Anyone run into vendor control by companies sending out machine work?

Has anyone run across a companies purchasing department selectively sending work out to different shops based on "their" interpretation of that machine shops work load?

I've heard this at several companies in meetings... "Don't send any more work to XYZ shop this month because they are doing a critical job for us and we don't want to slow it down."

Should not a shop determine this and not some companies purchasing department?

Happens all the time with molds. Deadlines are critical. If you pile too much on a shop, then nothing gets done on time.

I've been SLAMMED multiple times by several companies sending me work, all in the same week, then going away.
You can't seem to negotiate THEIR schedule, and having someone else's work in your shop is NOT! Their problem!

It is a problem either way for sure, I sure don't know the answer.

Depends on how much communication you have with that shop. If they haven't heard from the shop in 2 weeks and make that judgment then its possibly not good. Now if a manager was talking to the supervisor of that shop yesterday and was told that they're booked for the next 3months, then a decision to send the work to someone else can be made at the meeting.

I've seen instances where work would be sent to other shops on the assumption that the primary shop was busy. I always said to call and find out first, or have it on the Request for Quote that they absolutely have to meet this delivery date. The person quoting should see this and figure out if they will be able to fit it in and if its impossible then it should NOT be quoted.

Now theres all the times where the company thinks that they need something by a certain date, setting themselves up for failure from the start because they don't have good communication with their own customers and production. Everybody gets into a big panic, machine shop does the work as a rush and hopefully charges a high price for it and then the work sits there for 2 months before being assembled only to find out that something was wrong with the design and a bunch of parts have to be done again. Usually at that point its not a rush anymore.

One reason I wanted to mention this is that some shops might not know this happens. If a shop's work is unknowingly regulated by customers, how is a shop to determine when and how to increase capacity?

Communication. You need to be talking to the buyer and making sure they're always atune to your workload status.

Brian, it's not happening to me. I have just observed this at meetings, mainly in the past, and have recently talked to another shop who wondered if this was going on. I just posted this to see how common this was and to advise others to watch out for this as it could adversly influence a shops future plans for growth.

I'm sure we have had the same thing with Seimens and a few others. They have big orders and usually time critical. Once they mentioned they did not send us an order because they thought we were overbooked. Good communication is the key. Now we decline work in advance but still have the occasional "big" job show up at the door with zero notice.

I meant the general "you". I dug what you were getting at....

Correct Brian, and everyone, communication is crucial, but when a manager makes a statment like "Don't send any more work to XYZ shop this month", the people under him may not ask questions for fear of crossing the chain of command.

I've had a customer say, "your already working on XYZ for me, so I won't send you this ABC project, OK?". I replied that I was old enough to know what I can accept and what I can't. Then I mentioned that I had four other projects for other customers besides theirs that I was working on. "no, we want you 100% on our projects". ....Yea, right...????