Help me sell Planner to management

[[Ev...]]

Hey all,

Just heard back from our aftermarket specialist on the pricing for a planner seat, not sure management will be too thrilled with it. Why this wasn't purchased when we got the machine i'll never know, same with curve/freeform, but I digress.

I know with planner we can avoid machine crashes, sometimes the machine makes moves that I wouldn't think about until it actually does it. I'd love to avoid that. I've recently broken 2 .3mm styli from unexpected moves, so there's (long term) cost savings in styli. Not to mention we only have one machine with one calypso license, it can't be programmed while its running, so planner would help with that.

What other ammo can I take to convince them its worth the price tag? Was there anything you realized was extremely helpful while using Planner?

[[Er...]]

Google return on investment (ROI) calculation. Sell it to the accountant. 🙂

The tricky part is the estimation of Amount Returned. Probes cost so little compared to the software. Time would be the biggest cost. Would the gained capacity from programming on a seperate seat keep a backlog from happening, justify not buying another CMM, etc.? Repair from a crash is difficult to estimate. And if the license has to be paid every year the cost needs to be recouped within that year.

Maybe someone else has figured out how to justify a seperate seat. The only way I can figure another seat being justified is not buying another CMM.

[[Ke...]]

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I relied on only using reduced CMM Downtime (increased CMM throughput) to sell the offline seats at two different workplaces.
If you try to use "avoiding crashes" thatlead to "broken styli" then what they hear is "the CMM will never experience a crash and styli will last forever" 🤣

[[Ch...]]

These guys are on the money. Focus on the increased CMM availability. Give a value to your CMM time, e.g. $/hour. Then add up how much time you spend programming.

(Number of hours spent programming) * (CMM cost per hour) = amount of CMM downtime that you are currently 'costing' the company.

That is how I would quantify it. I would not bring up the crashes or broken styli. No reason to bring up to management that you are currently crashing the CMM's breaking the styli. All they will hear is " So we currently have a crashing and broken styli problem?"

Then Zeiss will usually let you trial the software for a month. During this trial, make some movies of the simulation. Be sure to upload the full CMM CAD model and turn the crash detection sounds really loud. This way the movie looks really cool and has loud noises.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Never doubt the power of bright lights and loud noises to impress management.

[[Ma...]]

If we would be in time hurry and machine would not let me do new programs ( because of measurements running ), then I would consider buying new machine ( workload will be better with more machines ) - unless your older parts will quit and be replaced with something new.

We don't have planner and i don't need that - I have good idea where and how will tip approach - and from machinist experience i have always hands on knob to stop when it's not going as i thought.

[[To...]]

Another cost to show is the cost of product waiting to be shipped but has to run on the CMM first, just because you "had" to write program for the next job.

[[Ev...]]

Thanks for all the responses guys, seems like downtime is certainly the big selling point here.

[[Je...]]

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hahaha. I couldn't agree with you more. Zeiss marketing knows this full well.



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[[Ro...]]

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But you should still keep grabbing a couple styli a month out of the system (not too many), and store them in a secret little toolbox.
Budgets are meant to be spent, and what i learned from past experience is if you never come get probes out of the tool crib, they will stop stocking them.

[[No...]]

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That's how I would describe Planner 🤣 🤣 🤣
I stopped counting the times when it moves to a feature by going right through the granite table (don't worry, this happens only in special situations, like after a probe change). Better leave that out of your movie... 😕

No, I'm kidding. Of course you CAN avoid crashes with Planner, but don't rely too much on what you'll see. It certainly has its bugs.

So yes, cost savings by reduced downtime is the way to go. What management loves even more than lights and noises, are figures, figures and figures.