Science, Discipline and System Analysis
By Jim Intravia 14-May-03
These are words that people use to describe important jobs. You probably think it applies to high level engineers and "IT" people. Don't sell yourself short. If you are a good technician, you are probably more disciplined, scientific and analytic than you give yourself credit for. The business of servicing copiers and similar equipment requires self-discipline and the scientific method. A service technician is a systems person. No one can properly service modern office equipment without extensive knowledge. A copier technician, for example, knows the following:
Mechanics: Components such as chains, gears, motors, drive belts and clutches. Scientific and physical principles such as gravity, friction, heat exchange and centrifugal force. All of these are factors in creating a document.
Electricity: Nearly every technician has some electronics and electrical training. Most can read a volt-ohm meter. Most know and understand electromagnetism, how it is used and why. Basic AC & DC circuits are all in a day's work, as is static electricity. When other people get zapped by the static from walking across a rug, we tell them how it makes toner stick to the drum and how the copier's high voltage has the same effect on the copier drum that causes dust to be on the TV screen. We know this stuff!
Optics: You have a working knowledge of the way light works. We may not be able to describe its scientific characteristics, but we know that an out of position mirror may give us a black copy. We know the difference between laser light and quartz-halogen light. We understand how a laser works, how any light affects a drum, how a drum is a solid state device. You would probably do much better now on the eighth grade science tests that seemed so difficult all those years ago! You have learned, and understand, how light reflects off a mirror, how the angle is duplicated, how light is refracted through glass if the mirror is not used on its first surface. You understand why the laser has a curved glass, even if you don't know that it is called the "collimating lens." You know something about how a visual image is made into a digital image and back again. If you were called to work as a technical consultant for Star Trek, the Next Generation, you could explain to Captain Picard, and Majel Rodenberry, how Geordi's visor works! It is undoubtedly a CCD, just like in fax machines and digital copiers. Getting those signals into his brain is speculative science fiction, but the device is something we work with every day.
People: A field technician encounters and deals with people all day long. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but we have to adopt the methods of psychologists and social workers. At the same time, we have to be able to handle people who consider themselves far above us in social and business stature. We need bedside manner, nerves of steel, powers or perception, some amount of quick wit, and the ability to express ourselves and articulate clearly. It is not the least bit unusual to explain something to a blue-collar worker, much like ourselves, and then have to repeat the same explanation to their employer, who just came in from his country club. In one case, we're having a conversation. In the other, we have to act like a hired teacher without being insulting or condescending, and still maintaining our own pride and dignity.
Your scientific methods
Whether you know it or not, you are probably quite scientific. Let's say you sell a new model. You probably automatically start to monitor its performance, to be sure you want to keep on selling it. When it does call for service, you automatically calculate how long it went trouble free, how it compared to others, if the customer is happy, and if you did anything wrong. Many of you would have done some of this homework with other dealers before you even considered selling this machine.
You probably keep service records that would put most garages to shame. I'll bet you can easily tell me or show me how many copies have been run on each machine, and can easily create a copies-between-calls average for any machine you asked about. Without doing the math, you probably know the approximate breakdown rate of every customer that you have, if asked. You can probably state the yield of every type of toner that you sell, both that stated by the manufacturer and what it really is.
Analysis and testing. I'm guessing that before you try something new, whether it is a machine, a different brand of fuser rollers or a new route to drive to some particular service call, you consider the possibilities first. You probably don't jump blindly into anything. You give it some thought, decide on risks of new methods over tried and true old methods. If the old method or product were perfect, you wouldn't have considered changing. Now you put effort into deciding what the best way to do something is. You don't stand still and wait for things to happen. You make them happen. You do your job the way you should, professionally and aggressively.
System analysis
Yep! Think about it. You don’t get service calls that say, "bring a new paper feed clutch," or "come and adjust the toner density." You get service calls, even with trouble codes, that give only a hint of the problem. You arrive at a machine that is jamming, and you have to figure out why it is jamming; paper pickup tires, feed clutch, registration clutch, feed switch, damp paper, dirty fuser guide, scan/feed timing related problem. Why are the copies dark? Too much toner feed, dirty optics, worn drum, dirty cleaning lamp, dirty corona, weird originals, messed up adjustments.
Conclusion
It takes a lot to do this job well. If you are doing it well, give yourself credit. If you are not doing it well, it is probably well within your power to improve. It's not rocket science, but you could probably do that too if you wanted to!
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