Maintenance Engineer vs. Finance Officer?

Is the Finance Officer bluffing?

Money has rarely been easier to borrow at the moment, and both parties know that.

Ask the Finance Officer what items from the business case would not be funded in principle. On answer, state the negative impact the omissions would have, place the ball back in the Finance Officer's court, and then shut up.

I'm not sure where you are in Ireland, but here in the U.S., there are virtually no lenders who are responding with ample lending funds. In fact, it is virtually impossible to secure borrowed funds from any banks or their terms are fatally ominous.

PWSlack is maybe correct, but funding is tight in the USA,

how you can prioritize your project, if there is a safety issue is to have the CFO know about any safety issue, and any negative response from the CFO or FO document it, nice to have a email from the FO stated it, but if you take that course...careful then your position, or you at the position may be in jeopardy.

But you have to clearly place the ball back in the CFO's court, otherwise the responsibility is yours

phoenix911

Why not to make minuets of meetings and send it to higher authorities?

Absolutely; besides, the OP should get estimates from other vendors, suppliers, distributors or contractors, 3 is a good number of quotes and commonly requested.

Yahlasit

Costs what it costs, and takes what it takes.

Did you prepare the financial justification as part of the proposal for the project? If not, add the statements for financial justification like 'Cost-Benefit Analysis', 'Payback Analysis', ROI (Return on Investment), IRR (Internal Rate of Return) etc. and resubmit it. Also add details about the impact of the worst cases that may happen if the project is not done and, as PWSlack mentioned, place the ball back in the Finance Officer's court with top management's attention.

-MS

Be aware that the FO may not be the key individual hanging this up. He likely reports to others that have placed him in a position where he has to put you off. If your proposal is important to the welfare of the company and its personnel, you will have to determine exactly who controls the purse strings and get "the message" to them. Even if it is not through direct corporate channels.

Maybe the finance officer is only able to see the situation from one perspective - financial. Grade the various risks - Health & Safety; Environmental; Production; Product Safety; Equipment Damage; Reputation - and make their grading and potential costs transparent to all parties. Nice answer Hendrik and as they would say in South Africa, "Jy's 'n bliksem meneer!"

If One Party Taping is allowed in your area, wear a wire when you talk to this dude.

You are already on his sxxt list and he will try to hang you for bringing him reality and not playing the game.

You might work for a Tombstone Agency; they decide on how safe to make things depending on how many tombstones they see, or how fast the stones are popping up (ΔTombstones/ΔTime).

As to decisions, Dilbert has said that you shouldn't even be in the same room where and when a decision is made.

proposal presentation should take care of:-

As on date and existing system

detail of proposed system

advantage / disadvantage over existing and prosed system

cap-ex /op-ex and payback with all safety analysis

forward path

On completion of official presentation, the same needs to be mailed to attendees and concern members with requesting all to approve the same with valuable observation/ comments if any within fixed time frame .

Welcome to the reality of management!

You wrote, that you are in the signalling department. I do not exactly know if the function of the sid subset of the system is highly safety critical and if already any measures are in place (e.g. redundancies). Anyway, if it is a saftey relevant matter, I would suggest that you rework your report focussing on the risk related to not working on an improvement. Additional you could also prepare a "low cost" proposal. Then you could do a comparison of the three options (do not do anything, do some minimum improvement, full cost option) in terms of risk, probability of risk, effects, cost estimate for effects and the contribution of the risk mitigation activities.

I am confident that you will then be able to negotiate at least some funding for you proposal - at least if risk is high (enough)

Redards nudnik

Hi msena,

Your Railways have to take decision in either continuing with the problematic sub system at the cost of safety of the passengers or immediately replace it. If sub system is giving problems it can result in accidents and injury to passengers. So your Financial Controller has to be told that millions of Dollars will have to be paid to passengers. Hence it is better to "Stitch in time saves nine" and replace the sub system which is reliable. It is not just wasteful expenditure.

We had been taught in our final year of engineering at college under "Economics" that any technical proposal when presented to Management should be converted in monetary benefits as Finance persons will not be able to understand the technical improvement.

Suresh Sharma.

Your first responder is correct. Signals are things designed to limit liability and risk and as such they have no return on capital investment. That return on investment or the drain of it are the CFO's cause for glee or regret. All you can do is list it like an insurance policy to the CFO. Some insurance policies are required like auto insurance or property owners liability, fire etc.. Signals may be a required part of liability performance. Let the CFO make his decision but let him know the risk involved while at the same time ask him to hold open a remedy for unexpected cost.

what is this CFO ?

I have one machine which we purchased from one supplier. Is there any way to get pay back for that machine. like insurence.

May be this is something impossible

but still interested

because I realise our manager is crying to purchase small nut bolts

but he is very much relaxed about machine

CFO = "Certified Financial Officer"... meaning an certified accountant in a corporate financial management role. Very influential in all significant decisions a company makes.. typically second in command to the president, or top executive(s)

Chris

According to

http://sds.hss.cmu.edu/src/faculty/fischhoff.php

just educating people about risk is a job unto itself, even when you yourself have a firm grip on the concepts involved.

The value of a human life varies from $200k to $2M.

Your last statement is priceless.

Yahlasit

http://www.cnn.com/US/9909/10/ivey.memo/

1500 people burned to death for an incremental price per vehicle of $0.20.

All the previous advice you have received is pretty spot on. I have but one option to add to it.

I find that when i am having difficulty getting a project budgeted for, that it helps to divide up the project. By that I mean break it down to its bare essentials.

What is the most urgent to the least urgent.

What is the overall cost versus the urgency cost.

After you have done this give them a 3 part proposal. Phase 1 would get the highest urgency problems handled. Phase 2 would take on the median urgency items then the last phase would take on the minor urgency items. Be sure to stress that all items are urgent matters and need attention and then implement the program in 3 stages over the course of completion time.

In effect instead of getting all the financing up front you get what you need to start the program. Just before you finish the first phase request the funds for the next phase so that you can have the components available for the second phase and so on for the third. If this is a 3 month project in all then break it down in 3 monthly requirements. If it a year then use the trimester as a break point.

At best you still get to complete the project and complete it in the same amount of time. At worst you end up dragging it out a bit longer than expected but you can still at least get the high urgency items taken care of and have some good data to prove the need for the remainder of the budget.

I have done many projects this way and it has proven to work. I am getting ready to complete a 100k USD project that I have been working on for the past 18 months. the final phase will begin possibly in another month and was put off due to economic reasons but approval is already there and I finally get to complete the project.It was originally a 1 year project.

If you back-out it shows to your finance man that it is not important. I quote a "Sanskrit" proverb: you can achieve any thing by SAMA, DANA, BEDHA finally DANDOPAYA" methods. What your proposal is "Sama - meaning cordially tried to project; now next you try "Dana" explaining financial benefits and it should work; if you fail this effect then try "Bedha" that is comparative statements of benefits; Last one called "Dandopaya" project the serious consequences the finance man may have to face for turning down your proposal; Advice: go step by step!

In my experience, as equipment ages, you have to spend more to maintain it, meaning personnel and or parts if you can get them. Obsolescence is a costly venture for legacy systems. Outside of the financial world, you can't put a price on safety.