A Drive Service Call We Planned for During The Reagan Administration

Old photograph custom variable speed driveEarlier this year, we received a service request that was both unusual and came about completely by design.

The call was coming from over 1,000 miles away from our New Jersey facility – in Florida.  The customer had a custom drive that we had built over 30 years ago – and it was still in service!  

Although this customer’s company had been sold nearly 20 years ago, the new owners were still easily able to find us and get in contact. (To illustrate just how long ago this was, we were all using beepers when this variable speed drive was first installed and the customer found us via this newfangled “Internet.”)

The variable speed drive (VSD) flew up to our Parsippany facility and through some troubleshooting, our engineer quickly realized that the problem was power related. (To again illustrate how long ago the installation was:  This same engineer was living in Soviet-controlled Lithuania, unaware of the concept of solid state variable speed drives entirely, when we originally built this one.) Although the fuse manufacturer had also changed names and moved locations, our engineer didn’t hit that obstacle. Instead, he walked across our warehouse and pulled down the exact fuses he needed off the shelf.

In less than two days, the drive was running well and headed back to the Sunshine State.  

So, although the geographic distance and time distance between service calls (three decades!) make this call somewhat unusual, our process was not.  The way we’ve always approached our work is just as successful now as it was then. In particular here, we leaned on:

  • Documentation: EDC still uses a version of the ID tag with the drawing information on it and has the exact drawing of this system in its files! 
  • Brand Agnostic: We regularly service over 40 brands, so our inventory is often sufficient.
  • Longevity: Our company has been around for over 50 years and plans to be here for the next 50.   So while we can’t guarantee how you’ll find us, we plan to be here when you look.