"BlueDude" wrote in message


Customers are King, they provide bread and butter on the table, unless
of course you prefer to go hungry :-).


Yes they are. Sometimes the King Customer writes silly specs though. Or
they are just not informed of certain limitations or material availability.

The supplier has an obligation to the customer to provide a product, but
also expertise. I've seen many a design that looked good on paper, but with
a little change, the cost cold be cut 10% or 50% because of tooling
consideration, machine utilization, material savings, etc.

You customer may be the best Widget maker in the world, but if he wants
some Burfls, and knows little of them, he may spec the wrong sizes. Instance
recently. Customer sent us a drawing of a part he wanted molded. Two parts
could be made at the same time and the final price was 90¢ each. We
suggested he cut the size by 1/2" and the part could be made for 60¢ each.
Thirty cents is not a lot of money, but when you buy 50,000 of them at a
time, it sure its. Reducing the parts size allows us to make 4 in the same
time, same labor, about the same utilities.

It is worth a phone call to find out if he a really needs the metric size.
As mentioned about the differences in some being so slight, it may just be a
matter of asking for a larger +/- in the specs.