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Date: 04 Aug 2006 20:51:52
From: butch burton
Subject: OT - Production Engineering Question
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There are several people in this group who have significant expertise
in the area of making things. Here is the problem - I am representing
a company which has introduced a fairly technical product manufactured
in Europe to the US market. They manufacture similiar units - glove
boxes - for other market segments. They have repeatedly missed
deadlines for products I have sold and now my clients are furious.
Here is the latest reason for a delay. They subcontract manufacture of
components and one component is engineering grade plastic boxes to be
used in the glove box. The subcontractors told the manufacturer they
could make these boxes and now because the dimensions are in metric
units - the subcontractors can not manufacture these units.
This sounds almost as lame as the cat eating a kids home work. What is
the big deal about converting centimeters to inches? The guy who came
up with this excuse has a PhD from a reputable institutiion.
There are some significant bucks riding on this thing as well as my
reputation. Tell me if you think this is a very lame excuse.
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Date: 04 Aug 2006 23:20:07
From: jim schulman
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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On 4 Aug 2006 20:51:52 -0700, "butch burton" <spacetrax@wi.rr.com >
wrote:
> ... The subcontractors told the manufacturer they
>could make these boxes and now because the dimensions are in metric
>units - the subcontractors can not manufacture these units.
>
>Tell me if you think this is a very lame excuse.
If I were making up this excuse, I'd say my numeircal control and/or
robots will only be programmed to the 1/32 inch, and that the
conversions from metric, rounded to the nearest 1/32, won't work to
the specified tolerances; i.e rounding to avoirdupois and tolerance
mismatches.
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Date: 05 Aug 2006 05:31:48
From: Barry Jarrett
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 23:20:07 -0500, jim schulman
<jim_schulman@ameritech.net > wrote:
>If I were making up this excuse, I'd say my numeircal control and/or
>robots will only be programmed to the 1/32 inch, and that the
>conversions from metric, rounded to the nearest 1/32, won't work to
>the specified tolerances; i.e rounding to avoirdupois and tolerance
>mismatches.
yeah, it sounds like they need better software, calculator, or stepper
motors.
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Date: 04 Aug 2006 21:17:50
From: daveb
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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That is an absurd excuse -- like something that would come out of NASA.
IMHO, you need to FIRE them.
There are millions of chinese who would be pleased to get the work.
Dave
butch burton wrote:
> There are several people in this group who have significant expertise
> in the area of making things. Here is the problem - I am representing
> a company which has introduced a fairly technical product manufactured
> in Europe to the US market. They manufacture similiar units - glove
> boxes - for other market segments. They have repeatedly missed
> deadlines for products I have sold and now my clients are furious.
>
> Here is the latest reason for a delay. They subcontract manufacture of
> components and one component is engineering grade plastic boxes to be
> used in the glove box. The subcontractors told the manufacturer they
> could make these boxes and now because the dimensions are in metric
> units - the subcontractors can not manufacture these units.
>
> This sounds almost as lame as the cat eating a kids home work. What is
> the big deal about converting centimeters to inches? The guy who came
> up with this excuse has a PhD from a reputable institutiion.
>
> There are some significant bucks riding on this thing as well as my
> reputation. Tell me if you think this is a very lame excuse.
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Date: 05 Aug 2006 09:20:06
From: Jack Denver
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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When they bid on the job did they have the drawings with metric units? If
they couldn't build it, why did they bid? You should sue their asses.
Yes it is lame, but you have to take their excuse away. Resend them the
dimensions in traditional (inch) units so they have to come up with some
other excuse. Whatever CAD program was used to create the drawings in the
1st place can spit out new drawings with different units with a few mouse
clicks.
This metric/inch thing is ridiculous - there was a $125 million Mars
mission that failed because one of the contractors confused metric with
traditional.
