Getting to Know Pete Dudley, CRL Field Service Specialist
With more than 30 years at CRL, Pete is the man to see if your telemanipulator needs servicing
Since its founding in 1945, Central Research Laboratories® (CRL) has taken great pride in providing the highest levels of customer service for its customers. As the company has grown over the years and its products and solutions portfolio has expanded and diversified, that commitment has not wavered.
Today, one of CRL’s most prominent customer service offerings is found in its Field Service department. Though equipped to respond to the maintenance and repair needs of all CRL products, much of the work the Field Service team does centers around its telemanipulator product family.
Beginning with the introduction of its first telemanipulator model in 1950, CRL has developed a total of 20 different models over the years, and manufactured more than 10,000 units in total, which have been deployed in 22 countries. That’s a lot of telemanipulators that need to be serviced and maintained!
To get an idea of the breadth and depth of the capabilities of CRL’s Field Service team, as well as some of the successes it has experienced over the years and challenges it has faced (and overcome), we sat down for an interview with Pete Dudley, CRL Field Service Specialist.
Question: How long have you been with CRL overall and, specifically, as a member of the Field Service Team?
Pete Dudley: I have been at CRL since 1990, when I started as an assembly specialist on the factory floor. At that time, we did not have a dedicated Field Service department, so anytime a piece of equipment that was in the field needed to be serviced, they would have to pull one of us off the production floor, which would hamper production efforts.
Eventually, the sales staff began considering ways we could offer field service without taking personnel out of the production line. So, it was around 2008 that they created the Field Service department, which consisted of me and one other person. Today, the team continues to expand as CRL’s Field Service business continues to grow.
Q: What was the original goal of the Field Service department and how has it evolved over time?
PD: One of the first things we did was create service agreements that had a set price. The agreements would include one set price for travel, parts, repair and/or maintenance for the telemanipulator or other piece of equipment. The customers liked the set price because they would always know what the service would cost, which allowed them to set their budgets for two to three years out.
Over the years, service has evolved from one that was more repair-focused to one that is fixated on yearly preventative maintenance. For telemanipulators, this involves us doing a yearly service call in which we adjust the unit’s rollers, replace any worn cables and tapes, and repair or replace any other parts that are determined to need attention. Sometimes, we are looking at units that have been in the field for 30 or 40 years and they don’t typically break; that’s where preventative maintenance comes in.
Q: How much “field” does Field Service involve?
PD: Sometimes we can work through a problem over the phone or via email, but if it’s too complicated, it requires a visit, so I’d say that between 75% and 85% of all service calls will require a visit. We primarily service units in North America, but we do service our equipment all over the world. One year I was in 10 different countries and the only continent I haven’t visited is Antarctica.
Q: With that much travel involved, how much of a challenge is it to get where you need to be when you need to be there?
PD: When the Field Service department was created, we talked about geographically grouping customers together so we could get from one to another easily, but in customer service we have to meet our customer’s needs while working within their schedules, so we have to be responsive, but flexible. While we do have customers that are within a few hours of our headquarters in Red Wing, MN, many are much farther away, so the biggest challenge is there is usually some degree of travel involved. Then we’ll have to be able to roll with the customer and give them what they need when we arrive. There are always things that can happen, like a problem wasn’t reported correctly and the correct parts weren’t requested, so that may require a second visit. That’s why flexibility is so important for us if we’re going to have a satisfied customer.
Q: What defines success for you and the Field Service team?
PD: For me, it’s the satisfaction of a job well done and knowing that if the job is done right, we typically won’t need to see that customer for another year, which is a good thing. Generally, when we do a preventative-maintenance procedure, we likely won’t see any problems for the next 13 or 14 months, although some of our customers use their telemanipulators two to three shifts a day, five to six days a week, so we may see them twice a year. An overall measure of success for the team is if someone has bought three or four service contracts with us.
What I consider another success is the fact that CRL is the only company based in the United States that has a dedicated Field Service department, while most other manufacturers are just having their customers send parts in for repairs if they break. This is a very niche market and there’s not many people out there doing what we do. I can count on one hand and have fingers left over the number of people who have done this for 10 or more years.
For more information on any of CRL’s remote-handling technologies and solutions for use in hazardous and sterile material-handling applications, as well as its Field Service program, please visit crlsolutions.com.
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