Today I thought of a few things as far as documentation goes. When a customer reaches out to you for a quote to have a part made, but don’t have drawings, models or much to go off. how do you approach their quote? I thought of coming up with a standard form to have customers fill out to include all the necessary info needed to draw something up and give them a quote. The form will be more of a questionnaire to gather info and address the unknown. Does anyone have something similar to this or is this idea a waste of time?
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I would see as opportunity for billable time to develop the drawing and prototype the part. If that is not an option I would no quote the work and move on.
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@tyebowles I thank you are on the right track with the form and documentation process. I’ve not had any serious issues with just sketching something up with customer present and then have them sign off on it before I make there part. In the quoting process I would weigh the risk versus the reward in actually modeling up for quoting purposes. I usually just do ones and twos and have a good feel for the market on how much I can charge for a typical part. Not saying that this is the correct method but it is worked for me in the past.
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Depends on my feel for the customer/relationship. If they have a good description and I feel like its in my abilities, I’ll take it on work with them. Standard questions are… expected finish on all surfaces and coatings if any? Materials? Any tight tolerance areas? What is this for? If it is so secret that they cant tell me what it is for, then they can afford to do their own design and cad work.
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I think you may have to qualify the customer a little, and honestly put as little time into it as possible while you find out.
I’m not saying do nothing - but just our experience has been customers who do not have a drawing, sample or something remotely close to what they want generally don’t because its a dream and real costs get in the way of that dream materializing. But they will be more than happy to have you draw something up, help them understand machining, give the shop tour, field a billion questions about unrelated stuff and help to make their design more machinable etc - only to have them back out when you give them pricing for the first unit.
We’ve found that qualifying the customer first - goes a long way and can save you a bunch of time that you should have been using on projects to pay the bills, or take the day off and spend with your family.
Sooo - spend just a little time verbally going over the part to determine what it is, quantity, purpose etc. Find out if this customer has a history buying similar parts to support an exhisting business etc - we dont talk the part all that much at this point - if you are unsure at this time if its legit - then you have to be a little more straight forward with things to find out - be reassuring that you can certainly make a beautiful part etc. And get them exactly what they want with a little bit of work. But you have to start with some design time at $100(or whatever) an hour and a prototype could be $1,000(or whatever) then once you take that into production can be anywhere from $x-$x depending on quanitity and what design you guys settle on. These are all reasonable ballpark costs so you shouldn’t feel uncomfortable laying this out for the customer - And see how they react - you didn’t give firm pricing- there is no commitments, and you didn’t spend a ton of time going over a fictionary part. But you did get to find out more info about a customers intentions who didn’t have anything but an idea to bring you. If they feel confident you can get them to where they want to go, and paying for some costs that maybe involved is ok - then by all means move forward and do an awesome job for them! But if they scoff at it because they thought it would be maybe $150 bucks then be glad you got to it quickly without investing more time into it.
We’ve entertained alot of dreamers and people who wanted the free engineering to learn the hard way.
Now if you know the customer is legit from the get go - then give a quote as best you can and go for the PO - secure a PO then do what you need to get it done - show the customer you will do what it takes to get something done and shoot for more business from them. The bulk of our business follows this course.
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I realized after posting that last night - It may come accross a little harsh, closed minded, and not very positive(Generally like every old time failing machine shop)
But - when someone brings you just an idea and this is the first step they are taking in pursuing it - you can’t feel bad about cutting to the chase early in the conversation and asking their budget, and or what they think it will cost - this can get both of you on the same page quickly.
You don’t go booting them out the door after that - I generally still talk with people For a bit. And you never know, they generally appreciate your honesty and sometimes people just need time to digest the reality of costs in machining.
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