motion guru
Diamond
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2003
- Location
- Yacolt, WA
I hesitate to post this as this could lead to severe repercussions for me as a vendor - but sometimes I just don't give a rip.
I have just about reached the conclusion that this job is not looking like it is something that we should take, but thought I would provide an inside look on some stimulus dollar spending that is "helping put Americans back to work" . . .
We have bid a large machine tool that turns rail car wheels "on the car" . . . no need to pull the wheels, just roll onto the lathe, it lifts the car or locomotive and reprofiles the wheel.
Our first interest was building the entire machine. It would be a bit of a stretch for our facilities, but we have had similar sized machines that we have retrofitted in our shop so we felt we could handle it logistically and one of the reasons for the recent crane install is to make jobs like this more doable. In the past we have rented 30,000 lb capacity fork lifts and other equipment to make these kinds of jobs easier to handle. Not ideal, but when you start your business in a garage and have used self loading log trucks, tow trucks and all kinds of farmered equipment to get work done - this is just what it takes sometimes.
As it turns out - the train supplier is from Europe and needs to comply with "Purchase in America" constraints. So they want to source as much of the material as possible in the good ol USA. Of course everything on the machine is European design, (controls, hydraulics, motors, gears, screws, etc.)
We were told that the "iron" would be coming from their normal suppliers in Europe but that the CNC / controls needed to be UL / NEC / NFPA compliant and manufactured with domestically sourced components for ease of local service and support . . . so while we were disappointed in not getting a shot at the bigger piece of the pie - it is still a nice sized project with the controls for the turning centers, safety system, etc. Something we do well and in this economy, we need the work.
So we began work to estimate this project - requiring quite a bit of effort with some interpretation of foreign language documents, building up of BOM, getting quotes from vendors, etc. Then we meet with the customer and they give strict guidelines on converting to US Standards, changing electrical prints to ACAD from a French based cad system, having documented quality process, etc. I figure it cost about $10k to do all of this effort which included a couple of trips to view a similar installation in the US near their US offices.
We then bid the project (again after significant effort for clarification of items, etc.) - next the customer questions our scope of supply (natural thing to do when we all speak different languages - but we could tell they were surprised at the price and wanted to make sure we were providing what they were asking for).
Long story short - we were roughly double what they were expecting. And as far as we can tell, they shopped the project among a half dozen other vendors and found the same thing.
This resulted in a reduced scope of buying (components only) for most assemblies and reducing actual manufacturing to two medium sized control cabinets - just give them everything else loose in a box and they would install with their own labor. (I am highly doubtful they have a UL508a shop within which to do this so a 3rd party listing would be required for their scope of manufacture).
We re-quote with the reduced spec - and got this note this morning from the customer:
“Putting America Back to Work” with YOUR tax dollars . . . the only stimulus that will work effectively will be in the form of a big enema for Washington DC.
I have just about reached the conclusion that this job is not looking like it is something that we should take, but thought I would provide an inside look on some stimulus dollar spending that is "helping put Americans back to work" . . .
We have bid a large machine tool that turns rail car wheels "on the car" . . . no need to pull the wheels, just roll onto the lathe, it lifts the car or locomotive and reprofiles the wheel.
Our first interest was building the entire machine. It would be a bit of a stretch for our facilities, but we have had similar sized machines that we have retrofitted in our shop so we felt we could handle it logistically and one of the reasons for the recent crane install is to make jobs like this more doable. In the past we have rented 30,000 lb capacity fork lifts and other equipment to make these kinds of jobs easier to handle. Not ideal, but when you start your business in a garage and have used self loading log trucks, tow trucks and all kinds of farmered equipment to get work done - this is just what it takes sometimes.
As it turns out - the train supplier is from Europe and needs to comply with "Purchase in America" constraints. So they want to source as much of the material as possible in the good ol USA. Of course everything on the machine is European design, (controls, hydraulics, motors, gears, screws, etc.)
We were told that the "iron" would be coming from their normal suppliers in Europe but that the CNC / controls needed to be UL / NEC / NFPA compliant and manufactured with domestically sourced components for ease of local service and support . . . so while we were disappointed in not getting a shot at the bigger piece of the pie - it is still a nice sized project with the controls for the turning centers, safety system, etc. Something we do well and in this economy, we need the work.
So we began work to estimate this project - requiring quite a bit of effort with some interpretation of foreign language documents, building up of BOM, getting quotes from vendors, etc. Then we meet with the customer and they give strict guidelines on converting to US Standards, changing electrical prints to ACAD from a French based cad system, having documented quality process, etc. I figure it cost about $10k to do all of this effort which included a couple of trips to view a similar installation in the US near their US offices.
We then bid the project (again after significant effort for clarification of items, etc.) - next the customer questions our scope of supply (natural thing to do when we all speak different languages - but we could tell they were surprised at the price and wanted to make sure we were providing what they were asking for).
Long story short - we were roughly double what they were expecting. And as far as we can tell, they shopped the project among a half dozen other vendors and found the same thing.
This resulted in a reduced scope of buying (components only) for most assemblies and reducing actual manufacturing to two medium sized control cabinets - just give them everything else loose in a box and they would install with their own labor. (I am highly doubtful they have a UL508a shop within which to do this so a 3rd party listing would be required for their scope of manufacture).
We re-quote with the reduced spec - and got this note this morning from the customer:
Thank you very much for your time.
Tomorrow we will visit the last of the vendors in which we were interested.
Later we will be able to take a decision.
Although the price is not the only parameter we have to take into consideration, it´s not needed to say that it has a very high importance even more when the prices we are receiving to manufacture the cabinets are much more expensive than the prices we have in (insert country here) to manufacture the same product.
We are out of any budget or any estimation, so we are seriously thinking to buy material in (insert country here) and supply it to the final vendor.
Of course, this is not the way we would like to do it but we will if we don´t achieve reducing the prices.
With independence of, if you will never be the cheaper, as you commented in our meeting, we are still thinking that the adaptation to the American standards not require to many hours of NRE cost and that maybe it would be possible to obtain better prices from your (insert european mfg here) distributor.
if you consider it appropriate, please review your proposal once again in order to be more competitive in comparison with your competitors and let me know the final price you can offer to us.
Tomorrow we will visit the last of the vendors in which we were interested.
Later we will be able to take a decision.
Although the price is not the only parameter we have to take into consideration, it´s not needed to say that it has a very high importance even more when the prices we are receiving to manufacture the cabinets are much more expensive than the prices we have in (insert country here) to manufacture the same product.
We are out of any budget or any estimation, so we are seriously thinking to buy material in (insert country here) and supply it to the final vendor.
Of course, this is not the way we would like to do it but we will if we don´t achieve reducing the prices.
With independence of, if you will never be the cheaper, as you commented in our meeting, we are still thinking that the adaptation to the American standards not require to many hours of NRE cost and that maybe it would be possible to obtain better prices from your (insert european mfg here) distributor.
if you consider it appropriate, please review your proposal once again in order to be more competitive in comparison with your competitors and let me know the final price you can offer to us.
“Putting America Back to Work” with YOUR tax dollars . . . the only stimulus that will work effectively will be in the form of a big enema for Washington DC.