Anyone notice how many PMEL jobs are showing up on the various PMEL oriented sites? The biggest problem I see are all the cal labs in the expensive cites (LA, SD, Dallas, SF, ect) offering crap wages. 60K per year might sound good to a young tech, but in the expensive locales, 60k is slave wages. It's no suprise that those employers are always looking for more techs, not because they are expanding, but due to the fact that they don't want to pay what we're worth. If you want a GOOD PMEL tech, you need to up your minimum requirements and up the base salary. You'll only get what you pay for.
You should consider registering zz and posting something like this in the general forum.
Agreed, B-W, hey ZZ, sign up, bro... :-D
Dude
I know what your talking about and as a owner of a small lab I can tell you that it is not the case of owners getting rich beyond your imagination. People view us (metrologist) as a neccessary evil and only see a sticker and a cert. Labs are so competitive these days where profit margins aren't like what they used to be. I know of a lab that will do the work on a large list say 300 items for $20. 00 a piece which sucks for people trying to keep integrity in our industry and it gives us all a bad name. When you calculate your overhead it is dam near impossible to print certs for that. I have been talking with other lab owners to see how they can opperate like that however there is a lot of resistance to change pricing structures that are antiquated. We have plumbers in my town making $125. 00 an hour. Go figure
I agree, thanks to 17025 all labs are created equal! Most customers have no real understanding of what we dod and its importance, if we dont take the time to educate them things will never changed
Quote from: CalBoy on 07-23-2007 -- 13:52:18
Dude
I know what your talking about and as a owner of a small lab I can tell you that it is not the case of owners getting rich beyond your imagination. People view us (metrologist) as a neccessary evil and only see a sticker and a cert. Labs are so competitive these days where profit margins aren't like what they used to be. I know of a lab that will do the work on a large list say 300 items for $20. 00 a piece which sucks for people trying to keep integrity in our industry and it gives us all a bad name. When you calculate your overhead it is dam near impossible to print certs for that. I have been talking with other lab owners to see how they can opperate like that however there is a lot of resistance to change pricing structures that are antiquated. We have plumbers in my town making $125. 00 an hour. Go figure
I agree with you. Too many labs are charging to little money. I know some labs charge almost nothing for Phys. D. cals so that they can get the customer's electronic business.
can you blame the user, are they getting a good deal? unfortunately there are companies out there who only want the sticker so they can be compliant in their programs. they really don't have the training to understand that accurate measurements cause less rework/warranty work. in the end it could cost a company their professional reputation. we all know the companies we would by from, and wouldn't. if we had to spend a little more, it wouldn't be an issue because we would know the quality was there.
In today's world the bottom line is money. When companies tie cost savings into your performance reviews, it drives people to search out the lower cost providers. To break this mentality the change has to come from the top and trickle down. Most management consider calibration nothing more than a requirement that has to be met. Accuracy of the equipment is not of concern.
Im a person who works for a large corporation and controls hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of calibration work. Ive been reading your posts about how Calibration Techs deserve more money. (I am a PMEL Tech myself). One thing I take as the probably the most important deciding factor when I decided which lab to use is customer service. I have eliminated labs from my approved supplier list because of poor service even though they may of had better uncertainties. 3rd party labs need to remember they are providing a SERVICE to companies. If you want to charge me more for my calibrations what am I getting in return. The excuse of "We provide a better cal" to me is bull. My lab does as good of a cal as most people. This can be proven by participating in Proficiency Tests-Do I get a reading within my uncertainty. Customer satisfaction is key. If I call you, I better get an answer, your tech better be ontime for his onsite and not take 50 smoke breaks. Your paperwork better be right and for heavans sake read the PO I send to you to check for special instructions. Im willing to pay more money for service. Dont tell me your better show me.
Im sure Ill get hate mail for this but this thread is an excellent discussion.
Quote from: ck454ss on 07-26-2007 -- 18:56:32
Im a person who works for a large corporation and controls hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of calibration work. Ive been reading your posts about how Calibration Techs deserve more money. (I am a PMEL Tech myself). One thing I take as the probably the most important deciding factor when I decided which lab to use is customer service. I have eliminated labs from my approved supplier list because of poor service even though they may of had better uncertainties. 3rd party labs need to remember they are providing a SERVICE to companies. If you want to charge me more for my calibrations what am I getting in return. The excuse of "We provide a better cal" to me is bull. My lab does as good of a cal as most people. This can be proven by participating in Proficiency Tests-Do I get a reading within my uncertainty. Customer satisfaction is key. If I call you, I better get an answer, your tech better be ontime for his onsite and not take 50 smoke breaks. Your paperwork better be right and for heavans sake read the PO I send to you to check for special instructions. Im willing to pay more money for service. Dont tell me your better show me.
