Companies managing shop's time

[laminar-flow]

I have run into this both as a contract engineer, and as a prototype machinist with my own shop. Several times in the past when in an engineering meeting, an engineer will say "I'm sending some of my prototype parts to machine shop X" and another engineer says "no, send it to shop Y so it does not slow down my parts at shop X". I said "should you also call shop X and Y's other customers and tell them not to send shop X and Y any work? I had to tell them that is not their position to manage the work at supplier shops. Ask if the shops if they can do it when you want it and let the shops decide if they can meet the schedule.

Now a customer is doing the same to me, trying to not send too much and in their words, "not to overload me so they can their stuff faster."

Any one else notice or have this happen?

 

[jccaclimber]

TLDR: Meet all of your commitments and your customers will come to trust you with more. Burn them once on timeline and they'll take it upon themselves to prevent it from happening again.


Yes, I have noticed this, and have done it myself. Most of the shops I've worked with over my career have frankly sucked at meeting their promised delivery dates, so this doesn't surprise me.
If I pay an unusually large expedite fee so a shop can drop someone else’s work and do mine, that's not my problem other than finding the money. If I pay the same expedite fee so that I can delay my co-worker's more important project over mine that's just bad business. If I tell the shop "delay the delivery date on project X so that you can get this new project Y done faster" they'll work with me, but be rightfully unhappy about the churn.

One of the projects I'm on right now I've split up across 3 shops for this very reason. It's a batch of a few dozen each of 3 different parts.
I have a great relationship with shop A, and the owner is very honest with me. He straight up told me that he could take on at most one of the 3 parts in my assembly and any more he would just be late on everything, so I only gave him the one part.
Shop B is near capacity on a different project of mine. I know this because they can't deliver parts for that project in the volume I want. They're also pretty honest with me and have told me they can't handle much unless I'm willing to accept a slight slow down on the other project, which I'm not. Result is that I only gave them one of the remaining 2 parts.
Shop C is pretty new to me. Not local and I don't really know them. They're a bit of a wildcard, and have also expressed that they're not confident they will hit the delivery time I requested, so they get the remaining part.

Turns out there aren't a ton of people in my network who want to do precision turned bits in under 1 week lead time (delivered, from first drawing). Not a surprise, it isn't really a reasonable ask and we're thankful for the shops we work with for being able to do this every now and then.

Here's the catch, most of the shops I've worked with over my career just say yes, and then promptly miss on both. When the delivery date passes and I ask where my parts are they proceed to blame me, because I've asked for so many things all at once! Part of it has been my fault, sometimes they've told me they can't hit it, my boss has told me to call back and demand better, and then they say yes and make up a date we both know they'll miss. In the end they're pissed because I'm calling about late parts, my boss is pissed because my project is late, and I'm pissed because I knew this was going to happen and my a**hole boss forced me into it.....again. Fortunately I no longer work for that boss and I don't have to buy parts from those shops, but you can see how this all happens.

 

[Bondo]

I had 1 customer who liked my quality of work, but the guy never seemed to rely on me so he always gave work to 2 different companies. One day, he came to me and said i need this done in an emergency. Foresight, I already knew this was coming 2 weeks ago. I told him that he should use the other company as he thought they were more reliable "at times" then my company. He said, I really need this done. I told him that I had this project I had to get done for another company, and then I could get to it. The project I was doing was actually for this customer, but I was doing it for the other fab company, because I knew how to build it, and they just said they could. They also got the job, at a higher price then I did, so I ended up making more money on the job anyways.

When my customer found out I was basically doing all the work anyways, he got mad at me. He got mad at the other company as well. Called a 3rd company to do the emergency. They botched the crap out of it. Called me back and said when could I fix it. I told him, well I don't want to infringe on having other companies do work as well, at the plant. He obviously knew what I was doing, but he was one of those people, do what I say, and not what I do, because I'm always right type of people.

In the end, nothing changed. He didn't trust me more or less or whatever. So it usually comes down to the individual person your dealing with. He may be a control freak deep inside and no matter what you do, you will never get more work. Or the next job may be the one where they trust you explicitly. It all comes down to 1 persons opinion usually.

 

[laminar-flow]

Has any other shops had this happen?

 

[broke]

Yes, sort of.

They don't try to tell me how to manage my time but they do talk amongst themselves about what projects get priority in our facility. I have a few projects that have swapped places of importance over the past few months. They would like to send us more work but I am unwilling to compromise the quality and oversight just to take more on and I don't want to grow while being dependent on one customer.

They have stayed in their lane when I tell them I need to prioritize other customer work.

I think it is appropriate for you to tell them you can manage your own time but they obviously have an interest in making sure you don't overpromise and underdeliver.

