Conference 7.286::digital

    Does  email to "Quality @ AYO" work for PCs as well as SBU and NPBU
    kit? You'll need a DEC#, obviously.
    
    Mention of "ISO9000 complaint" often generates interesting responses
    from those parts of the business which claim ISO9000 compliance.
    
    regards
    john

    
    If that's a Starion 166, they're doing you a favor :) See
    the customer satisfaction note for my experience with that
    product....
    
    DAP
    

    You should have seen Bob Palmers face when he got one of the first
    Hi-Notes and a pile of options to assemble himself.
    
    Nothing changed of course, he shouted and his PC got built properly,
    everyone else, you guessed it, love them kit packages with fully
    assembled pricing.
    
    rtt

    re: .0 and having to put up with poor service from Digital
    
    I look at this situation and remember the old saying:
    
    "The amazing thing about a dancing bear is not how well it dances, but
    that it dances at all."
    
    The noteworthy thing is that you could still order a PC from Digital,
    and get *something*. By rights, there should be no Digital left to sell
    you a PC. The only thing that's kept this company alive is the enormous
    success the industry as a whole enjoyed. If we had not been in a period
    where all our competitors had so much business that some of it got
    turned away and *had* to buy Digital, we would have been out of the
    race a long time ago.
    
    Our group has actually decided to give Digital (the PC side) one last
    chance: we ordered some of the new Hinote Laptops, even though we had
    an opportunity to go outside for new equipment. I was in favor of Dell
    myself; they quoted me six days leadtime (including shipping time) on
    their new 166mhz Pentium laptop. Digital? After the order finally got
    processed, we are now getting promises of delivery in June. I'm just
    waiting for the next time our VP swings around and asks why our project
    revenue dates aren't being met ...
    
    Geoff

    How long between the Lead-time quote and processing the order?

    Someone in our office received a big Hinote box the other day. 
    "Great, my new hinote has arrived, I'll assemble it this weekend"
    
    After unpacking the CD, keyboard and all manner of other junk he
    realised they had not shipped the hinote itself.
    
    Kinda like ordering dinner and getting the seafood part of your entree
    during dessert or having the wine delivered to your table but having to
    wait to the end of the meal for wine glasses to put it in.
    
    In my opinion, failure to address theses kinds of fundamentals are the
    biggest barriers to our success. We have been through multiple sets of
    staff reductions and yet we still have not addressed the fundamental
    impediments to doing business with us. We have only destructured, not
    restructured.
    
    
    - John
    
    
    
    

    Yes, I ordered a VP535 last fall.  The pieces came in dribs and drabs -
    a power supply one day, battery another, modem another, case, ...  Of
    course, the LAST thing to arrive, about a month and a half after the
    first pieces, was the laptop itself.  Pitiful.  (Oh, and this was some
    four months after the order was placed.)
    
    					Steve

    Well said .6. 
    
    But it is worse. I attended a meeting between an irate partner and a
    rep of distribution/manufacturing.  
    We spend the morning assuring the partner we would do whatever it takes 
    to get their tech support up to scratch, and in the meantime we have done.
    
    Then in the afternoon they turned to the supply/quality problems. The
    complained bitterly that the way we we delivering pc's was causing
    thier warehouse/inventory control system enormous grief and could we
    please please please please do something about it.
    
    I paraphrase only slightly from memory: "You have to realise," the
    Digital representative replied, "that you are doing business with Digital
    and sometimes there are problems which are difficult to change, I can't
    promise you anything." 
    
    I wanted to crawl under the table. 
    
    It is not just that we have destructured. These problems have been
    around for ages but nothing gets done. It is a problem of leadership.
    
    ..Kevin..

    Re .8
    
    Kevin,
      At least they were honest about their inability or laziness, or
    incompetence (whatever the case may be).

    Jim Morton

   This is a perfect example why using the slogan "Whatever it takes" is
   an incredibly bad idea. In fact, such a slogan is something you want your
   customers to use about you spontaneously, not the other way around because
   it sound like you are patting yourself on the back when you don't even
   deserve it!

   >Per

"You have to understand.." is a line I've been hearing from Digital reps for 
over 15 years, first as a customer and later as a colleague. It never fails to 
leave the customer gasping for air. 

