CNC Machine/Litigation's

Hello this is my first post as a new member. I have always looked here for tips and interesting stories. Unfortunately I'm disappointed and fed up, like some others here, with our Cnc machine. We are a small machine shop and Invested everything I own into this Cnc machine. I will not brand bash, it just hasn't worked out for us for along time now and we would like to ask everyone reading this about their story and possible proffessional recommendations and opinions.

Has anyone here sought out legal action against a brand name machine corporation? (Ex. Haas, Okuma, Dmg Has, etc etc.) If so... what's your story? Win? Lose? Legal Representation? Any info is helpful is understanding the next step.

Thank you
From the little guy

If you look down this section of the forum there is a division "Shop Owners and Management Issues" right above the "General" section.

You might get more help there, this section is more hardware, programing and stuff like that.
You might even search back through some of the recent pages there also.

The only times I have been in court is collecting money due so my experience will be of no help to you. Small claims court was the big help there. One of the fellows I filed charges against also had attempted murder charges filed against him by someone else, he was real happy to get me off his back as another charge against him would have looked real bad.

Well, there is one particular Okuma Automation thread that I would love to hear the final outcome of, but hush money must have been included in the outcome?


---------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Particularly looking for product failure, lemon machines, faulty installs anything that big corporation are at fault for.

Lolo22 said:

Particularly looking for product failure, lemon machines, faulty installs anything that big corporation are at fault for.

Click to expand...

You are going to have to be a lot more specific to get focused advice about your particular case.

I do and have had to do a lot of legal things in IP to go toe to toe with some of the largest corporations.

But sounds like there's a "Gap" that has never been bridged by your vendor/MTB ?

Just out of interest what do you estimate the investment and damage to your company has been so far ?

What technical failure would you point the finger at as being the cause ?

Assuming new machines / installations etc. ?

Did you use a leasing company for this purchase,if so I would have a conversation with them.
They would have a monetary interest in this.

Lolo22 said:

Hello this is my first post as a new member. I have always looked here for tips and interesting stories. Unfortunately I'm disappointed and fed up, like some others here, with our Cnc machine. We are a small machine shop and Invested everything I own into this Cnc machine. I will not brand bash, it just hasn't worked out for us for along time now and we would like to ask everyone reading this about their story and possible proffessional recommendations and opinions.

Has anyone here sought out legal action against a brand name machine corporation? (Ex. Haas, Okuma, Dmg Has, etc etc.) If so... what's your story? Win? Lose? Legal Representation? Any info is helpful is understanding the next step.

Thank you
From the little guy

Click to expand...

I would get so freeking mad I would write a letter. Maybe even use CAPS in a sentence or two. Nobody can help you unless you define the problem. Tuck in there, cuz you may be the problem. But maybe not. But.....if you cannot define the problem.......You or your staff may be the problem.
When I installed my first CNC it was in a time of max overload with work. Tech wanted to do training but Fluff off, got to get stuff done. Took an hour of training and had enough. During that week I had nightmares where I was running away from my shop in a blizzard naked in a snowstorm. Sent him back to his hotel and the next day it took my right hand guy and myself to start it up and home it. First program we ran crashed. Part was bigger than Y travel. Well, they gave me the wrong pamphlet for the machine. It happens and a few months later they gave me a new machine.
Define the problem and get an answer.

Since you are on Cali and mentioned Haas twice, I will go with Haas. That might help since you can keep it all within the borders. I would be interested in the specifics of failures and documents of what they wrote. Remember it is ALL in the documents when it goes legal. Haas likes their reputation. If you are that done with them, you probably need to calmly but firmly request to talk with the regional manager. Obtain their email and a few others and copy them together AS WELL as CC your own attorney in the mess so everyone is aware. This is a VERY important step because anyone that is smart will realize you mean business.

A threat is seen as only that and do NOT go into an endless rant about how you are going to sue. You may softly mention that if you cannot get a satisfactory resolution, you will have no choice but to take legal action. They hear this all the time. No biggy. The next step is to have your attorney draft a letter indicating intent and requested compensation. There is much more weight in an attorney letter, and all attorneys know this. Expect that letter to cost way more than it is really worth.

Setting a date for correspondence, and upon expiration, expect to have your attorney file a civil suit against Haas. It is only then that Haas will take it seriously and likely try to work with you.

Now, they could be white and do the right thing, but I would not count on it.

.......................

The words below are true

huleo said:

Since you are on Cali and mentioned Haas twice, I will go with Haas. That might help since you can keep it all within the borders. I would be interested in the specifics of failures and documents of what they wrote. Remember it is ALL in the documents when it goes legal. Haas likes their reputation. If you are that done with them, you probably need to calmly but firmly request to talk with the regional manager. Obtain their email and a few others and copy them together AS WELL as CC your own attorney in the mess so everyone is aware. This is a VERY important step because anyone that is smart will realize you mean business.