 

[plastikdreams]

We have the reverse problem, the guy upstairs doesn't want to send work to outside vendors so it overloads us, engineering pushes us to get jobs done then let's them sit for weeks at a time.

 

[jccaclimber]

We have the reverse problem, the guy upstairs doesn't want to send work to outside vendors so it overloads us, engineering pushes us to get jobs done then let's them sit for weeks at a time.

One of the best things I did at my last job was mandate that all of the engineers picked up their parts within 24 hours of them being ready, and preferably before the machinists came in the next day. If you want to let it sit on your own desk due to poor planning that's ok, but don't let it sit on their outgoing desk after asking for an expedite.

 

[john.k]

The best feeling in the world IMHO,is when a job is taken off you ,given to someone else ,and they stuff it up in a way that really hurts the company ,and goes straight to the top level management ........millenials are always talking about validation.........thats my idea of validation.

 

[Sam I]

One of the best things I did at my last job was mandate that all of the engineers picked up their parts within 24 hours of them being ready, and preferably before the machinists came in the next day. If you want to let it sit on your own desk due to poor planning that's ok, but don't let it sit on their outgoing desk after asking for an expedite.

It's never really bothered me when customers don't pick their parts up on time (apart from I don't like finished parts kicking around for ages). The invoice date is the day it's ready and as long as they're paying for the expedite I make a little extra off of their poor planning. The customer is happy that I went out of my way for them so I get more work in the future.

 

[jccaclimber]

I should add that it was an internal shop, so pickup was one flight of stairs away.

 

[604Pook]

When everything is made a top priority, nothing is a priority

Have many people, inside and outside, that think I am just waiting around for something to do

 

[laminar-flow]

And don't you hate it when someone says "we just want you to hurry up and start cutting metal". I had a fellow engineer say that to a machinist and I wished him luck getting his parts on time. Thankfully, no one has told me that in decades.

 

[Doug]

In a roundabout way I had a customer try to manage my time. We'd become friends over the years of our working together so I used him as a reference to snag a new customer. He gave me a bad reference. Our relationship was good enough I was comfortable asking why the bad reference.

He said he had way more work for us so he didn't want me to take on any more customers. Talking about it he understood perfectly why I didn't want him to dominate our workload. I didn't get that customer, but a bunch of others.

 

[DavidScott]

I had a chat with one of the owners of a company I do work for 2 days ago. He said he kept trying to have me make more parts for them but the other owner keeps saying I already have too much on my plate. I am about half busy with production so there is plenty of room for more. I certainly never expected to hear that from them.

 

[laminar-flow]

Doug and David... That is painful. Not sure how to deal with that. Maybe send the link to this thread...? Tell them you are selling your shop because you don't have enough work? Have a friend call them up and ask if they could not send you so much work in order to not delay their work...?

 

[Booze Daily]

Same thing happened to me with my biggest customer.

Had a meeting with the Pres. He tells me they use 2 shops. Mine and another. Both get about the same amount of work but the other shop is dropping the ball on quality and delivery. He wants to send it all to me but is afraid I can't handle that much more.

I asked him if his customers held back work to not overwhelm his shop. He didn't know what to say.
I told him send the work, my job is to figure out how to get it done, machines, manpower whatever.

We got the additional work.

 

[DavidScott]

I made sure he understands I am far from too busy. It was his idea to "go have a beer" and it was surprising how much we needed to clear up, and very constructive. They have been my customer for 29 years and I always leave with a check when I drop off parts, unless I don't want it yet.

 

[laminar-flow]

So, this apparently happens more than I thought. Now, if a customer wants to pay a monthly subscription fee for quick work from my shop... sort of like concierge medical, I wonder how much a company would pay? If you don't know what concierge medical is, it is basically paying a monthly fee for the medical service we used to have several decades ago. Which is sort of like how we all treat our customers now, right?

 

[jccaclimber]

So, this apparently happens more than I thought. Now, if a customer wants to pay a monthly subscription fee for quick work from my shop... sort of like concierge medical, I wonder how much a company would pay? If you don't know what concierge medical is, it is basically paying a monthly fee for the medical service we used to have several decades ago. Which is sort of like how we all treat our customers now, right?

So, what do I get for this fee?

 

[laminar-flow]

In concierge medical, one gets immediate access to doctors and nurses, sometimes same day appointments, etc. Kind of like what doctors provided decades ago, house visits, etc. With concierge medical services, you might even get a doctor to discuss more than one problem per visit! I imagine with a concierge machine shop, for a monthly fee, the customer would get to talk to the owner, manager, programmer, and maybe even the machinist on the first call or on a visit and not get charged for each call or visit. How about that for service. Wait, that is what we do now...