It might have worked when everyone wanted a VAX and we were the only place to 
get one. 

\dave

    re .8,.9
    
    The point for me is that at the very least we should show customers we
    care and we are trying. That is the meaning of the WIT slogan. These
    customers did indeed gasp for air for about 90 seconds. Then they went
    rather quiet and distanced. After a bit more blather it was quietly
    pointed out that HP don't have this problem.
    
    Do you think we can motivate these people to sell our PC's now??
    
    No, they couldn't give a **** about Digitals pc's and if the customer
    wants an intel pc from them they get HP, even if we had a better less
    expensive product, people simply won't put up with this, and you can
    run monkey ads etc till you are blue in the face, until we sort this
    our revenue will at best, stagnate.
    
    ..Kevin..
    

    Hello,
    
    (also 5257.4)
    if you have time, take a short look at this two Web-Sites.
    http://www.us.dell.com/store/index.htm
    http://www.stockmaster.com/sm/g/D/DELL.html
     Look at the Orderchannel from DELL.
     Do you think, this is all, what is needed?
     To create a Website ?  Like DELL?
     Fact ist DELL increases their Stock  >4:1 in 1996.
    
    Note: To do this, we need a well structured Organization behind
          this. 
    Question: Are we well structured? 
    
    Where is the "Digital Easy Doing Selling Modell" ? 
    
    Is it importent what Slogan we use?    "Whatever it takes"
    
    Or are there other things important;
    Is it easy to buy/sell Digital Products? Is it easy to use our
    internal/external databases? 
    Do YOU find anything?  Or do you find all you NEEDED?  Are our 
    Products "Trendy"?  Or only different, or fast or somewhat other?
    Do you/our Costumer also wish to have some of this? 
    Can we deliefer when Costumer feel in his chest, "I need one, immediatly"?
    
    Do we understand Networking? Not a connection between to boxes,
    one on Norpol one on Southpool linked over a Satellite standing 
    on the darkside of the Moon. Pure Networking, with all kind of
    Elements? Do we understand it really? 
      
    Are we really a Internetcompay? "The Internetcomany". Who knows that?
    Or do we only work with this Medium over the last couple of years? 
      
    Another Question; Do we know JAVA? Do we need JaVA?. "The JAVA 
    Education World Tour '97"!   This is not Digitals World. This is the
    ibm/netscape/sun/novell World! But it's Trendy! 
    
    You can play this game over the whole company!
    
    
    greetings, helmut
    

    
    ref: 5257.7
    
    Well, at least things are still consistent since last fall.  We are
    getting pieces in dribs and drabs - you got it - everything but the
    laptop.  I can understand why you would only do this once in life as
    it just hurts too much. 
    
    Next time we will probably lease a laptop that comes with all the 
    parts already assembled versus buying one at internal discounts.
    It really would be cheaper and more productive.
    
    I find it amazing, however, that the process has not improved since
    last year.
    
    Hoping not to have to order any more PCs.
    
    

Reading through these replies ---- reminded me of one of my customers orders.
They purchased a SW enclosure, power supplies, controllers and lot's and lot's
of disk(s). It was supposed to be shipped (assembled), well they got their
Storage Subsystem alright!!!!! SW enclosoure without anything being assembled!!!

Needless to say, he got two pallets full of equipment, and lots of small boxes
with disks in them.... Boy was he pissed!!! We had to "pay" field service to go
out and install everything. Being good corporate citizens we contacted the
powers in charge to ask questions about what exactly went wrong, to inquire if
we did something procedure wise that was incorrect and if so, we were willing to
do "whatever it takes" from our end to "help" prevent this from happening. Well
after many phone calls, all we got was finger pointing and no action plan.
Allowing these types of mistakes to "continually" happen end up costing Digital
"lot's of money" --- take this one example, it cost Digital:

        - Field Service Cost(s) for special call to go out "on customer site"
          to assemble the system
        - Local Sales Reps and other local resources time taken away from normal
          selling activities 

