MOD paying £22 for a 65p light bulb
Discussion
FredClogs said:
I've worked in plenty of offices with outsourced maintenance where people aren't allowed to change a light bulb and the cost for doing so is daft.
To be fair unless your offices are located in the 1950's then you won't have many light bulbs. They will be florescent tubes and many of them will be part of the emergency lighting system. There are also other electrical parts to the fitting which may have failed.
To work on it you will need to isolate the lamp in the riser, but even then it might still be live due to being an emergency light.
To do that you will need to be a "competent person" so you will need to get yourself some qualifications, and some experience with office wiring (its not the same as domestic).
You will then need to go and buy the tubes and parts. You then need to do a risk assessment before stating any work. After the work is done you need to safely dispose of the old tubes which means you need to be certified to carry waste.
I'm a spark by trade and worked in a university estates department (I'll add some stuff later about the amount of waste there). When I worked there, they had a major reorganisation, which was generally a good thing. A central help desk was introduced for reporting faults and we were all sent down the multi-skilling route (plumbers had to do an NVQ 2, and sparks had to sleep with a turd under our pillow until we got used to the smell 
).
They also included the porters in this; they did some basic training to do some of the more menial tasks, such as changing lamps, unblocking bogs and assembling flat pack furniture. For lamping, they were sent on a basic electrical safety course. All lamping work orders went to the porters; if they got there and found it was a faulty fitting, or it required standing more than two metres from the ground, they wrote 'refer to technicians' on the note and put it back.
We had one particular porter who was not the most popular of blokes. One day he went to relamp a fluorescent fitting on a corridor with no natural light. The lights were all controlled from a bank of switches in the porters' lodge, and to isolate one, you had to turn off the entire corridor. The lights were about 15 years old and the cable insulation had become brittle. Part of the copper had become exposed, and he caught it with the back of his finger.
Wen we get a belt, we jump, swear, and get the piss taken out of us. He went straight to A&E and got signed off sick for a month. In the meantime, porters were instructed to stop lamping until procedures were reviewed. The fiddling tosser got onto an ambwilans chaser and got about ten grand out of it.
Considering this happened to somebody who had completed a course operated by a specialist engineering training and consultancy firm, imagine the outcome of some untrained office wallah getting a belt.
My last job was at an M&E consultancy. One of the roles we used to do was prepare maintenance contracts and supervise the contractors. In a general small office building, they will have a multi skilled maintenance engineer undertake weekly visit. He will have a number of planned maintenance tasks to do, along with any non-urgent reactive works, so the sensible way is to get him doing the lamping then. There is no need to call somebody out especially, and you don't have to worry about getting sued when some idiot falls off a swivel chair when trying to change a lamp.
).They also included the porters in this; they did some basic training to do some of the more menial tasks, such as changing lamps, unblocking bogs and assembling flat pack furniture. For lamping, they were sent on a basic electrical safety course. All lamping work orders went to the porters; if they got there and found it was a faulty fitting, or it required standing more than two metres from the ground, they wrote 'refer to technicians' on the note and put it back.
We had one particular porter who was not the most popular of blokes. One day he went to relamp a fluorescent fitting on a corridor with no natural light. The lights were all controlled from a bank of switches in the porters' lodge, and to isolate one, you had to turn off the entire corridor. The lights were about 15 years old and the cable insulation had become brittle. Part of the copper had become exposed, and he caught it with the back of his finger.
Wen we get a belt, we jump, swear, and get the piss taken out of us. He went straight to A&E and got signed off sick for a month. In the meantime, porters were instructed to stop lamping until procedures were reviewed. The fiddling tosser got onto an ambwilans chaser and got about ten grand out of it.
Considering this happened to somebody who had completed a course operated by a specialist engineering training and consultancy firm, imagine the outcome of some untrained office wallah getting a belt.
My last job was at an M&E consultancy. One of the roles we used to do was prepare maintenance contracts and supervise the contractors. In a general small office building, they will have a multi skilled maintenance engineer undertake weekly visit. He will have a number of planned maintenance tasks to do, along with any non-urgent reactive works, so the sensible way is to get him doing the lamping then. There is no need to call somebody out especially, and you don't have to worry about getting sued when some idiot falls off a swivel chair when trying to change a lamp.
Paying lots of money for relatively inexpensive things has been going on for donkeys years. In most cases (IME) they actually pay a reasonable sum for the item but then pay for the additional costs such as release paperwork, C of C's, delivery, packaging etc etc putting the price up by many multiples of the required items price. Suggesting they forgo the unnecessary paperwork has always been a non starter.
dav123a said:
Why isolate the lamp ? Do you mean circuit ? Not really relevant if it's an emergency light or not it's only a battery pack in the fitting anyway. I take it you aren't an electrician from your post.
