Message-Id: <9904269251.AA925136344@inet001.cardell.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 99 10:08:23 -0500
From: <dechaze@cardell.com>
To: <lancair.list@olsusa.com>
Subject: Re:Suing Continental
Mime-Version: 1.0

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While the subject of suing TCM is somewhat removed from my daily 360
construction concerns, it is interesting to hear people's views.  I suspect the
pilot/owner community will get the best response from TCM in the long term if we
presume innocence rather than guilt.  Consult with attorneys if need be but
leave them home.  You can't have a real discussion with the equivalent of kleig
lights and TV cameras rolling.  
    The other question that comes to mind is, how precisely will a lawsuit
improve quality?  This is, afterall, the professed goal of everybody (usually
the real goal is money, but that's not the case here, I'm certain).  Will the
suit say that TCM shall triple inspect all components?  Quadruple?  Must they
employ thus-and-such special equipment on the assembly line?  You get the idea. 
Those of you with manufacturing experience can appreciate the ludicrousness of a
bunch of lawyers trouping through a plant and dispensing medication to cure all
ills.  Obviously the attorneys won't directly fix anything.  Only the TCM
engineers can fix manufacturing problems, internally and with their supply base.
 Would there be a trial? (wouldn't that be grand for this industry). 
    So the goal is perhaps to fix the management - to "get their attention". 
Maybe they aren't directing their engineers to fix problems, or aren't funding
the engineers' efforts properly.  TCM managment will certainly read it this way
if lawyers show up.  They might look past this symbolic vote of no confidence. 
Is TCM management incompetent?  If not, how are we helping anything by suing or
threatening to sue?  Aren't we just adding another rock to an already heavy bag?
 If they are incompetent (who judges?) does the lawsuit say they are to be
replaced?  By whom?
    Maybe, it's a communication problem.  They aren't publicising all the facts
and background that would make all the circumstances fit together.  Well that
would certainly be SOP at many companies.  Not everybody has a 90's culture of
free and open communication (too bad, actually).  If it's a communication
problem, how do we find out?  What if the problem is far worse than anybody
external to TCM has yet imagined and TCM hasn't yet developed the corrective
action?  
    The gentlemen who suggested that this is a marriage between us and TCM has
it right.  There's nobody else to shift the problem to, we have to work it out. 
You meet with the chief executive and more importantly, the guy responsible for
the division (if it's not the same) and see if he seems to understand the
problem and implications and is doing everything he can to see them fixed.  The
chief will be grateful if you give him the courtesy of an exploratory
discussion, giving him a chance to right the wrong before you pull out the gun. 
Everybody saves face this way.
    If you're stuck with a repair bill that is their fault, and they won't pay,
then by all means take graduated steps necessary to recover your loss.  Start by
making sure it's not a low level bureaucratic problem.  I'm amazed at what a
nicely worded letter to the boss will do.  Sometimes the recompense is more than
I asked for.   But turning that into a crusade to send a message, "so that
others don't have to go through what I did", is ill conceived and, when all the
facts eventually come out, unfair.  This sounds odd, but TCM is nothing more
than a collection of people organized to produce engines for us, the best way
they know how.  Being people, they have emotions like pilots and builders and
can be expected to react accordingly.  

Back to building... (my Lycoming equipped airplane)
Ed de Chazal


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