No wonder we are losing jobs to overseas...

To make a long story short, ordered some pre-made blanks to do a job for a customer. Found them here in the US, and made here aswell. Recieved the order today. Ordered a small lot first about a month ago to check if they would work. Had no problems with the lot. So ordered around 150 of them this time.

First 2 I pull out of the box were no good. Decided I better go thru the rest. Well on one set, you could see where the pinch rollers( these were sheet metal parts) were set too tight and rolled grooves in them. On thru the rest and got to a section on them where you could see where a slug or shaving had remained on the bottom die steel. As most people involved in stamping knows, this leaves an indention in the metal. This shows up like a sore thumb on them.

Got to another batch, and burrs bigger than life all around. So some more that wont be up to my customers specs.

So I call the company and talk to one of the sales people. They say they will have to have someone call me back. No problem, did in a timely manner. What followed next was what surprised me.

Told them about the rolled in grooves and the burrs and said the parts were no good. The response I got....

"That's the best we can do, take it or leave it. We've been in business for 20yrs, and that is the best we can do". Plus we are not liable for damage during shipping.

I asked can I have the bad parts replaced, said nope, send them back for a refund. I then asked no problem, but can I have replacements. Person on the other line replied, only if you order them.

Then proceeded to say it was only my second time ordering and I already have a problem with them. Well duh, if I get parts that are no good, what I am supposed to do keep them. Grooves and slug indentions are not from shipping. And even told they guy he ought to check his stock, and said nah, that is the best we can do.- they really like that phrase I guess.

I can see why companies are going overseas when you get such great customer service and quality like this.

You need to move up the food chain with this. This "person" can't be the decision maker.

Actually, it was the "decision maker". That was the sad part. I myself have been in manufacturing for over 20yrs, alot of it involved in stamping. Started out as a press-set up man, to now I design and build progressive dies. So I know what caused these defects.

And I told the guy he needs to check his stock to see these. He said he would not, and got mad about it.

Sounds like a guy thats been in bussiness too long and is way too comfortable
with his "performance".

Anyone that cocky needs a swift kick to the nuts. But taking your bussiness elsewhere
will have about the same effect.

Geez !
Can you email or fax and try and get ahold of someone else ?
That guy is not taking his job seriously.
If it's his shop he won't be around much longer..

It's always surprising how those places manage to stay in business for any length of time, kinda like all the hack repair machine shops.

Pretty weird the first ones came out ok though, they're certainly not very consistent.

Find a different vender, I have been having issues with a couple of my venders lately. I just got a batch of parts back from powder it was the worst job I have ever seen. I took it in the shorts and had them striped and sent them out to a different company. I know it is frustrating but sometimes you have to move on until you can get the right shop and let the "its the best we can do" shops go under or piss off other people.

SND said:

It's always surprising how those places manage to stay in business for any length of time, kinda like all the hack repair machine shops.

Pretty weird the first ones came out ok though, they're certainly not very consistent.

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That is why I ordered the second time. Wanted to see the quality of them the first time around, and they were good parts. Quality was there, so had no second thoughts. Ordered the large order, after my customer accepted the first ones and liked them. There is no way I am sending any bad ones to them, that is for sure. I take pride in what I put out there, and if i wouldnt buy it, why should my customer be any different.

And yes, I will be finding another vendor. Especially now that I am going to be short on the order.

Have had exactly the same experience with 4 foundries over a 12 year span.
I could have sold 5x the product for any one of them, if they would merely support me by providing 1.) uniform quality to the standard of their (sample) work instead of shipping rejects & just plain crappy workmanship to see if they would come back 2.)provide the order when they say they would, not a month, or 6 weeks, or 8 months (honest!) after the time they chose to quote on the PO confirmation.

3 have gone out of business in the time. I wonder why?
The current people I am dealing with bought the customer list of the last foundry, and said the backlog and (historic/continuing potential) profitability of the work was absolutely outstanding. But the absentee owners got too complacent, and did not care to deal with the employees, so let them run the show until customers were so frustrated and beside themselves with poor and late work that they stopped paying and canceled orders.

Sadly, I see it in a lot of places where i would actually like to send money to buy product, but it is not worth it.

OTOH, Here & there are some ongoing businesses you absolutely love to deal with and send them a check. Carr-Lane comes to mind recently.

smt

I say go public with it.

