Maker Pro
Maker Pro

Electronics company going bust

eem2am

Aug 3, 2009
429
Joined
Aug 3, 2009
Messages
429
Hello,
This is an unfortunate story of when I recently worked in an electronics company that is now getting closed down. I could have stopped the closure, and kept it from closing, but was prevented from being able to do this.
Could I have done any more to help them?
So, I used to work in an electronics company in UK which was headquartered in USA.
The Chief Engineer was based in USA and he was an American.
The owners of the company lived in USA and were American.
Neither I, nor any other of the non-managerial staff in UK had ever seen or heard from the company owners. There were rumours that they didn’t care what happened, as long as the money came in. There was a rumour that the American owners (who had inherited the company) once came to UK to see a concert or something…apparently they said they would drop by to our facility…however, the rumour goes that it was raining the day they were due to come and see us, and so they said they would cancel coming to see us, as they might get wet getting out of their taxi.
The Chief Engineer in USA had fooled everybody in the entire corporation that he knew what he was doing , and that he could develop all the company’s switch-mode-power-suppy type products.
I have no idea what (if any) was the relationship between the chief engineer and the company’s owners.
The chief engineer sent us a prototype product, and my UK boss told me to add a small bit of circuitry to it, and then take it into production.
However, the prototype was of terrible quality, it was awful, it would not be a robust product.
Many of the other prototypes were also terrible. Many of their working practices were bad…eg, they did thermal chamber tests on the bear pcb, instead of it being inside its enclosure.
I repeatedly offered to re-design the poor prototypes, but my UK boss very, very firmly told me to keep quiet, and just get on with doing as I was told.
My UK boss (who was a mechanical engineer by trade) told me that he was taking his lead from the Chief Engineer in USA, and that he would not tolerate my criticism of the Chief Engineer’s products.
Whenever I would criticise the Chief Engineer’s products, I would later find that circuits that I had been working on had been sabotaged…deliberately damaged. The project manager would come and kind of jokingly drop hints to me that they’d done the damage. I could not however prove that they’d damaged it.
My UK boss and the project manager seemed keen to be-smirch my technical reputation with the UK Overall manager….that is, to be-smirch me so that if I made a representation to the UK overall manager, then this overall manager would not be likely to take me seriously.
Also, whenever I made a complaint about the poor-ness of the prototype circuits, they would send me to work in production all day as a solderer…..it was as if they were saying, “work on the chief engineer’s products, and don’t criticise, or else we’ll take you out of engineering altogether”.
Anyway, I later left the company, as they were going to go bust making disastrous products like they were doing. They just wouldn’t listen to my advice. After I left, I wrote a report on some of the problems that I’d seen with the company’s products. I sent the report to the company’s owners. I emailed it to two address’s I found on their website.
Anyway, now I have found that the Chief engineer in USA, the UK overall manager, My UK manager, and all of the mechanical engineers, no longer work in the company.
And recently a company where I interviewed at told me that this USA headquartered company had gone out of business, and that they were taking over there work. (I am not sure if the main place , the HQ, in USA, has gone bust?)
I am genuinely sorry to hear they had gone, because I was pals with some of the good guys that were there. Theyre still open, but as I hear it, they're on their way out.
Such a shame, when I could have helped them stay afloat, but how could I have had an impact, when I was so low down in the hierarchy, having my circuits sabotaged by my gaffers?
(I am not saying my gaffers sabotaged my work out of malice…they genuinely didn’t realise that our chief engineer was useless, and so thought they were helping the corporation by sabotaging my work and acting against me. I think they had asked the personnel officer to sack me, as I had criticised the chief engineer’s work, but she wouldn’t do this)
Could I have done something more to help them? Have you been in the same situation and pulled it around?
 

shrtrnd

Jan 15, 2010
3,876
Joined
Jan 15, 2010
Messages
3,876
Your problem is that you care if the product worked or not.
As a tech, I find myself in similar circumstances often.
I'm told that I don't see the 'big picture', which I interpret to be the business end
(ie: profit margin)
People who run companies don't care if they're making widgets, or weapons, they
care about the profit. You believe a good product produces good profit.
Not so with business people.
The fact that you offered assistance to make the product work, and were told to keep
quiet, indicates to me that for whatever business reason, the business was intended
to fail.
Perhaps a competing company ensured your company would no longer be a competitive
threat, (believe me it happens if you make deals with the right people), or someone
was promised a good position elsewhere, if your company went under.
It's discouraging for people like us, who want the electronics to work, we care.
The money-handlers don't care about the product (Certainly there are exceptions, those
who take pride in what they do), but the rest are bottom-line only, whatever the desired
result might be.
You'll be happier working for somebody upstairs, who actually takes pride in his product.
 
Top