Some Things Are Not What They Appear to Be

Earlier this week we got a surprise call from Ron. We had not heard from him in a while and so we reached out to make sure everything was OK.  His company makes their own sheet metal, which means they are slow if we aren’t being contacted.  As it turns out, there was a 200 pc job coming out of engineering and could we please quote for him.  Engineering at his company usually means quick turn and poor documentation.  To our surprise, there was a 6 week lead and a complete drawing package.  S, why wouldn’t we quote?

The first step in quoting any sheet metal RFQ is to first review the drawing package. Sometimes drawings are missing, but more likely paint or plating specs are missing.  We also check all the notes on the sheet metal drawings.  Sometimes special finishes or unusual marking are called out on those notes.  In Ron’s case, he was missing a plating spec .that was unusual but fortunately, there was no certified welding requirement.  Everything was looking good to quote until we saw that he had some bent tubing and some unusual assembly.  This got us concerned.

Next, we talked internally about the effort and risk for ETM Manufacturing to address the tricky aspects. The easiest way to lower this risk would be to build a prototype and learn from that.  We had some questions.  Did Ron’s engineering team already build the prototype parts with another sheet metal fabricator?  If so, was there a problem we didn’t know about?  Typically, the incumbent sheet metal  supplier would have the lower cost and faster delivery.  Why are we being asked to quote now? Knowing the answers to these questions would help us quote Ron more accurately.

Most likely, the incumbent supplier had some issues which either caused a late delivery, or a cost increase on this larger order or he doesn’t want the trouble of building this assembly. Any of these add risk to accurately quoting this RFQ and ultimately pleasing Ron.  Our next step is to quiz Ron on what he knows, or better yet, talk with the engineer.  The more we know, the better the quote will be.  The alternative is a inaccurate low quote that we have to increase mid-job, or an inaccurate high quote that does Ron no good.

Ultimately we want to provide great parts, on-time, at a reasonable cost. Knowing everything in the quote stage helps us do that.  Do you agree?

from ETM Manufacturing http://etmmfg.com/3692