Im sure Ill get hate mail for this but this thread is an excellent discussion.
I dont see anything wrong with what you wrote. I work as a field calibration tech for a company COOP used to work for. When I show up to an on-site I have contacted the customer minimun 2 weeks out to remind them of the scheduled visit. When I arrive I make contact and let them know that I am working for them. Some of the times they have had problems getting everything together. I let them know that this is no problem I am flexible I can work Saturdays or even stay a day longer than scheduled. But to me the bottom line is.......if they are not happy, then when it comes time for contract renewal they might look elsewhere.
I really enjoy the company I work for and take pride in my work. I have read one or two bad comments about my employer, but I believe the ones who wrote them are misinformed. (just my opinion)
Quote from: ck454ss link=topic=808. msg9947#msg9947 date=1185494192
3rd party labs need to remember they are providing a SERVICE to companies.
CK I agree with you on this statement. I recently retired from the Air Force and started with a large cal company and was shocked at the mentality of the all of the staff. They seem to beleive that the customer should be happy we graced their facility.
With this being said, I am starting to understand where this comes from. Most of the companies we go onsite to treat us like third class citizens. I have had an engineer tell me I better hurry my a$$ up. Like others have stated, companies only want the cert and sticker. The only way I see this being corrected is to have more people like you in positions like yours. We are only kidding ourselves if we believe that we can convince the bean counters and management that we provide more than just certs and stickers.
ck454ss, no argument here.
Sitting here reading thru some of the old post and I have to agree with CAlboy. . . We have a lot more control than most people realize when you visit a customer for the 1st time take samples of your procedures, explain to them how the dat should mirror the procedure. You have to come equipped to let them know not all labs are equal despite what most believe (fueled in part by ISO/IEC 17025). Perfect example a just met with a customer who was having spectrum analyzers calibrated by an ISO 9001 and ISO 17025 lab that was less than one page of data :-o :-o On a 3 GHz spectrum analyzer :? :? You tell me how this was done correctly :?
Quote from: Newbiejeff on 12-22-2007 -- 13:06:57
Sitting here reading thru some of the old post and I have to agree with CAlboy. . . We have a lot more control than most people realize when you visit a customer for the 1st time take samples of your procedures, explain to them how the dat should mirror the procedure. You have to come equipped to let them know not all labs are equal despite what most believe (fueled in part by ISO/IEC 17025). Perfect example a just met with a customer who was having spectrum analyzers calibrated by an ISO 9001 and ISO 17025 lab that was less than one page of data :-o :-o On a 3 GHz spectrum analyzer :? :? You tell me how this was done correctly :?
Actually a 17025 calibration has to check all specifications. What you are speaking of comes from lazy techs and a inept QA.
what a great topic. how about a metrologist union to help the techs get proper pay, i think its the only way to relieve the stress of techs to hot stamp equipment because the shop they work for has bid an onsite way to low. There is strength in numbers and if all the techs nation wide had a union to lean on to help get fair wages, then all the shops would bid jobs based on actual cal cost, and not just try to under bid each other. plumbers and electricians get paid the way they do because of unions. Let me know what you think. As long as mom and pops are hiring unqualified techs and under bidding every job in town to customers who are not required to have 17025 cals then the pay is going to get worse not better. HALLA BACK!!! ZZ IS RIGHT ON POINT!!!!!!!!!!!
See the thread http://www.pmelforum.com/index.php?topic=356.msg2977#msg2977
looks like its been talked about, and everyone seems to be in, but that thread was from march 06. I am just as guilty because I've been talking sh!te about a union since I got out and joined the real world in 97. I think as a whole our profession is full of folks who don't want to ruffle any feathers and like taking it in the shorts. . . people get comfy and secure, albeit securely way under paid, and "the man" is safe in that assumption 99% of the time.
Agreed. By and large, every PMELer I ever worked with was never out to change the world. They just wanted to make a good living, have a nice spouse and family, a decent house in a decent neighborhood, and a good stereo system. A couple weeks of vacation every year, and they are good to go. They shop-hop or job-hop until they get to a city/town where they want to be, and always log on to websites like this one to see what else is out there, because you never know when that 1-year TDY in Kuwait will dangle itself out there, offering a year with no beer and tax-free income... Otherwise you take your military and civilian retirement pay and relax in Florida, aged 65, looking forward to the grandkids coming so you can get cheaper tickets for them at Disney...