A threat is seen as only that and do NOT go into an endless rant about how you are going to sue. You may softly mention that if you cannot get a satisfactory resolution, you will have no choice but to take legal action. They hear this all the time. No biggy. The next step is to have your attorney draft a letter indicating intent and requested compensation. There is much more weight in an attorney letter, and all attorneys know this. Expect that letter to cost way more than it is really worth.

Setting a date for correspondence, and upon expiration, expect to have your attorney file a civil suit against Haas. It is only then that Haas will take it seriously and likely try to work with you.

Now, they could be white and do the right thing, but I would not count on it.

Click to expand...

These words are bologna

cmccull166 said:

Did you use a leasing company for this purchase,if so I would have a conversation with them.
They would have a monetary interest in this.

Click to expand...

dstryr said:

.......................

Click to expand...

Pass the popcorn.



Okay, so the outcome on these situations are varied. If you want to send the machine back, first thing is diligence. If you financed it, send an email to the finance company, copy the reseller, and the builder representative outlining in detail all your concerns with dates and names. As in: I bought this machine based on what Joe said to do this. Joe agreed it could do this. I signed a purchase agreement that verified it will do this. Jeff installed machine, did training and problem 1 showed up. Jeff came back and tried to fix problem one. it seemed to be fixed and 2 weeks later problem 2 showed up. And so on. This is step one. If you paid cash, the letter goes to the reseller and the builder and you need a lawyer at that point, who has a background in UCC law.

Number one thing to understand, the builder and their representative have the legal right to fix the problems.
Number two, your drama may not be their drama.
Number three, how you accept a machine is important. There are different levels of acceptance based on UCC law.
Number four, how the company invoices you and demands payment will go into when you actually accepted the machine.
Number five, this will cost you real time and money. Make sure the heartache and headache is worth it. You may find it better to just sell the beast yourself.
Sometimes, you need to add public pressure as in start a thread here saying your AJAX mill is crap and here is why. Be specific and be able to back up your review.


I keep thinking, if buyers were smarter, I could make a living helping people buy machines correctly.

No-one smart ever litigates with machine tool builders.

Every manufacturer will pay more to avoid bad publicity.
Document errors.
Courier them to the MD of the company.
Ask their secretary for a conference call time - quoting the documents sent.

They (MD or senior exec) will listen to You, politely, and assign someone to fix the problem.
There is no need to mention publicity or lawsuits.
They know it already.

Depending on were you are you probably don't have any of the consumer protection you expect purchasing machinery as a business.

I Had one customer get sadled with a lemon of a black and white xeroz digital press, im nameing names as no one paid me not too! Basically after testing on show room machines results were great for there work, samples of expected work and qtrly through put in the 200,000 pages range. these machines you buy them and agree to a monthly service contract bassed on a given qtrly volume to be ran, ie you agree to pay the qtrly volume reguardless of if you do less, do more you get hit with a click charge, the bigger the volume you agree to going in the smaller your click rate. This in turn supplies your consumables. Problem is 9 months in they had used up 2 years of there consumable allowance, which was in effect based on the industry std of 10% toner coverage not the 30% + average of there work. Basically zerox passed the buck to the dealer, the dealer passed the buck to my customer, my customer passed it back to the dealer based on the fact they had provided and ran samples of the work. It literally was like a floater just going around in a toilet, no one yielded and the years ticked by. All sorts of diffrent legal avenues were explored by both sides, but there was just no common ground and it would have cost the dealer big time to supply the extra consumables + warrentie work for the machine to do the job the customer actually bought it for. No one won that, everyone kinda lost. Customer ended up getting a secound machine from a diffrent dealer to run the work and as soon as that machines contract came up placed it with a different zerox dealer on the correct coverage contract to get the work actually done.

In your case documenting everything wrong is the first step, but under stand with a cnc machine tool its very easy for them to pass the buck back to you, your work, your incoming power, your coolant choice etc. Don't expect much to get fixed unless you can put the ball firmly in there court and there a descent dealer and with enough knowledge to actually fix it, have seen that play out multiple times and been in the middle of a dealer fucking a customer over with a semi broken machine telling the customer i can fix it but then haveing the dealer refuse to let me - let the customer get it fixed by others with out voiding the 3 month warrantie they offered with it. Good dealers will move heaven and earth, but equally understand if you bought less machine than you need and if you broke it, well thats on you. Equally remember whilst fighting this your still not makeing parts, your still not making money and your not doing what your business is there to do, so go real careful. Its easy to miss were your focus should be. You tube is one very good option to document stuff and its real easy to toggle a video of the faults from public searchable to only viewable if sent the link! I have personally used that trick to make companies take action.

