Thread: Another shop lesson learned.....

Yet one more lesson to be learned........

Whenever you are the lowest bidder, and you suddenly find yourself with more work than you can handle, you can't find anyone dumb enough to farm the work out to without taking a huge bath on every bit of it.





Frank



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Originally Posted by rockfish

Yet one more lesson to be learned........

Whenever you are the lowest bidder, and you suddenly find yourself with more work than you can handle, you can't find anyone dumb enough to farm the work out to without taking a huge bath on every bit of it.





Frank



Home

That's when you know you just won the race to the bottom. If you're able to make the part for the price you quoted, and not starve doing it, you have a good handle on your bidding process and are running lean enough, at the moment. If your starving or can't hit the bid, ooops! That's the trickiest part of bidding, getting the part cheap enough to win the bid, but still make money on it.
Anybody can bid it cheap. Natural selection weeds out the ones who bid it too cheap.

I gave up on that ( read - learned my lesson ) years ago. When we started I had that same thought everyone inevitably does - price yourself just a little less expensive than everyone else and you'll get their work. After learning the hard way, I simply quote what I'm comfortable making for profit on it. If I get it, great. If I don't, there's others...

Yeah, and I get the feeling things are getting even more competitive around here, some are just gonna bid to keep the lights on. Although I haven't stopped in a few months I know some shops are getting deadly slow, lots of work leaving canada. Right now I've got 3weeks or stuff to do, after that its unknown, large project I bid on looks like isn't gonna come my way, but no biggy. Kinda looking forward to a bit of a slower time actually. Yay for low overhead

Originally Posted by rockfish

Yet one more lesson to be learned........

Whenever you are the lowest bidder, and you suddenly find yourself with more work than you can handle, you can't find anyone dumb enough to farm the work out to without taking a huge bath on every bit of it.





Frank



Home

Heck, post it up on here. might find somebody to be able to hit the price. that or fool enough.

As I had read in other previous threads, somebody might just have the right setup or ideas to do it cheaper. Some of the stuff I do, I could run 2 for cheaper per part than some would likely run 100 pcs or more.

What could it hurt.... except shipping?

Originally Posted by annoying

Heck, post it up on here......

Or is it too embarassing?? to let others know what you've done?

(yes I quoted myself cause I'm dumb like that)

Originally Posted by rockfish

Yet one more lesson to be learned........

Whenever you are the lowest bidder, and you suddenly find yourself with more work than you can handle, you can't find anyone dumb enough

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I should have worded this......you can't find anyone as dumb as yourself...........




Frank



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Originally Posted by rockfish

I should have worded this......you can't find anyone as dumb as yourself...........




Frank



Home

that is why I try to have that one friend that's kind of special.....

Think Im going to hell for that comment. .. Like I was NOT going before I posted that LOL

I've seen the shop I'm at quote rock bottom just to get the job in, even when we had more work than we could already handle. Then the stuff not considered during the bidding process become visible... Last one was suppose to be hassle free, but ended up requiring some customized tooling and 2 weeks spent scratching heads wondering how the heck this would work. All the while, the machine was sitting idle not doing other work that needed to be done. My eyes bulged when I found out how little they were charging for the part, and that was before the big mess became apparent. Folks, I think it's fair to say that manufacturing rates might be due for an uptick soon, less we run ourselves outta business.