezzlement or mishandling of funds/inventory: any time an item is scanned out of inventory for a sale, the computer of course strikes it off its register of available units in stock, for that item. HOWEVER, the computer will not accept returns. Once the item is sold/stricken, a security override feature for the system is preventing the computer from acknowledging data entry on the return. So the plumbing supply house is literally losing total control of its inventory: anything shipped out (and there are many errors due to No. 1) cannot be "received" back into data -- although the company is of course accepting returns in fact.-- but must be place in a separate "maual inventory" which is no-man's land to the computer inventory log. By the same token, the computer keeps them from reselling this item where it may be needed again, simply becasue it has already been sold! Grim.

Imagine what state they'll be in if this keeps up for a month or two -- even without the compounding that Y2K might bring.

This has already held up the completion of my preps -- let's hope it will be resolved before it's too late!! JMJ!

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-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), December 18, 1999

Answers

Without the plumbing to keep it confined, the Sh*t really will hit the fan.

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), December 18, 1999.