Yes the circuit not the individual lamp. I've worked on emergency lighting from a central battery before now. Granted some time ago amd most will now just be local battery packs, however the point is that its not just changing a light bulb that any office worker can do.98elise said:
dav123a said:
Why isolate the lamp ? Do you mean circuit ? Not really relevant if it's an emergency light or not it's only a battery pack in the fitting anyway. I take it you aren't an electrician from your post.
Yes the circuit not the individual lamp. I've worked on emergency lighting from a central battery before now. Granted some time ago amd most will now just be local battery packs, however the point is that its not just changing a light bulb that any office worker can do.We used to have Babcocks do our estate work (until they lost the contract recently), and when they change the tubes in our workshop they just take the diffuser off and change them, they only turn them off at the light switch at the wall if it's the starter that's gone.
jjlynn27 said:
I love these threads. Click-baits designed to enrage terminally stupid. Seems it's working. One of my previous employers was a supplier to MOD. If my experience is anything to go by the margins were so tiny that only quantities ordered made it worthwhile to supply. They would literary argue over every single penny, for hours. IIRC payment terms were pretty s
t too.
Then you worked for the only company ever to be treated with suspicion by the MOD in its history. There are many ex-servicemen and women on here and I guarantee you that every one of them know first hand of how money is pissed away by the MOD. Pun not intended but I have another example: a small gents toilet on an RAF squadron needed some work done, the facilities consisted of 3 toilet stalls, 3 urinals and a sink. The contractors came in, replaced the urinals with one of those metal trough things, replaced the sink with a very nice looking metal one and painted the doors of the crappers, (they did nothing to the toilets themselves). Cost, £35,000. In the early nineties. t too. Me and the wife had bought our house in the area the week previously for £32,000.
jjlynn27 said:
I love these threads. Click-baits designed to enrage terminally stupid. Seems it's working. One of my previous employers was a supplier to MOD. If my experience is anything to go by the margins were so tiny that only quantities ordered made it worthwhile to supply. They would literary argue over every single penny, for hours. IIRC payment terms were pretty st too.
Don't you realise how 'terminally stupid' it is to argue against criticism by pointing out just how bad these people are?t too. I'm guessing not........
I'm also guessing you meant 'literally' but can't be sure.
Chlamydia said:
Then you worked for the only company ever to be treated with suspicion by the MOD in its history. There are many ex-servicemen and women on here and I guarantee you that every one of them know first hand of how money is pissed away by the MOD. Pun not intended but I have another example: a small gents toilet on an RAF squadron needed some work done, the facilities consisted of 3 toilet stalls, 3 urinals and a sink. The contractors came in, replaced the urinals with one of those metal trough things, replaced the sink with a very nice looking metal one and painted the doors of the crappers, (they did nothing to the toilets themselves). Cost, £35,000. In the early nineties.
Me and the wife had bought our house in the area the week previously for £32,000.
Demonstrably wrong; we were not the only supplier on the project. They were tried to squeeze margins from everyone else. We have similar experience with some private sector clients. We had private sector companies where we didn't want particular job so we would what was termed as 'We really don't want that part of the job, unless you are prepared to pay obscene amounts of money' and we still got the contracts. The point is you'll have wastage in both private and public sector companies. To generalize along private/public lines is daft. Popular, still daft. Me and the wife had bought our house in the area the week previously for £32,000.
REALIST123 said:
Don't you realise how 'terminally stupid' it is to argue against criticism by pointing out just how bad these people are?
I'm guessing not........
I'm also guessing you meant 'literally' but can't be sure.
So, them arguing to purchase something at the lowest possible cost, is bad? As well as not caring about costs? Taking into account the quantity, as per non-bold part of my post, arguing over pennies did result in significant saving for them.I'm guessing not........
I'm also guessing you meant 'literally' but can't be sure.
Yes, literally.
Gazzas86 said:
Only just seen this thread, the MOD still continue to pay extortionate prices for non essential things, such as this week we had 20 doors painted 'blue' from the original beige colour at the grand price of £1000 per door..... Decorational not operational. There are so many more examples i could give, i should write a book.
Except that it was a Def Stan specified shade of blue which had to be made in a bespoke batch from a preferred supplier, and it has to be fire resistant, bullet resistant and squadie resistant and also must come with a 1,000,000 hour MTBF but has to be returned to L4 maintenance as there is no army door paint facility. MoD are their own worst enemy sometimes.
eccles said:
98elise said:
dav123a said:
Why isolate the lamp ? Do you mean circuit ? Not really relevant if it's an emergency light or not it's only a battery pack in the fitting anyway. I take it you aren't an electrician from your post.
