my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Film Handlers' Forum   » Why are the equipment manufacturers closed during the holidays? (Page 1)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: Why are the equipment manufacturers closed during the holidays? Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 12-31-2003 10:44 PM                        Why can`t the major equipment manufacturers not have one lonely guy at the phone for emergency orders during the holidays? Or in general, on weekends, when tens of thousands of cinemas are doing their best business?  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 12-31-2003 11:01 PM                     Micheal, why do some European manufacturers have a Holiday close down in August when we are having our summer business in the USA? Most critical planning is usually done by December 15 which should carry through the Holidays....both situations have their reason and can be easily worked around. I have found emergencies on Christmas or New Years tend not to be surprises but many cases will point to a problem that was obvious prior to the Holidays..........Happy 2004  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-01-2004 01:00 AM                        I never had a problem reaching (at least the Berlin office of) Kinoton any day of the week until around 11pm. One of their technicians would be on emergency duty and also have access to the parts warehouse. So we usually got everything we needed within 1-3 hours. This is obviously not possible due to the enormous distances in this country, but they could at least have people on the phone during the weekend. If it is not possible to get stuff more quickly than overnight, OK - it does travel over enormous distances, so overnight is actually very good. But if you have a problem Friday afternoon (also you have to take into account that California is 2-3 hours behind some manufacturers), then you are down the whole weekend  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 01-01-2004 01:24 AM                     In Europe,India,parts of Latin America the manufacturer + service component is more vertically integrated and service support is usually part of a sales package. As an example is Spain with KCS,Proyecson, and Wassman promoting service packages as part of a sale; expecting a response to an emergency and setting up a call within an hour is a given in that market if you have a contract. I know Kinoton, Prevost and indirectly Cinemeccanica operate with a simular set-ups in Europe. In some aspects it can be a cash cow for them. In the USA with the mish mash of dealers, service companies, distributors and manufacturers it is always somebody's other problem. In the past I would work with a new account, figure out the weak spots, find out what their tolerance for performance standards, look at their competition and recommend what spares, forecast of cyclical needs and work out a game plan for their operation......not many people are willing to do this unfortunately.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-01-2004 02:08 AM                        I have a lot of typically needed spare parts, but it is not easy when you have such a wide variety of equipment as our chain (which has taken over a number of cinemas from various other exhibitors). But then of course it is simply not possible to stock everythng, and there will always be the "unforeseen" situation. Wouldn`t it make a lot of sense then for major vendors to stock more parts and have them available also on weekends and holidays? Or maybe not - else it would have been done already? Or is it that people here are simply not used to getting parts that quickly? In my mind, there seems to be a lot of potential in this idea, since a downsituation on a busy weekend costs the exhibitor a lot of money.  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 01-01-2004 02:38 AM                     Micheal,I have worked with a couple of circuits that had the same situation regarding different equipment and it took a couple of years of trading, retiring hardware until we had 1 to 2 packages to work in most situations....I had a late technician do this for another company and in the same time frame he was able to clean up their operation. You do have manufacturers like Kinoton which many of their parts are generic over many models of equipment which allow stocking not to be a major problem. In todays market with approxiamately 30 full line manufacturers trying to sell to a very small customer base,it is hard to justify the stocking expense unless they are charging to a service operation under their control......which no present USA manufacturer is set up to do. It is funny in a business sector which will become more important to the cinema industry....the dreaded DIGITAL ( if and when ) beast.....overnight parts + loaners, emergency service, network supervision ( maintinance )plans as part of their upcoming business plans are being factored; since they already have experience suppling these needs in major corporate and government enviroments.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-01-2004 09:03 AM                     Michael, We have a huge parts inventory for many manufacturers and we always say..."If you need it we probably have several in stock, and if you don't need it there is probably one in stock anyway" Actually many of the U.S. manufacturers DO at least have emergency personel available in such situations. Christie used to be the worst one but even they now have an emergency person around there. Smaller U.S. companies may be more of a problem in this regard though. Hey at least you can chastise Richard right here on the forum if you can't get through to Kinoton ! Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 01-01-2004 10:13 AM                     I can not remember the time I had a theatre go down to the point of non-repair over the holidays. Like CLACO...we also have a rather large stock of projection parts (including electronic items) based on our service area. The more unusual, the more we have the individual location stock the odd item at that location. If the "page" comes in that a theatre is down, the fastest way to get them back up is for the part to be there. However, if it is a Simplex or Century, we not only have every part, we have entire projectors to ensure our customers will run with minimal down time. Diodes? Got em in several sizes. Historically, theatres stocked their own parts that suited their projection equipment...gears, tubes...etc. Now, that isn't the case so much. I do feel that ultimately it is the theatre's responsibility to have a reasonable parts supply on site though. Iook at how many screens you have and what items are critical to your show running. Do you have a spare of those items? If not, it is your risk and not the responsibility of the service company, dealer or manufacturer. You have spare xenon lamps, right? I know, as a dealer it is silly to tie up funds stocking every lamp size with the various fittings...heck just in the 2KW lamp, you have the standard 2K, two forms of 2K HS (one is similar to the 2500HS and the other is similar to the 1600HS). Those are critical items. How about rectifiers? If you have switchers, you should have a spare (on MS connectors, if possible)...there will not be any fixing of them on site. They are not that expensive and if one goes down, that theatre is down. Does your theatre use motor controllers? If so, perhaps a spare should be around...that sort of thing. I know of some theatres that have essentially complete projection systems as spares for their plex. The theatre needs to take some responsibility here. It is their business after all. Steve  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 01-01-2004 11:06 AM                     I have lost count the many times our stock exceeded a vendor and we helped during plant closures, met people who flew in at one of our airports and sent people internationally to deal with customs people to deliver emergency parts. This of course was tempered by good relationships between manufacturers, distributors,techs and clients who would pay .  |  IP: Logged Chris Hipp Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1462 From: Mesquite, Tx (east of Dallas) Registered: Jul 2003 posted 01-01-2004 12:04 PM                     My thoughts are, if you have to order one, order two because another one is soon to break.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-01-2004 12:08 PM                     I am in fact meeting a customer at the store at noon today that requires a new 5 Star main shaft and bearings. His show will still go on as planed at 4PM today. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 01-01-2004 12:13 PM                       I never had a problem, either, we stocked much. Except, as Richard noted, waiting a month to get repaired intermittents and gear boxes back from Cinemeccanica, because they shut down in August.  |  IP: Logged Gary Crawford Expert Film Handler Posts: 200 From: Neptune NJ USA Registered: Nov 2003 posted 01-01-2004 01:06 PM                     I think a case today of bigger not being better. Waxing nostalgic as usual, back when Walter Reade owned almost everything around here we were at the most a half-hour away from the warehouse (except for Reade's NYC houses). We had a Reade tech who would come at anytime as well as an Altec-Lansing tech who also was close by. At worst we might have had to run on one machine (a tad impossible for most of you guys today) until the tech came with the part. We also kept so many spare parts that calling a tech simply meant coming in early tomorrow to meet him. It was a good system back then. The only time I personally had to shut down was when the power company's substation feeding the DI I was working at launched a transformer, not much I could do about that. In a related issue, why are booking offices closed even though we are running? Due to the new Russell Crowe film being held over in 1st run we had to rebook something else for next week, but there was only one poor secretary there who just took your name and number and "someone will get back to you."  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-01-2004 02:04 PM                     If memory serves all industriial manufacturers shut down in Italy for August as it is a state law but it doesn't really matter since if one is aware of it work around it  |  IP: Logged Chris Byrne Expert Film Handler Posts: 102 From: Kirwan, Australia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 01-02-2004 05:56 AM                     Our refrigeration tradesman brought up this exact point stating that for both of our companies it is the busiest time of year (School Holidays and Summer time), yet the companies we rely on for parts and service are closed for business. As luck would have it, we had a gas leak in our biggest auditorium holding one of our 'Rings' prints and it was like pulling teeth getting bottles of refrigerant to cool the cinema.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.