Get the bastard's name, e-mail and phone number out there. If he did it to you he could do it to any of us..

We'll create the official excrement list.

This is what this forum is for.....networking.

And people wonder why salesmen do such fancy dances. Sometimes it's because they work for people or an organization who hide in the back room and take what they can get. I have literally been cornered in a room before by clients who demanded to know about quality and performance. It got a lot friendlier when I pointed out that my management and they had held very similar positions in the same industry for years.

Every time I get my car fixed, if it involves under the hood work, I always inspect the engine afterwards. The reason why is that I have NEVER had engine work done that did not have a mistake made, usually: a missing screw, something left unattached, wrong bolt/screw, or wrong torque. Once I had my alternator replaced and the car died a few miles from the shop--they had installed the new alternator but not attached the wires to it. You can pretty much extrapolate this to contract work.

The reality is that there is no such thing as a perfect job.

I was driving back from a supplier visit this weekend and stopped at a McDonalds on the turnpike in Indiana.

As the guy in front of me received his coffee he mentioned that the coffee was warm not hot. The kid looks at him with a smirk while he points at the coffee machine, how can it be? It just came out of this machine?

Never investigated or anything as the guy walked away dissatisifed.

Another realization:

Next group behind me then asked what state they were in after being on the Indiana turnpike for 130 miles.... (note this was a service station that serviced only east bound).

In my opinion it sounds like it is time for you to do your patriotic duty and start a new side to your business making these items for sale yourself. It sounds like you already know the market, you know how to make the part, and you know that those already in the business do shoddy work that should be easy to compete with, what are you waiting for?

Maybe in the process you can also hire people, make yourself some nice money and support a lot of other companies. Do you realize how many others on this site seek out opportunities like this. If you don't try to go into competition with this guy don't complain when someone in China does! I know there some who fear the word, but this is called capitalism and it is healthy for the economy!

adammil1 said:

In my opinion it sounds like it is time for you to do your patriotic duty and start a new side to your business making these items for sale yourself. It sounds like you already know the market, you know how to make the part, and you know that those already in the business do shoddy work that should be easy to compete with, what are you waiting for?

Maybe in the process you can also hire people, make yourself some nice money and support a lot of other companies. Do you realize how many others on this site seek out opportunities like this. If you don't try to go into competition with this guy don't complain when someone in China does! I know there some who fear the word, but this is called capitalism and it is healthy for the economy!

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I have actually looked into making them myself. One thing is at the moment, with my current products, I really wouldnt have time to get into it. That is why I sourced them. Second thing is I dont have that kinda room at the moment. Plus contract stamping, well lets just say isnt very lucrative at the moment. And I defintely wouldnt want to do it for any of the automotive people. Have seen that side personally from a company I worked for.

I guess what really irked me in the end, was just his whole attitude towards what he put out there. I was always taught to make a quality product and watch what you was doing.
When I ran presses, we always kept an eye out for problems like that and corrected them.

toolmaker said:

I have actually looked into making them myself. One thing is at the moment, with my current products, I really wouldnt have time to get into it. That is why I sourced them. Second thing is I dont have that kinda room at the moment. Plus contract stamping, well lets just say isnt very lucrative at the moment. And I defintely wouldnt want to do it for any of the automotive people. Have seen that side personally from a company I worked for.

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Just wondering can you post pictures of these things here for all of us to see? I am trying to imagine the parts but can't quite see them. Are there standard blanks that a company can specialize in or are they all custom for the end part? If they are all custom why wouldn't a stamping shop make the whole part start to finish?

If they are a company who has been in business for 20+ years, one that has enough business to employ a few employees, I would have to believe that there is some money to be made in their line of work. Do they have any competitors out there who you can alternatively source the product from?

If not I have to think that you would be real crazy to let this opportunity pass by, as if they continue as they are going it would sound like their niche is clearly up for grabs for anyone so why not either let it be you or if you are too busy do you have any friends, former coworkers, etc.... that you could turn on to the business? Maybe you could invest in it too and take a partial ownership of the business? What is the cost of entry required to get into this line of work?

The thing is if you are not interested in growing this opportunity yourself, with so many people tired of working for someone else and looking for a way to start out on their own I would have to think this is the perfect opportunity for someone!

