When Shipping the Big Iron...?

MHQ13 asks: "We recently arranged with Sun for them to loan us one of their larger systems. The system is a Sun Fire 4800. Not a cheap machine. The system is mounted within its own 72" tall cabinet. It is shipped in a wood crate which is approximately 3' wide by 4' deep by 8' fall. Gross weight is about 900 pounds. Since their warehouse is just across the San Francisco Bay from us they contracted with a local carrier to ship it to us. The machine was picked up from their warehouse, placed into the truck and arrived at our receiving department a few hours later." And thus, the story begins. Read on for the conclusion of MHQ's Big Iron Shipping story and if you would, please share any anecdotes about mishaps that occured to expensive hardware that you or your company may have purchased.

"When the driver and our receiving personnel opened the trailer door the crate was lying on its side, it was upright when it left the warehouse. The drive stated that he had hear a loud bang after making a turn and had thought he may have blown a tire.

On the crate there were several shock sensors and tilt sensors only one of which had tripped (the one which was face up when it was on its side). There were also instructions telling us what to do if these sensors had been tripped.

The instructions told us to accept shipment but to inspect for damage and call the carrier if we found any. We did accept shipment but did not open the crate to inspect for damage. We made a note of the situation on the bill of lading with the driver present then contacted our respresentative at Sun for advice.

Our representative is having a replacement shipped to us and the unit which is here now will be picked up and sent back.

I was quite surprised that the crate was not strapped in and tied down tight given how narrow, tall, and heavy this crate was, not to mention the value of its contents.

My question of the Slashdot Community is: What other Big Iron shipping nightmare stories have you got?"

Comments

Nightmare?

[OblongPlatypus]

The fact that the crate wasn't strapped down does sound weird, but how is this a nightmare? Sounds like everyone involved handled this the right way once the mishap had occured.

Thats common....

[LWolenczak]

I used to work for a Systems Intergrator. They would build cabinets that housed Programable Logic Controlers (PLCs), switches, relays... ya know the stuff used to run plants. Anyway, They would just stick it on a pallet, strap it down to the pallet, sometimes wrap in shipping wrap (that two feet wide saren wrap), and the forklift driver would put it in the back of a truck. *shrugs* _NOTHING_ else was ever done, except to move it twards the front of the truck. Locally... we had our own truck that did deliverys of cabinents... often we would contract with roadway if the rack was going out of state. Same treatment all the time.

Saving cash

[swonkdog]

the reason most items (even high dollars) aren't strapped is it saves the shipper money (most of the time). I've worked as a sound engineer for touring broadway shows and now in a local sound shop and i see this all the time.

federal trucking law (U.S.) requires any object by itself be strapped in or held in by loadbars. multiple objects must be held by straps or loadbars every eight feet of linear (front to back) truck space.

often this is ignored because the company (stupidly) believes that:

a: their drivers are careful and won't drive like mario andrete on the turns
b: a heavy object will not move when the driver turns or stops suddenly.
c: who knows.

i've seen many times where a company will save money by only equiping a 53foot trailer with only 6 loadbars (the average compliment is around 28) and only a few straps. for the companies this works well probably 80percent of the time but i'd imagine that the money they save is more than taken in the other 20percent of the incidents.

my favorite stupid shipper was the one that didn't attempt to restrain 4 crates of 1/2ton rated chain motors (these crates are on wheels). each crate contains two motors and it's associated chains and such. on average each crate will weigh in at a hefty 600lbs. when a truck accelerates briskly, and the crates aren't restrained the have a tendancy to move to the back of the truck. these particular crates had 18feet of runaway and ended up crashing through the truck's cargo doors and rolling several hundered feet down the highway. no injuries to the crates or motors but several hundred to the truck, lots of fines and several motorists scared shitless!! 8^)

insist the company restrain your items!!! watch them if you have to. restraining gear is very simple, if it doesn't look right to a layman, chances are it isn't.

cheers,
eric

---
eric maultsby
sound engineer / designer
inconceivable productions

Shipping stories w/Sun

[AtariDatacenter]

Actually, I have no horror stories to share. If a shock sensor has gone off, we go through the procedures. Sun typically checks the machine out to verify that everything is okay. Never seen a shipping crate fall on its side. They have wider bases than the cabinet itself. In any case, you don't have much downside here, although it is an interesting event.

Re:ups

[Jucius Maximus]

" heck, I can't even get ups to deliver a freakin DSL modem without a hassle- I REALLY feel sorry for anyone who tries to ship valuables these days-"

Never use UPS to ship computer stuff.

Ever.

Whenever I need to move a computer and I need it done right (i.e. it is my personal box) I do it myself. That means packing it lovingly in the original box with the original styrofoam I have saved, strapping my 0.7 kg CPU fan into place with metal wire and then strapping it securely into the back seat of the car.