            -- to make arrangements for Field Service, 
            -- to calm the customer down, 
            -- to attend "special" meeting with customer and his management to  
               explain why this happened and walks away with an action item from
               the customer to come back at a later time and explain what we're 
               going to do to prevent this from happening again
	    -- to chase down "who in Digital" is in charge of above, begin
               dialog and spend time corresponding, talking and documenting
               what we're planning on doing
            -- then go back to the customer and explain the "action plan" and
               hope that the customer is satisfied enough to continue spending
               money with us

	 - add to the above, the time taken away from normal duties of
           all the other Digital Corporate personnel involved (explaining away  
           the 
           problem, taking on internal action items, etc.) and you get the 
           picture of the costs involved.
         - Plus (and you can't really put a dollar amount on this one), the
           cost associated with "customer satisfaction", this fiasco and 
           any others (and there have been others) that happen all will 
           eventually add up to ---- "I can't do business with Digital" --
           that's a heavy price to pay.

We need to fix these fundamental problems, I would love to see us excell in 
other areas besides "having the fastest chips on the planet" <--- todays
customers are looking for more from a business partner than just chips.

My two cents (and I've got to run)

RC.

    A friend of mine teaching in college bought an Alpha Workstation.  His
    collegue bought an UltraSpac Sun workstation.  The Alpha outperforms
    Sun 3-6 times.  When his collegue ordered an additional disk, it was
    delivered within two days with a users mannual to instruct how to
    install the disk.  My friend spent one week tried to order a disk
    from Digital and was delivered three weeks later (so total four weeks).
    The disk arrived with no mannual and no instruction.  His department
    ordered six more Sun workstations!  

    Waht is truly disheartening is that the problems identified here and in
    numerous other notes over the past few years, are basic structural
    problems.  these are not things that the front line folks can do
    anything about.  These are the things that managment must take
    responsibility for and they apparently refuse to do anything that even
    remotely resembles responsibility.
    
    All of the DVNs and employee meeting sthat are held never deal with
    improvements in the basic areas of corproate performance.  They always
    deal with grand strategies.
    
    It is long overdue for management to recognize their responsibilites to
    actually DO something.  It is way past planning strategies and working
    operational problems.
    
    I thought that just maybe someone would care enough to talk with the
    field and find out what they needed to actually make a difference in
    the marketplace.  so far, all there have been is dodges and
    fingerpointing at the field folks to try and find why they have failed
    to implement the corproate strategy.  The fact that the strategy is
    flawed never dawns on these people.
    
    It is time to tell the emperor that he has no clothes and everyone knows it.

          As long as mgr "A" can point a finger at mgr or plant "B" then
    there's no ownership of problems... I'm a 24 yr deccie and some of the
    problems I've read in here have been around longer than I have.. We
    need mgr's plants or whatever to take ownership for their problems..
    Finger pointing to me has always shown a lack of pride for the company
    or it's products. We the good ship digital should all be pulling
    together whether we own a problem or not we should push to get it
    resolved.. 
    
    Bob

    .18
    
    Although your comment seems fine on the surface, it has one basic flaw. 
    In order to change and improve what is going on, someone needs to admit
    there is a problem.  As soon as that is doen, the natural reaction is
    to try and find out how the problem arose and once that is understood
    then a fix can be presented.  The unfortunate part is that usually a
    name is associated with the problem, as it should be.  It does not mean
    that the person is incompetent, etc but the person is responsible for
    what goes on under their direction.
    
    In order to avoid the questions and the accountability, it is easier to
    ignore the problem or point to the lowest levels as being responsible. 
    This removes management from being held accountable.
    
    Look at the problems identifed here and there are many others, but
    management will do nothing.  At best, they will try to find their
    favorite suck-ups in the field to give positive feedback and then go
    off and congratulate themselves for their fine performance.
    
    In the meantime, everyone else is left holding the bag.
    

As a customer, I wouldn't tolerate buying a PC and getting it in pieces, in
seperate shipments.  I was involved in a number of PC purchase and never got
more than one shipment, always complete.  I've purchased from HP, Compaq,
Gateway (personal use), Digital (Starions for relatives :^()and other resellers.

What I'd like to know is who is responsible for a policy that lets a PC get
shipped in pieces, and when that person is questioned on it, who do they
point a finger at?

