Matt is an engineer at a local robotics company and we got a pleasant email from him this week. He was working on a new design, one that wasn’t released yet, and he needed to know how quickly we could build a prototype once the design was released. You would think this is an everyday occurrence, but it isn’t. Matt’s ability to think ahead and ask for help will get him (and his company) much more for his money.
First, Matt was able to get quick feedback on how we could provide a prototype to him without expensive and long lead special tooling. Our suggestions showed how we could provide something close to his special feature with existing tooling, saving him time and money on the prototype. He was able to review the suggestions and evaluate how effective it would be at testing his concept.
This started a dialog between Matt and our sheet metal expert (SME Ha!). Matt sent over additional files with different ribs and tabs and other features for us to take a look at. The end result is a better prototype design and a better production design that is faster and less expensive for ETM to produce. Great sheet metal for a great price and everyone is happy.
We were also able to get a head start on thinking about the production tooling. With the additional warning, we met with 2 of our 3 tooling specialists to get their feedback on the special tooling and the related lead times. Now Matt has prototype and production pricing, plus expedite costs for production tooling if he needs it, as well as standard production tooling. His team can make better decisions on tooling and we can save Matt as much time as possible. And time is money.
Do we offer this service for everyone? Sadly, no. We offer it only to great sheet metal customers. Too many times people we don’t know (aka don’t trust) ask for design assistance of all sorts. We love these kinds of challenges but we also don’t like feeling used. Typically our most valuable resources are milked for information and nothing is given in return. Some say this is part of doing business, but when a stranger is taking our sheet metal expert’s time away from one of our best customer, we need to be careful.
The great news is that it is easy to be a great customer! We realize that everyone doesn’t have a $1 million project, but they do know how to treat a great supplier. Ask for a little help the first time and let us know how our assistance made a difference. Even if you went with another supplier, that is valuable to us! Take time to tell us why and what we can do (besides giving technical help) to earn your business. Ask for more help the next time and provide more feedback the next time. Over time we’ll learn to trust each other and help each other be more successful.
from ETM Manufacturing http://etmmfg.com/3665
No comments:
Post a Comment