Hassle at work today – a customer placed an order giving me part numbers for jacks and adaptors. I placed the order, got the parts, delivered them, then the hassle started with a phone call:

“These jacks we’ve had delivered…they don’t have CE marking on them…”
“Um, that’s because you didn’t request it – you asked for an 02-7815-0100, if you’d wanted it CE marked, the part number would be 02-7815C0100.” (I’m SO helpful…by the way, these are manufacturer part numbers – not ours)
“Well, we need them with CE marking – can you arrange it?”

And so, numerous phone calls and emails later, I’ve found out there is a ‘kit’ (probably just a reinforced hose with anti-burst valves) which can be fitted (along with a nice sticker 😐 ) for the princely sum of £430 per jack 😯

Now these ‘kits’ cannot possibly be anything major – but quoting 4 weeks delivery (ex-US)?

I’m tempted to leave it a week, get the jacks back in the workshop for the ‘fitting’, slap some stickers on them and send them back – job done.

But that wouldn’t be professional, and is probably borderline illegal.

Sigh…I thought ISO9001 was a paper chasing exercise, but CE marking? I’ve looked throught the directives and can’t find any specific category hydraulic aircraft jacks fit into…

OK, rant over – thanks for listening 🙂