Change the world? Not our style... Our garages have Fluke meters and plastic bins with 50 ohm resistors (and good stereos), no socialist solidarity banners or AFL-CIO flags... We generally vote Republican, pay our taxes, mow our lawns, and take pretty good care of our vehicles (which have military ball cap(s) on the rear window deck). You can find us on Friday nights at the Legion or VFW enjoying a good fish fry, and most of us aren't even Catholic... We're not entirely pleased with W (although we voted for him); we're scared to death of Hillary and Obama, and are researching the candidates thoroughly; surprisingly, we like Fred Thompson, and not just for his Hunt For Red October role...
Unions? Not our style...
And many don't realize we load our own shells, tie our own flies, and actually know how a tube or transistor works (well, theoretically)..
Have a Happy New Year,
Mike
Very perceptive Doc, sounds like me all over
Quote from: spencerslack on 12-26-2007 -- 08:54:03
what a great topic. how about a metrologist union to help the techs get proper pay, i think its the only way to relieve the stress of techs to hot stamp equipment because the shop they work for has bid an onsite way to low. There is strength in numbers and if all the techs nation wide had a union to lean on to help get fair wages, then all the shops would bid jobs based on actual cal cost, and not just try to under bid each other. plumbers and electricians get paid the way they do because of unions. Let me know what you think. As long as mom and pops are hiring unqualified techs and under bidding every job in town to customers who are not required to have 17025 cals then the pay is going to get worse not better. HALLA BACK!!! ZZ IS RIGHT ON POINT!!!!!!!!!!!
I've already opened that can of worms with the union thang
What about starting a company that pays you per piece that you calibrate? I can easily do about 25 multimeters in an 8 hour day (hand held not bench) so at $85 a pop ( with data) thats 2125 per day that I earn my company. If I got 10% of that I would be making $212.50 per day. or $26.56 per hour which by the way is a raise for me.
Actually that is pretty much what Davetee was complaining about in the forum about average workload. You are only asking for ten percent of your billing. He was complaining about having to bill 3.2 times his wage (i.e. getting paid approx 30% of what he is billing).
Maybe you should go to work for his company??? lol.
My point is it's all a matter of perspective. If you aren't billing much, you don't want your pay tied to how much you bill. If you are billing a lot, your perspective is very different. It's hard to please everyone.
Very true I understand what you are saying. I believe I responded to the earlier post. The place I used to work I billed about $30k a month. So if I actually got the 30% I would have been making 10K a month. MAN if that was the case I would have never quit!! Back to my old post about doing multimeters though you cant alway do the easy stuff sometime you are stuck doing oscope all day at $125 a pop and u only get 5 done. It is all hypothetical anyways. I did have a friend that was working somewhere and he was getting 30% of what he billed as pay but it was only part time.
just testing out my new picture. . .
How about walking out! :-D Naw, momma gotta get fed!
I have been in calibration labs all over the country, in all kinds of labs, 3rd party labs, In-house labs, Manufacturer’s Labs, and rental companies. I would like to say I have seen it all, but from time to time I get surprised.
The problem with paying calibration tech big money, is few of them, can produce big. The bottom line is a company has to make money or save money; so a technician has to bill more than he cost the company. And his cost is not just his salary you have to add in social security, insurance and other benefits, buying standards, calibrating standards, computers software, facility costs and utilities. This all adds up to some pretty big numbers.
So companies have to make money, I have seen many companies use a 4to1 ration to estimate if a technician is able to make money. Meaning the technician has to be able to bill 4 time what you pay him; so a 50k per year tech has to bill/save 200k per year to break even. And a 100k tech would have to bill 400k per year. You can tech this ratio by looking at you bill rate compared to you average technician’s hourly rate.
Last year looked at a report put out by one my larger customers. Their average technician was billing 240k per year, and their techs made an average 55k per year.
So there are the problems as I see it..
1) The average tech in LA has no productivity advantage over the average tech in Kansas. Thought the cost of living in Los Angelis, Dallas, San Francisco is higher, the cost of calibration is not. Matter of fact the average cost of calibration is LA is lower. And, yes many companies are doing little more than printing paper.