Diffrent customer diffrent machine i did a you tube video of how the machine was running circa 1K max a hour with out jamming, me fixing it in 5 minutes but with the magic blurred out then the machine running at the factory rates it is capable of at 5K a hour all in one take. Actually had his lawyer send me a cease and desist on publishing that one, but it was too late by the time the post man gave it too me :-) Tip if your a lawyer, posting a cease and desist letter on a Thursday secound class means i dont get it till the monday which may be too late, especially if your so stupid as to only ban me from publishing the video, not insisting i take down the video! Ended up taking the video down though after said dealer paid my bill to the customer under the warrentie he originally offered under the machines purchase. So you can win, you just need leverage and to clearly document the state of things.

I have had 3 instances of machines not performing to expectations. All were new machine deals.

1. Wanted a certain model (we already owned 3 like it) that was not available in a reasonable time. The machine seller had a different model in stock that they claimed would be just as good as the one that we really wanted. We bought the substitute and from day one found it inferior. After working through many attempts to correct the problems and improve the accuracy, they agreed that they oversold the machine and agreed to exchange it for the model we originally wanted. A certain sales person for that company soon was no longer employed there too.

2. Another machine that did not perform to the advertised capabilities. After numerous attempts to correct the issues with US based service failed, we gave an ultimatum, either fix it or take it back. The manufacturer asked for one more chance to correct things and sent a real tech from Switzerland to work on the machine. Within a couple days all problems had been resolved. Machine went from being a real disappointment to being a fine addition to the shop.

3. A machine that suffered multiple problems with reliability and low rigidity. The dealer and manufacturer reps all worked on it to address the reliability issues with no real improvement. We accepted some responsibility for the rigidity issues because we placed the machine on an existing foundation rather than pour a new one. The existing foundation was only ~18" thick and the manufacturers recommendation was ~30". Ultimately, we just sold it after ~2.5 years.

2outof3 said:

Pass the popcorn.


<snip>


I keep thinking, if buyers were smarter, I could make a living helping people buy machines correctly.

Click to expand...

If only there was a special person that helped people select the right machines ??? ... I heard of that once ... What are they called ... S... Sss... sssa .... saaal saaaaiiiill sellll...


Nahhh, I can't remember what they are called.

Lolo22 said:

Hello this is my first post as a new member. I have always looked here for tips and interesting stories. Unfortunately I'm disappointed and fed up, like some others here, with our Cnc machine. We are a small machine shop and Invested everything I own into this Cnc machine. I will not brand bash, it just hasn't worked out for us for along time now and we would like to ask everyone reading this about their story and possible proffessional recommendations and opinions.

Has anyone here sought out legal action against a brand name machine corporation? (Ex. Haas, Okuma, Dmg Has, etc etc.) If so... what's your story? Win? Lose? Legal Representation? Any info is helpful is understanding the next step.

Thank you
From the little guy

Click to expand...

What's your experience in running CNC's?

I have a family member who is an attorney, they also worked in my shop at one time, running CNC's. They got to the point of being able to do their setups, run, inspect etc.

If you went to them the first thing they would do is come over and spend some time watching how you run the machine, load parts, see how parts you program run etc etc.

In 5-15 minutes you'd get an opinion.
1) I can see potentially where the machine isn't living up to expectations
2) You evidently don't have the experience to know how to get the best performance from the machine.
3) You need a UCC experienced attorney.

Good sales staff are, problem is most end up so target driven that ends up being missed and they just sell the most expensive shit they can to any given customer.

Very few equipment suppliers give there sales force any long term brand building goals, its all this months sales target and oftern that ends up being at the expense of next years sales.

cameraman said:

If only there was a special person that helped people select the right machines ??? ... I heard of that once ... What are they called ... S... Sss... sssa .... saaal saaaaiiiill sellll...


Nahhh, I can't remember what they are called.

Click to expand...

You are asking me the salesman to figure out what the customer needs beyond what they are telling me. I am incentivized to sell not to consult. Most of us do our best to balance our companies needs and wants with the customers needs, short and long term. There is a need for most customers to learn how to buy machines but the vast majority buy on impulse or short term needs. Even then, the what you need versus what you think you need is often very different. I see a possible need for a third party advising versus what the company clan wants. The hard part, is even this advisor will have bias based on past experience. My only past experience with this, was out right fraud, where the advisor was taking kick backs from a group of machine sellers to promote their products when this "expert" was called in to help manufacture a very specific product.