Seems to me that there is some part of this organization which remains stuck 
in the DEC arrogance of the 80s that needs a wakeup call.  I just can't 
believe that we let PCs go out the door in pieces.   This seems real basic 
to me, or is there something going on that I'm not aware of?  Shouldn't it
be as simple as whatever organization is responsible saying in plain English
'No Incomplete Shipments'?  

    re: 19
    
    I agree.......
    
    I volunteer for the position of the A$$ kicking VP of getting $hit
    DONE!
    
    I have a BAD habit of stepping on all sorts of toes, but I've NEVER 
    NOT GOT GOTTEN THE JOB DONE!
    
    Chet White for VP 
    

<-- Chet doesn't seem to understand that once you become a VP you lose
all those good qualities.  Nothing you can do about it either.  Just look
around this company, we got a couple hundred examples floating around ;^).

    You *CAN* insist on getting your config in one complete shipment.  The
    order form has a check box called "Accept Partials?" to which you can
    reply Yes or No.
    
    The problem is that in the fickle PC manufacturing and sourcing game,
    if you say "No", then your order is likely to be severely delayed by our
    silly policy of using the available parts at any point in time to
    fulfill other orders where the customers have said "Yes".  Customers
    have become wise to this procedure during the PDP11 and VAX years and
    go for faster delivery by accepting partials.
    
    We need  to overhaul our manufacturing and shipping/packaging
    procedures.  What worked for 100-component VAXclusters in the 1980's 
    is clearly out of line with 1990's overnight PC ordering.
    
    /Chris/
    
    

    
    One needs to understand that Digital is not in the retail
    end-user PC business.  We do not do custom configs per 
    individual customer order.  Our customers are distributors.
    Of course there are exceptions such as large government 
    contracts where PCs are configured to spec, but those
    are exceptions.
    
    This is not making excuses for sloppy work.  Our
    PC plants have been directed to stop custom config
    work. We do not know how to do it profitably.  So don't
    compare us to Dell and Gateway who perfected this service
    and are profitable. I know its not rocket science, but we
    are Digital 8^().  Digital IEG is also not responsible, nor
    should be in the custom config business.
    
    2 cents
    
    gb
    
      

    re: .24  "not our game"
    
    >One needs to understand that Digital is not in the retail
    >end-user PC business.
    
    Well, you said it. So why, pray tell, should I order a PC from Digital,
    either internally or externally? I wish that someone from the PC side
    would tell this to the powers-that-be on our side, so that I could have
    picked up the phone and bought a laptop from someone who *is* in the PC
    business like Dell, who would value me as a customer and not treat me
    like a nuisance!
    
    >                           Our customers are distributors.
    
    Some of the most vociferous complaints about Digital's performance has
    come from our distributors and resellers. When the Starions and Hinotes
    were still being sold by CompUSA, I went down to the store to see them,
    and talk to the sales reps. After listening to them trash Digital a few
    times, I stopped going ... now I don't have to worry about it anymore,
    since there aren't any Digital products at CompUSA (that I can see).
    
    We seem to spend a lot of time these days defining what businesses we
    are not good at:
    
    	- "We don't do retail"
    	- "We don't do applications software"
    	- "We don't do middleware"
    	- "We don't do operating systems"
    
    If this company were to survive, then somebody should be figuring out
    how to be good at something, but also how to get even better. But I
    can't find anyone or anything that put the focus on improvement. Oops,
    I forgot one thing: the memo I got that said "Improve the numbers" ...
    
    Geoff

    The new VP of Manufacturing & Distribution in the Digital Products
    Division is the former head of the PCBU Manufacturing and Logistics,
    I believe.  Perhaps Mr. McClelland wil be able to resolve these
    product delivery problems.
    
    Mark
    

    Has he resolved them in the PC Manufacturing group?

    >The problem is that in the fickle PC manufacturing and sourcing     
    >game, if you say "No", then your order is likely to be severely     
    >delayed by our silly policy of using the available parts at any     
    >point in time to fulfill other orders where the customers have said 
    >"Yes".  Customers have become wise to this procedure during the     
    >PDP11 and VAX years and go for faster delivery by accepting 
    >partials.