Yes the circuit not the individual lamp. I've worked on emergency lighting from a central battery before now. Granted some time ago amd most will now just be local battery packs, however the point is that its not just changing a light bulb that any office worker can do.We used to have Babcocks do our estate work (until they lost the contract recently), and when they change the tubes in our workshop they just take the diffuser off and change them, they only turn them off at the light switch at the wall if it's the starter that's gone.
It no different to saying why does a plumber charge me £50 to change a 50p tap washer.
I also know a couple of people who worked for the MOD in procurement. The problem they have is simple, if you take the example of the toilet upgrade previously mentioned, if every single tender was around the same price then that is the norm. For many companies who would do it a lot cheaper, they are not on an approved list, so it is always those who are saddled with extra on costs that get the contract.
All big organisations waste money, but government departments are by far the best at wasting money.
All big organisations waste money, but government departments are by far the best at wasting money.
I previously worked on accounts for the NHS, I think this is more down to the approved suppliers list and not being able to deal with anyone outside of it. One I always remember was this particular hospital buying High Vis Vests for £27 each, when you could walk into a shop and buy them for £3-4 . Lots more examples but unless these Government Organisations take a different approach and start to act as a business then it will continue as no one really gives a sh... The supplier may start off supplying for £5 but once they are on that list they can up the price to £100 and no one bats an eyelid.
djt100 said:
I previously worked on accounts for the NHS, I think this is more down to the approved suppliers list and not being able to deal with anyone outside of it. One I always remember was this particular hospital buying High Vis Vests for £27 each, when you could walk into a shop and buy them for £3-4 . Lots more examples but unless these Government Organisations take a different approach and start to act as a business then it will continue as no one really gives a sh... The supplier may start off supplying for £5 but once they are on that list they can up the price to £100 and no one bats an eyelid.
what function were the HV garments purchased for .... as while class 2 plain single colour wioth or without screen printing can be got for a few pounds, specific 2 colour class 3 with interchangable badges are rather more costly ...There must be some cosy relationships or a deliberate lack of oversight going on with some of the purchasers in some organsiations.
MOD can and do audit their suppliers to check that the costs they're being told are accurate and to restrict the supplier's profit margin. So just being the sole supplier doesn't suddenly mean you can charge whatever you like; 'cost plus' is long gone. That said traceability, warranties, customisation, 20 year spares availability and so on can make 'standard' stuff pretty expensive, as can small order quantities.
MOD can and do audit their suppliers to check that the costs they're being told are accurate and to restrict the supplier's profit margin. So just being the sole supplier doesn't suddenly mean you can charge whatever you like; 'cost plus' is long gone. That said traceability, warranties, customisation, 20 year spares availability and so on can make 'standard' stuff pretty expensive, as can small order quantities.
carmonk said:
At the place I worked last, a bunch of idiot managers decided to procure hosting from a certain company for an unfeasibly st and laughably expensive piece of software. They didn't bother consulting people who knew a damn about this and who'd done it for 20 years (e.g. me and my team), they just did it. Now aside from the fact the software was the worst I've ever seen by a country mile, they decided to have the company host it remotely for £50K per year, locked into a 5 year contract. When they later ran out of money (no, really, they literally ran out of money) and started querying where the existing money was going, I was happy to point out that a far better hosting solution could have been found for £1200 per year, or one option might have been to use our own brand new state-of-the-art £300K+ virtual server set up at the cost of approximately two man days per year (£250). But no, they preferred to chuck away quarter of a mil for no reason. And believe me, that was a tiny tiny proportion of the money they wasted every year.
This could describe a lot of large organisations but you have to remember it's hard for a manager with qualifications amounting to little more than being a B-school graduate a decade or two ago to make technical decisions about issues they don't fully understand. There may be a simple, low cost solution that could be quickly implemented but there are numerous reasons a manager may still outsource (spash-back if it goes wrong, they may not trust the advice they are getting or likely to get from inside the organisation etc.)t and laughably expensive piece of software. They didn't bother consulting people who knew a damn about this and who'd done it for 20 years (e.g. me and my team), they just did it. Now aside from the fact the software was the worst I've ever seen by a country mile, they decided to have the company host it remotely for £50K per year, locked into a 5 year contract. When they later ran out of money (no, really, they literally ran out of money) and started querying where the existing money was going, I was happy to point out that a far better hosting solution could have been found for £1200 per year, or one option might have been to use our own brand new state-of-the-art £300K+ virtual server set up at the cost of approximately two man days per year (£250). But no, they preferred to chuck away quarter of a mil for no reason. And believe me, that was a tiny tiny proportion of the money they wasted every year.
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