At least one of the largest companies in the world, actually hires an outside engineering and architectural firm to not just do shop layouts but spec comparisons on a few machines the manufacturing team is thinking of purchasing.

2outof3 said:

You are asking me the salesman to figure out what the customer needs beyond what they are telling me. I am incentivized to sell not to consult. Most of us do our best to balance our companies needs and wants with the customers needs, short and long term.

Click to expand...

I'm certainly not bashing sales people at all. I personally relate quite well to that end of the business as I Understand how difficult things can be when serving / dealing with very demanding / high maintenance prospects / customers.

I sometimes feel that some sales "Peeps" in different organizations don't really get the engineering / applications support that they could or really need to really connect the dots really well on stuff/application specific needs.

2outof3 said:

There is a need for most customers to learn how to buy machines but the vast majority buy on impulse or short term needs.

Click to expand...

^^^ My impression that I get from some sales folks is that "Peeps" turn up needing a machine like yesterday but may also KNOW better what they really want or need. BUT for much bigger and more sophisticated projects (almost at government level) I hear of time frames of the order of 3 years or more to cultivate a relationship and figure out a difficult set of processes. I believe average initial inquiry to final purchase is of the order of 18 months ? [I don't know if that rings true with you? @2outof3].

2outof3 said:

Even then, the what you need versus what you think you need is often very different.

Click to expand...

^^^^ I would whole heartedly agree with that and sometimes a much more considered view of a set of processes is required rather than over focusing on the next "Whiz-bang" individual machine. I.e. It's easy to over-focus on the "Miracle machine" rather than pull focus on a set of distributed processes.

2outof3 said:

I see a possible need for a third party advising versus what the company clan wants. The hard part, is even this advisor will have bias based on past experience.

Click to expand...

That's a really interesting point ^^^. I come from different related disciplines long ago where my main bread and butter was consulting/ R&D based consulting to prove out whatever I was tasked with.


I would never lean on a sales person to do MY homework for me and expect them to do 'Free" consulting.



I think finding the right machines for people is almost like an adoption agency of sorts where you have a "Facilitator" perhaps rather than a consultant or finder's fee. I have to say PM forum is very good for that having the useful opinion of others or "Peeps" that have put time into research... It's FREE so you get good value ;-)

2outof3 said:

My only past experience with this, was out right fraud, where the advisor was taking kick backs from a group of machine sellers to promote their products when this "expert" was called in to help manufacture a very specific product.

Click to expand...

^^^ I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often.

2outof3 said:

At least one of the largest companies in the world, actually hires an outside engineering and architectural firm to not just do shop layouts but spec comparisons on a few machines the manufacturing team is thinking of purchasing.

Click to expand...

^^^ That makes total sense you can't cheap out or not afford to do your homework or really work the problem (especially at that scale.).



______________________________________________________________________________________________________


I usually try to tell the sales "Peeps" mainly to relax as I'm the one that's taking the responsibility for any decisions made / purchase decisions. So for any oversights (especially in relevant options) I make it clear that I am responsible for those, that's why I spend many many hours going over things with a fine tooth comb. And then let it sit on a shelf for a bit (let the dust settle) and come back to it with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective.


I don't make any assumptions as I literally cannot afford to 'Eff up to a large degree. [Some BIG companies can make a number of mistakes with machine purchases and still have enough "Cushion" to put things straight. ].

I think this is part of Op's problem that he went "Balls-deep" on a singular platform that destabilized their company 'cuz it's not doing what it says it does on the "Tin" ? *


So I don't leave too much to chance and hence I dial back my expectations substantially. And pretty much NEVER pull the trigger unless I feel very confident and comfortable with how I feel about things... (In a chill and positive way) In other words take the pressure out of everything and not be a frantic / manic slave to a punishing set of time frames and constraints. Try to plan ahead with sufficient "Screw up" time. BUT not every firm has that luxury and sometime machines are bought 'cuz someone scored / landed a big contract... Like what cmccull166 was saying there maybe a leasing / financing component to this**



In Op's case I wonder how things went down and what went awry ? I don't know if it's unrealistic expectations *


_________________________________________________________________


* I'm not sure / guessing in this case that this would be HAAS as IME HAAS really doesn't make any claims as to anything hardly at all... They are very clever that way lol. If you press them to "Can the machine do this and hold that kind of tolerance under these cutting conditions in this material etc. etc. " They usually back away from that. (Some mix-ups can occur) .

Could be a different MTB that's not HAAS (maybe ?)

** Some of the Makino + financing deals available can be ridiculously amazing to the point if you are not careful you can totally overbuy , underperform (bad planning) and sink your ship if you don't really screw your head on straight.

Lawyers don't work for machinist wages.

If it's not 6 figures, there's nothing to litigate...