2) Companies that automate do get more production out of each technician, but the cost of automation cost the company and raises the 4-to1 ration to say 5-to1.
3) And I hate to say it, but many of the tech’s and management I see on the road are very inefficient. I was at a customer’s site a few weeks back and watch a tech spent an hour getting all the standards relocated to his station to-do a calibration. It is took him about an hour to but all the standards back. If this is a high production facility, well they just lost 2 hours of billing time.
4) Don’t get me wrong, I love automation. But, I watch technicians site there and watch our software run. We give them a connection message and run all the test that use that connection; so they may have 15-40 minutes before they have to do anything, and they just sit there.
So if we as calibrators want to start putting more money in our pockets, we need to start making some changes.
The first major change we need to make is this antiquated 1 technician, 1 name on the calibration certification and 1 tech number on the label quality system paradigm.
Instruments today are multi-functional, a tech should not have to move standards around to calibrate it.. We should move the UUTs to the station with the standards and let the technician who works that station do that part of the calibration. (and be able to track who did what and when)
**Imagine if Ford, had each employee build one car start to finish, rearranging the plant as needed.
"We should move the UUTs to the station with the standards and let the technician who works that station do that part of the calibration."
No offense, but never ever ever will I let this happen to me or any of my technicians. One UUT = One Tech. Yes, the tech should move the UUT from station to station instead of setting all the equipment at his/her bench though, but the same tech works the piece all the way through.
But, that's the problem I see with the Automation software we run in the Army. Once you close it out, thats it. You can't pick up where you left off on another workstation, even though you can and should network all of your workstations together and pull from one database.
I could go for days on what's wrong with automation, but who has the time anymore??
I would have to dispute your automation costing more. Your example is one of a bad technician using automation - the cost is the technician, not the automation. As with anything, the cost vs. benefit has to be analyzed on a case by case basis. A $2000 software package to calibrate Fluke DMM's would not be worth it if you have experience techs around - I have managed to crank out 50 Fluke 70 series meters in a day manually with a 5520. If I had to READ the display on a PC at each step, I could only do about 1/4 as much. My example of automation applied correctly is the Metcal program I wrote to run accelerometers. These were data point calibrations (cal factors at every frequency) and took about 30-45 minutes each to run manually as your nulled the standard against the UUT. Using Metcal, this calibration dropped to 5 minutes each AND we did not allow the tech to sit there as they run, meaning it was only 5 minutes of mantime, the calibration still ran for 20 minutes. This program is still used today, 8 years later. Automation pays HUGE divideds in documentation, if they customer insist on data. We also used partial automation on 8566B's on a contract we had. I could run the high frequency test manually while a second 8566B was running the 3335A sig gen test. With this double duty, I could finish 2 8566B spectrum analyzers per day, sometimes 3 if they went straight through.
As for pay ratios, I worked with a company in colorado that paid on a 3:1 ratio and bonused us to make it an even 3:1 every 6 months. Great! My problem is my hot-stamping coworker who is cranking out 1GHz counters with a 500 MHz source, 3 HP 8902A MMS's in two different costumer locations in less than 4 hours and "figuring out" a costumer's oven controller in a few seconds as soon as the customer stepped out for a minute was wiping the floor with me in bonuses! I am the detailed oriented type person that made sure procedures got filed in order, parts are easy to locate, standardizing equipment locations, etc. basically all the little things that helped the lab run better but NEVER appear on the billing ratio. This work ethic resulted in terrible bonuses under this system.
IN summary, like everyone else said, companies have to make money. They may say they are all about quality before quantity but they keep pushing the quantity and most seem willing to look the other way to keep the bucks rolling in. This may work in the short term but, in the long run, the lack of integrity slowly destroys their product and their customer base. My 2 cents...
Quote from: LarryH on 02-17-2008 -- 19:20:20
My problem is my hot-stamping coworker who is cranking out 1GHz counters with a 500 MHz source, 3 HP 8902A MMS's in two different costumer locations in less than 4 hours and "figuring out" a costumer's oven controller in a few seconds as soon as the customer stepped out for a minute was wiping the floor with me in bonuses!
got to love Lickers and Stickers
I know a few companies are like that here in the Carolinas
Larry, I think you missed the point about automation costing more. Think of it this way. A tech doing only handheld DMM's with just an old Fluke 5100 may only have to bill triple his wage or less to break even because ther is a very low investment in the infrastructure supporting him.