That doesn't really work out best for the customerat Digital.  What I 
found was that if you said yes to partials, especially towards the end of 
the quarter or year, we'd ship everything we could, but it may not be a 
working configuration (maybe a system without memory, or a storage array 
without controllers). The wait for the parts that make the system useable 
would then be longer than had you not asked for partials, as your memory 
or your controller was going into someone's system who hadn't specified 
partials, even if your order had been placed ahead of theirs.  
Manaufacturing tended to save the parts for the orders with the biggest 
revenue, and what may have been a $2,000,000 system order was now only a
$20,000 controller order (when we ship partials we invoice for what we 
ship).    

I've heard rumors that manufacturing fixed this problem, but I've been 
burned on it too many times in the past to make it worth trying.

Bruce

    Re:25
    
    The answer is: Digital sells fast alpha chips.
    
    Except that Bob P hasn't figured out that you can't be
    in business selling chips, even with motherboards
    attached, unless someone is out there selling software
    to run on them, and packages them for you, and makes them pretty,
    and markets them to everyone who watches TV or reads magazines
    or logs into the Internet or listens to radio, in short,
    anyone who is living anywhere in the industrially developed
    part of the world. Intel has Microsoft, and Dell, and, and, and,
    and the list goes on forever. Sun has itself, Oracle, and Netscape.
    
    Bob P. hasn't figured it out. I'm not sure we will ever get it.
    I tried to get him to get it 4 years ago in my famous "Dear Bob"
    letter. He went to Windows World with a marked-up copy of my
    letter in his hand. I thought he had gotten it. I was wrong,
    and I'm sorry for all of my coworkers and associates during the
    last 20 years who have stuck it out here. I left to change career,
    which wasn't successful, so I came back as a contractor. I still
    feel loyal to the company and my friends here. I hope that a miracle
    will happen, but I'm not counting on it any more.
    
    The only chance, IMHO, for the company to survive, is to accept
    one of the outstanding offers of a buyout from someone who knows
    how to run a successful business, either Intel or Compaq. Whether
    that will mean that Digital would cease to exist or have all of
    its businesses sold off would remain to be seen. I can't see it
    happening any other way.
    
    The harsh reality of the new business model will come as a rude
    shock to the people who are left. I worked as a contractor for
    a *very* short time for Quantum (which, by the way, is not bad
    as companies go...). About 2 weeks into the contract, my boss was
    informed that he was being moved THAT WEEK to Milpitas (from
    Shrewsbury) and that my project was on hold while he set up
    in California. This was the consolidation of the Shrewsbury/Milpitas
    disk support staff. Instantaneous decision-making based on facts
    and figures. Go or your out (I was out, and I had not thought to
    have a termination clause in my contract). The funny thing is, I
    had no hard feelings toward Quantum. I knew that I was dealing
    with a company that needed to make rapid-fire decisions based
    on business reality. In the new reality, people who move slowly
    or can't adapt get screwed.
    
    						Jon Campbell

    re: .29  < The harsh reality of business today >
    
    > The answer is: Digital sells fast alpha chips.
    
    Not very many of them, and not at an acceptable profit.
    
    The harsh reality of business today, is that reality isn't so harsh.
    All of our major competitors are doing quite well for themselves, thank
    you very much. Business is booming. And yet Digital still flails about.
    
    Digital didn't miss out on the opportunities of this boom -- it flat
    out *wasted* them. Leading edge architecture, wasted. Solid software
    engineering, wasted. Loyal customers, wasted. Loyal employees, not only
    wasted, but squandered almost to the point of malfeasance. If any
    managers for another company had thrown away tangible assets the way 
    our managers threw away loyal and talented employees, they would
    probably have ended up in toilet, or worse. Ours ended up with big
    bonuses, and the opportunity to play musical chairs to escape any
    accountability for what happened afterwards.
    
    Somewhat in mitigation, Palmer *has* regularly defenestrated a number
    of his direct reports. But even this may have had a backfire effect:
    now it's even harder (and more expensive) to get really qualified
    managers to do those jobs. 
    
    The scary part of this is that the boom may now be running out, and
    times may indeed get tough for everybody in the computer business. When
    that happens, and we're still trying to reorganize, still trying to cut
    our way to profitability, and still trying to learn how to market ...
    
    Figure it out for yourself.