IT Communication: Writing for an Audience

The following is another homework assignment. This assignment was to draft an email that was basically demonstrating how you can make chicken s#$t into chicken salad.

Good Afternoon!

I notice that everyone has been having a very productive quarter so far. At Panther Brass, we can notice the increased sales on our client (you!) end and can infer that business has been good for you – congratulations! At Panther Brass, we pride ourselves in always being able to supply companies with the highest quality brass and copper plumbing fixtures that we can manufacture; if we wouldn’t want it in our own homes or businesses, we won’t make it! We applaud the companies that we supply as having the same standards that we have.

Unfortunately, we have discovered a critical flaw in a key brass part that we manufacture. This flaw originates in one of our furnaces and has resulted in a bad “mixture” of brass that is actually within standards of other name brands but fortunately, not within our standards. This faulty brass mixture results in improper expanding and contracting with water temperate and potential failures along the life of the fixture or valve.

At Panther Brass, we have a strict process from the sale of the specific item to you as a customer all the way to the delivery of the ordered item back to you as the customer. Once you have placed an order and submitted it to your Panther Brass representative, they then submit the order to the closest geographical manufacturing plant. In the event that your order is a custom order, it will be produced within 24 hours of being received at the plant. This 24 hour buffer period allows us to make sure that all measurements and specifications will work in both yours, our and our, intended use. If your item is a stock order, then more likely than not we already have your specific fixture sitting on a shelf “with your name on it!” Unlike other companies that spot check items to check for faults, we thoroughly check each individual item. We do this to ensure that not one item slips through the cracks. Once we have your specific item you have requested, we then ship it as per your shipping instructions; whether it be individually or in combination with another order to minimize shipping. We believe that as the customer, we are here to serve you, not the other way around which is many company’s business models. However and whenever you want an item shipped, we will make sure that it happens. We follow this strict procedure of sale, production, and delivery as we believe that it results in the best product for you.

During our last production cycle of item number 55573 (temperature control valve), we noticed that the furnace where these items originate was malfunctioning. These valves are located on all of the CV, CW, and CX models which translates to 76% of our production. On Thursday 6/5 we submitted item 55573 for extensive testing; upon in depth testing of item 55573 by our Research and Development department, we have noticed that the brass does not adhere to the heating and cooling expansion mandates that we have set aside for this item. When you have a soft metal, such as brass, in contact with water at differing temperatures, the metal needs to be able to be adaptable for the water. For example, when things get hot, they expand. Normally this is not a problem; you have hot water in a pipe, it causes the pipe to expand slightly, and the fixtures that connect the different pieces of pipe expand at the same ratio and there are no leaks. When cold water runs through the pipe, the pipe and fixtures all contract at the same ratio maintaining no leaks. This elasticity (expansion to contraction) is crucial in plumbing fittings; it is the reason that these fixtures are made out of a soft metal such as brass. If we made them out of anything else, such as something more brittle, the part “wears” out over time and cannot stretch or contract like it used to and you result in leaks. The amount of elasticity versus durability of the fixture is controlled in how we “cook” and mix our brass in our furnace. Our inspection of the furnace resulted in the realization that the temperatures it was reporting to our monitoring computers was in reality 30 degrees cooler. This allowed in brass that feels the same, looks the same, and seems the same, but that troubles might result from in 5-10 years.

We apologize that we first discovered this problem yesterday (Thursday) and are reporting this to you on Friday, the end of the work week. While we understand the complications this might have in affecting your anticipated delivery dates at the beginning of next week, we at Panther Brass thought it would be wiser to present the solution to this problem along with the problem. There will be a short delay in all CV, CW, and CX fixture models; we anticipate an extra 10 day lead time on your orders. This lead time will allow for possible replacement of the furnace, testing of brass it is producing, and manufacture of item number 55573 along with other items.

We do want to alleviate any concerns over other materials that have already delivered with this same defect. We tested all CV, CW, and CX models and found that only 60% were defective, we still had an earlier 40% that were the “oldest” that were fine that had not shipped yet. This tells us that this problem has occurred between that 60 and 40% mark and that none have shipped.

We appreciate your patience and understanding while we work to resolve this problem. We deeply apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you and hope that this will not result in any sort of financial or customer service loss to your company. We understand that the needs of many businesses are different from each other and this momentary loss in production will not affect you; we also realize that this could be a huge problem for companies who do large volume orders. Due to the differences in our clients, we will be handling each situation in a case-by-case basis; we understand that the concessions that BusinessA requires are not sufficient nor practical for BusinessB and vice versa. We hope that this personal approach shows our commitment to each business. If you do require some form of allowance, please contact your sales representative.

Again, we at Panther Brass deeply apologize for the inconvenience this has caused your company. We ourselves started out as a small business with 15 employees 32 years ago. We understand working with supplying companies that have many contracts can sometimes be a headache. Being a former small business, we strive to give our clients the type of attention that we wish we had 32 years ago. We hope that your commitment to Panther Brass as your supplier remains as solid as our commitment to your company. If you have any questions comments or concerns, you can contact me directly and I will do everything in my power to satisfy your needs.


Nick Taylor
Chief Production Manger, Co-Founder Panther Brass
123.456.7890 – Direct Line
nickt84@gmail.com