Sure seems silly for a manufacturer to complain in one breath that we are losing jobs overseas due to incompetence like this, but yet when the opportunity lands at his door he doesn’t seem interested in taking it?

Maybe I am naive having never owned a business but why not hire someone, grow the business some more, invest in a larger facility, create some more jobs, create more wealth, dare I say possibly receive an invitation to the 1%'ers club...? Or is the lack of entrepreneurial capitalist spirit, desire to keep one's business small with as few employees as possible, as well as aversion to taking on a little extra risk on your behalf every much a part of the reason why such work is going off shore, as the poor work of this supplier? Whatever happened to the days when a machinist would start off on his own making one tool in the back of his garage only to expand into ever bigger and bigger markets offering more and more product lines and employing hundreds in his factory, displacing old inefficient businesses with more modern successful ones? Is that spirit dead?

adammil1 said:

Maybe I am naive having never owned a business but why not hire someone, grow the business some more, invest in a larger facility, create some more jobs, create more wealth, dare I say possibly receive an invitation to the 1%'ers club...? Or is the lack of entrepreneurial capitalist spirit, desire to keep one's business small with as few employees as possible, as well as aversion to taking on a little extra risk on your behalf every much a part of the reason why such work is going off shore

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I don't want to offend you, adammil1, but yes, that is both naive and offensive. It is not the desire, destiny or responsibility of every entrepeneur to become the omni-versal mega-tycoon or diversified venture capitalist. Businesses grown by seizing every random opportunity don't prosper (or even survive) for long.

sfriedberg said:

I don't want to offend you, adammil1, but yes, that is both naive and offensive. It is not the desire, destiny or responsibility of every entrepeneur to become the omni-versal mega-tycoon or diversified venture capitalist. Businesses grown by seizing every random opportunity don't prosper (or even survive) for long.

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True, But... if blanks are a key raw material in the product that is his wheelhouse, and there's enough meat on the bone for crappy suppliers to survive, he might find it pays to bring that under his control. It may pay enough to hire someone to take over his current responsibilities, or the new ones, so he has a better raw material stream AND more money. A machine shop randomly hopping into haircuts because its profitable doesn't make sense, but sometimes verticle integration does.

sfriedberg said:

I don't want to offend you, adammil1, but yes, that is both naive and offensive. It is not the desire, destiny or responsibility of every entrepeneur to become the omni-versal mega-tycoon or diversified venture capitalist. Businesses grown by seizing every random opportunity don't prosper (or even survive) for long.

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My tone wasn't so much to be offensive so much as it was to provoke some thought on behalf of both Toolmaker and anyone else who is reading this and is capable of producing the parts in question of this thread. I think toolmaker and many others including you would agree with me here that having a strong manufacturing industry in our country is in everyone's best interest. On the other hand companies with an attitude like the one Toolmaker is dealing with don't do anyone any favors, from what he has posted it would appear as though it is a matter of time before a better competitor comes along and pushes them out of the market.

I understand that neither Toolmaker or even his supplier have any obligation to make these things. However if the business that this lousy supplier competes in goes to China does it really matter much whether the reason for its departure was due to a poor supplier or the fact that those of this lousy companies customers who saw an opportunity sat there and did nothing? The business, the jobs, tax base and all the other benefits it provides would be gone either way.

Hopefully since it seems like Toolmaker has decided not to compete in this business he either helps someone who he knows who is eager to get into this business compete in it or he finds and supports a vendor who is able to better provide such services in this country and does great business with them instead.

The other thing is if I knew a whole lot more about his industry than I do I would probably be sending Toolmaker a PM right now asking to know a little more about this vendor, what niche he serves and if it is worth it for me to compete in or not? Hopefully a few people with more abilities in this department than I see this as a potential for an opportunity like I do and PM Toolmaker for more details to see if it is right for them.


Then the only other question I wonder about having read so many posts over the years on this site is it seems like the majority of business owners on this site prefer to stay very small even if they must pass up potentially huge opportunities to grow their business. How much of the reasons for this are due to the individual's personality and how much of it is are due to environmental factors, like not wanting to deal with added employment laws, lack of qualified personnel, added taxes and other things that may be better or worse depending on where in the world one lives?