When your equpiment matters, trust nobody expect those who truly love and respect it to give it the care and attention it deserves. [Sexual reference not intended.]

Egad, I am sounding like a retirement home advertisement...

Vibration testing at the plant..

[Bowie J. Poag]

I wouldn't be quick to blame Sun for any sort of manufacturing defects. Every single one of the major players in the industry performs extensive environmental testing on their gear -- This includes vibration testing.

I should know, i've worked in just such a place (at IBM, however) on and off for the past few years. You'de be surprised how much test engineering goes into something simple like a singular hard disk, let alone the entire enclosure and cabinet. Where I worked, we even had a room lined with foam sound-dampening cones, with a large turntable in the center. Machines would be routinely brought in, and their noise characteristics studied to see if anything would harmonically wiggle loose after nearly a decade of simulated abuse. Everything from 2-inch-wide mounting brackets to entire cabinets filled with gear.

Cheers,

The day I helped unload an IBM Linux cluster

[Persnickity]

We are evaluating using Linux in server roles, and the admins had ordered a 32 node IBM cluster. Very very nice rack, very clean and orderly. I offered to help get it off the pallet and roll it into the data center. We spent the next 15 minutes unbolting it from the pallet and getting it ready to roll off.

That's when we noticed that our company had placed IBM's pallet on top of one our pallets!!

The skids that IBM had shipped (two cut pieces of wood, not the greatest) were not even close to being able to fit that height. The skids would not sit at a level where we could roll it off.

We looked around for anything to help, and eventually butchered another crate for it's door and tried to use that as a ramp. We got another big guy to help try to roll it down without having it tip over and kill us.

Half way down the wooden ramp splintered and the weight of the rack brought it to ground. Luckily it was only a 6 inch drop at that point so nothing bad happened to it.

Moral of the story: Think before digging into a rack system like you are a kid at Christmas, and make sure that there isn't an extra layer of pallets in the way.

Always inspect before signing

[jerkychew]

The software company I used to work for acquired a company out in Seattle. We were heading out there in a week to do the network cutover (I was in the IT dept.), and we shipped everything out there ahead of time. One of the pieces of equipment we shipped was a Nortel Networks Accelar switch.

For those of you not familiar with the accelar line of switches, it's an enterprise-level network switch, intended to be the backbone of a corporate LAN. It's about 24 inches high by 24 inches wide by however deep your average switch is. I'm no network guru, so I can't give all the details, but from what I do know, the Accelars can co everything short of make your coffee in the morning, depending on how they are configured. The cost of this switch? $70 grand.

We handled this switch the way we handled all the other major Seattle hardware: Have it shipped to our Boston HQ, where the IT dept. would configure the hardware ahead of time, box it back up in its original packaging, and FedEx it to Seattle. We did this with a few PowerEdge servers, laptops, and other lesser switches. They all got there without incident. I wish the same could be said for the Accelar.

Here's the interesting (and informative) part of the story that everyone involved in shipping should take note of: When the Accelar arrived, nobody from the Boston office was in Seattle yet. The folks in Seattle, while technically competent, didn't realize the value of what they were receiving.

When the Accelar arrived, the box was obviously very beat up. All of the styrofoam was crumbled into little pieces, and was sitting at the bottom of the box. The Accelar was actually sitting on top of the styrofoam! The box was very shoddily taped together. We later guessed that the Accelar fell out of the box, and was thrown back in in a hurry.

The FedEx driver was in a serious hurry (for obvious reasons), and assured the receivers that if there was any damage, that FedEx would take care of it. The folks in Seattle signed for the package without really inspecting it, and the driver was on his way.

This is the big mistake. When you sign that little piece of paper, you acknowledge that the product arrived, and was, to the best of your knowledge, in good working order.

After we arrived in Seattle and saw the damage, we immediately put in a claim with FedEx. After about 2 months of arguing back and forth, FedEx refused to honor the claim, and we were stuck holding a beat up Accelar.

Luckily, even though the switch looked like absolute hell, it worked without any problems. But if there were any problems, we would have been screwed. Most hardware warranties don't cover physical damage, so we would have been stuck with a 70 thousand dollar paperweight in Seattle.

So, here's today's lesson: Never sign if there is a problem. Screw the driver - his other deliveries can wait. If there appears to be some kind of damage, contact the shipper before you accept it. Don't trust yout package insurance to cover the cost of the item, either, because the shipper almost always contests the insurance claim, and if you've signed the harwdware away, there's little you can do about it.

I'm calling his bluff here

[CrudPuppy]

I work with Sun servers all day long, and the 4800 is not 6 feet tall. and it also doesnt ship in its own rack (which is not to say you cannot get one racked in a Sun 72" rack)

the 6800, on the other hand...

oh yeah, and neither qualify as "big iron". the E10k, E12k, and E15k maaaaybe.

"Big Iron" normally refers to boxes like IBM's SP2, big S390's, etc.