Universal instruments registration "UIC IS EXAMPLE ONLY"

Here's what ticks me off by the OEM's extorting registration fees out of customers and refusing to support the used equipment market.

You won't get the OEM's to admit it but a large part of their profits are obtained by service and support including the sales of spare parts. By forcing customers to pay registration fees, they're biting into that profit because many customers will not pay the fees and will look elsewhere for service and spare parts. That's just plain crazy. There are plenty of people out there including myself that can service and support this need and as a result, the OEM loses out.

The other thing that makes me laugh is the blatant disregard for the used market. Here's an example. I've got a Panasonic MPA-3 that I have taken off the floor, brought into my facility to clean and/or refurb. I will sell this machine to a customer that would never in a million years consider a new machine from PFA due to the pricing. So while I'm getting this machine ready, I realize I've got a problem with a servo card and would like to purchase this $2,000 card from PFA that they probably make $1,800 in profit on. Are they going to sell it to me? Hell no...I'm a competitor. So I find it used for $500, get this guy's machine running, sell him the machine and all of a sudden, PFA has a new customer for service and support that they would never have had. But first they make him register the machine which he reluctantly does. Maybe this guy's business takes off and in a few years he needs to upgrade and because he liked the MPA-3, he now decides to buy a new complete line from Panasonic. See, I did PFA a big favor by getting this guy into their system. But if this guy never bought anything new from them, they still have another source of revenue they would have never had if it wasn't for my efforts to sell this guy on their platform to begin with. These OEM's will never get it regarding this....the used market is a great source for introducing new customers to their products. They should be thanking me but instead, I get the cold shoulder. Don't get me wrong, I get by fine without their support and have been for years. It just makes me laugh at the dollars they are willing to overlook.

Rick

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Having been the G.M. of Universal's remanufacturing division for 10 years I am familiar with the "Third Party Support Policy" as I was the primary author of it. The primary reason the policy was developed was to make it more difficult for other resellers to be competitive against Broome Engineering in the secondary market. In discussions with prospective buyers the strategy was to plant doubt in the customers mind about buying from a third party. The fee was one of the tools used to frighten the potential customer away from other third parties for the sole purpose of convincing them to buy only from Universal/Broome Engineering. The idea of the licensing fee funding Universals internal support structure is weak at best since the costs associated with technical support, help desk, etc. is built into the cost of every new machine. The internal support structure existed long before Broome Engineering was created. Looking back on discussions about implementing the policy, in my view it was designed to discourage competition and corner prospective customers into buying used machines from Universal. In an earlier email someone mentioned "the new owners" of Universal. They have been owned by the same parent company, Dover, since 1979.

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I have read with interest this string of opinions about support of old machines. I am the service manager of Contact Systems and I deal with customer support every day. Our policy is to treat all owners of Contact machines in an evenhanded way. The word support is somewhat ambiguous but here is what it means to us.

We sell spare parts to everyone at the same price. We have no minimum order. There is no specific time period that we supply parts such as the suggested seven years after the last machine produced. What actually happens is some of our suppliers may discontinue a part without forewarning us. In this case we can only supply the part until our inventory runs out. We currently supply almost all the parts for our CS400 C, which we stopped producing in 1990. We supply all the parts we can make in house for an unlimited time. But electrical components, which we buy outside, are often discontinued. We are constantly finding alternate sources for these components so that we can keep these old machines running.

If you buy an old Contact machine either from a broker or direct from another customer you can elect to either go it alone or request �support� from us. We charge $1500 for second owner support on CS400 series and $3,000 on Contact 3 series. We don�t care where you bought the machine. And we have no animosity towards brokers. We are happy to have you as a new customer. For this fee you get up to three days free training, unlimited phone support and free software upgrades. Why do we charge this fee? When we sell a machine new or reconditioned we include this support in our price. We do not include in or price the obligation to do it over again in later years. In fact a machine may have multiple owners over its lifetime all of which may require training and phone support. Of course if you have experience with Contact machines you may not need our support and you do not need to order it. And you can always buy spare parts at any time without any extra fee. We believe it is reasonable to charge a customer for the many hours it may take to walk him through the start up phase of getting a used machine up and running.

The ability of a used equipment broker to service the machines they sell varies considerably. Some of them have service engineers or connections with these people who free lance. Most are ex employees of one of the machine manufacturers and are quite competent. But usually their expertise is limited to the vintage machines being produced when they left the company. They are typically not familiar with the revs and nuances of newer machines. So there is some risk that the broker may not be able to fix a machine. In this case we are ready willing and able to provide the service to get the machine functional. We do whatever it takes to get a Contact customer happy.

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