Anyone run an engineering manufacturing business?

As title. I'm looking into the pitfalls encountered, of which I expect many!

 

Depending on the type of engineering you are doing (is any of it re-engineering or re-manufacturing), the one thing you have to bear in mind is peoples perception of what you do, and what your obligations are.

As I was told when I was an apprentice "Once you've touched it laddie, you are married to it" - never a truer word was spoken either; the number of things that I would coax a bit more life out of for people, and even tell them clearly 'look, this is only a temporary thing - its not going to last, so start planning for a replacement' only to get a phone call six months later along the lines of "its only been a wee while since you fixed it, you must not have done it right"

 

That was exactly it.

One that I particularly recall was a Panasonic VCR that had all sorts wrong with it; I took pity on the owners so took it home and spent a few hours over the course of a weekend swapping over spool idler, belts, head drum and then aligning the tape path using bits from a scrapper that I had lying about. I took it back on the Monday, and gave it back to them in working condition with the warning that it was old and tired, and its days were numbered. I even refused to charge them as it was a patch up job, but Mrs Woman insisted I take £20 for a pint, and I left feeling as though I had done a good turn.

About three months later, Mrs Woman was on the phone casting up that "this thing has not long been fixed" and "you couldn't have done a proper job" - - - what I should have done at that point was hang up the phone, but like a glutton for punishment I went out with tools in tow to see what was amiss. Turned out that Mrs Woman's grandson had chosen to 'feed' the unit with toast (complete with peanut butter!), and when that was followed by a tape, it was mashed into the mechanism and all over the tape path. Took me a good three hours to clean it all out and get the thing going again, and I never got as much as an apology let alone a cup of tea - - like a mug, I declined payment telling her that "this thing really is on its last knockings now, so if it goes wrong again there is no point even ringing, just put it in the bin and come and see me for a new one".

Not as much as a thank you as I was leaving, and I never did see that woman again so I can only presume that she went and bought herself a new one at Scottish Power.

 

I was looking at manufacturing engineering - a combo of hardware, software and mechanical. I think the concept has actually already been trumped now though and is very well backed in the US (see here) so that's another idea scrapped.

I really want to get back into engineering though so looking at more options.