Now surround that same tech with a million dollars worth of RF equipment to calibrate high end microwave. All of a sudden, that tech has to bill 4-5 times his wage because he has to support the cost of the infrastructure, not just the cost of himself.
The same with automation. The tech has to bill more per hour because of the up front cost of automation. Hopefully he can do that because he can certify more equipment in the same amount of time. I believe that is the point that callab was trying to make.
Let me expand on my point of Automation being expensive..
First of all I would like to point out that my company is not a calibration lab. We are a software engineering company who among other things writes automated calibration procedures I am very astute when it comes to the cost of automation and the advantages of automating a calibration lab.
There are two reasons a company invest in software. First, automation allows the technicians they employee to get more product through the door without sacrificing quality. And second, allows a company to higher lower skilled labor (at a lower price), to do the same quality of work.
It is the company (not the technician) paying for the cost of automating the lab. They either purchase software from a company like ours, or they pay a technician to write it in house; either way the cost automation is add to the overhead of the calibration lab, so the technician has to bill more per hour to breakeven.
I the past a calibration technician's salary was based on his depth of technical knowledge of calibration. A technician who knows more was well compensated for that knowledge. Today with automation, more and more technical knowledge is being programmed into the software. All the technician has to do it connect it, and press this button. So the technician of tomorrow needs to compete differently.
I must say I love your thought process. What happens when the "underskilled" tech plugs the meter into his nifty software and it doesnt work? They end up calling the "The Technician of Yesturday" to help the "Technician of Tomorrow".
Metrology is not limited to PMEL Labs. When I got out of PMEL in 1974 I went into industrial instrumentation. (Instrument Technician) There is a lot more money to be made calibrating temperature transmitters and DP cells in industrial plants than there is to be made in a cal lab.
For a PME weenie the transition is easy. And there is a shortage of qualified technicians.
The first major change we need to make is this antiquated 1 technician, 1 name on the calibration certification and 1 tech number on the label quality system paradigm.
Instruments today are multi-functional, a tech should not have to move standards around to calibrate it.. We should move the UUTs to the station with the standards and let the technician who works that station do that part of the calibration. (and be able to track who did what and when)
**Imagine if Ford, had each employee build one car start to finish, rearranging the plant as needed.
contrary to popular belief, calibration is not a manufacturing process, the "paradigm" as you call one tech per sticker is called metrology. imagine if you went to get your kidney out and one station only opened you, you were carted away where another station removed your kidney, another tech installed your kidney, and yet another closed you. the other problem of a "station" tech is what happens when joe the power ref guy goes on vacation? Ford has multiple employees to fill that gap. what small lab can hire just for that reason? truth is the calibration worlds doing it to itself, you have labs that will bid any cost and basically just do the paper work because its the only way to break even. no one would take their cars to a repair place they knew weren't doing the work just so they could get the new 3000 mile sticker in the window, yet mfrs are willing to do just that for their calibrated items. can you blame the small lab for bidding less on every calibration, yes and no, but where does the underbidding eventually go? downhill as for the perfect world of setting up stations to do one function, who can afford that? who's 5500s are doing meters one minute, scopes the next, then temp. if i were a salesman, i would be pushing the same thing.
Nice kidney example.
I'll use medical malpractice as a way of describing why I like one tech one sticker.
Who do you blame for your infection and your body rejecting the kidney? Who is in charge if anybody?
When I certify something I take the blame for any mistake.
Under a multitech situation who does quality run to? Just because I see Tech A and B's mistakes and may have the power to fix them or tell them about it am I? I did my little part right but who's to say they won't blame the problem on me. The blame game only works good in calibration if there is one tech.
Id have to say the assembly line practice for calibration is really impractical.
-What company is going to have "several" standards with multiple capabilities only being used to cal a certain portion of a test? (DC/AC/Resistance)
-If you use several "lower" capable pieces of equipment then you get back to the days of having dozens of standards to calibrate equipment instead of just one. Major issues with recal costs and downtime waiting for standards to be cald.
-I dont know about how other labs run but I NEVER just grab 1 DMM and cal it then 1 scope and cal it then something temp and cal it. I always grab multiple items of the same thing (ie DMMs, Scopes, Temp) and cal them all at the same time to reduce setup time. I am a cal tech who hates setting up tests more than once to do the same thing in a day. Totally annoying.
-The exeption to the rule is when a customer is paying a rush fee to get there equipment done immediately and they are usually waiting for it in the lobby. The cost to do a special setup is included in the rush cost.