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric/
"butch burton" <spacetrax@wi.rr.com > wrote in message
news:1154749912.285694.57420@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> There are several people in this group who have significant expertise
> in the area of making things. Here is the problem - I am representing
> a company which has introduced a fairly technical product manufactured
> in Europe to the US market. They manufacture similiar units - glove
> boxes - for other market segments. They have repeatedly missed
> deadlines for products I have sold and now my clients are furious.
>
> Here is the latest reason for a delay. They subcontract manufacture of
> components and one component is engineering grade plastic boxes to be
> used in the glove box. The subcontractors told the manufacturer they
> could make these boxes and now because the dimensions are in metric
> units - the subcontractors can not manufacture these units.
>
> This sounds almost as lame as the cat eating a kids home work. What is
> the big deal about converting centimeters to inches? The guy who came
> up with this excuse has a PhD from a reputable institutiion.
>
> There are some significant bucks riding on this thing as well as my
> reputation. Tell me if you think this is a very lame excuse.
>
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Date: 05 Aug 2006 02:02:59
From:
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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I eat and breathe Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3 and Pro/Manufacture. Converting
model units takes about 2 seconds.
"butch burton" <spacetrax@wi.rr.com > wrote in message
news:1154749912.285694.57420@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> This sounds almost as lame as the cat eating a kids home work. What is
> the big deal about converting centimeters to inches? The guy who came
> up with this excuse has a PhD from a reputable institutiion.
>
> There are some significant bucks riding on this thing as well as my
> reputation. Tell me if you think this is a very lame excuse.
>
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Date: 05 Aug 2006 16:06:14
From: Rusty
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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How long is a piece of string? Its length doesn't change no matter how you
measure it; inches, mm or wundigits.
Tell them to convert the drawings to inches and get on with it!
Rusty
"butch burton" <spacetrax@wi.rr.com > wrote in message
news:1154749912.285694.57420@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> There are several people in this group who have significant expertise
> in the area of making things. Here is the problem - I am representing
> a company which has introduced a fairly technical product manufactured
> in Europe to the US market. They manufacture similiar units - glove
> boxes - for other market segments. They have repeatedly missed
> deadlines for products I have sold and now my clients are furious.
>
> Here is the latest reason for a delay. They subcontract manufacture of
> components and one component is engineering grade plastic boxes to be
> used in the glove box. The subcontractors told the manufacturer they
> could make these boxes and now because the dimensions are in metric
> units - the subcontractors can not manufacture these units.
>
> This sounds almost as lame as the cat eating a kids home work. What is
> the big deal about converting centimeters to inches? The guy who came
> up with this excuse has a PhD from a reputable institutiion.
>
> There are some significant bucks riding on this thing as well as my
> reputation. Tell me if you think this is a very lame excuse.
>
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Date: 05 Aug 2006 05:35:51
From: Barry Jarrett
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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On 4 Aug 2006 20:51:52 -0700, "butch burton" <spacetrax@wi.rr.com >
wrote:
>Here is the latest reason for a delay. They subcontract manufacture of
>components and one component is engineering grade plastic boxes to be
>used in the glove box. The subcontractors told the manufacturer they
>could make these boxes and now because the dimensions are in metric
>units - the subcontractors can not manufacture these units.
>
tell the manufacturer to re-dimension the drawings in inches, and get
on with the show.
fwiw, i've run into this sort of thing before, where the mere mention
of "metric" ruins any possibility of completion, simply because the
folks involved couldn't grasp 2.54cm/in.
--barry "spec the drawing in cyrillic"
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Date: 04 Aug 2006 21:26:59
From: Johnny
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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"butch burton" <spacetrax@wi.rr.com > wrote in message
news:1154749912.285694.57420@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
<snip/ >
> There are some significant bucks riding on this thing as well as my
> reputation. Tell me if you think this is a very lame excuse.
>
All the large US corporations I've worked for were already using metric so
they could compete internationally.
I believe NIST works mostly that way also.
It ain't difficult to convert cm to inches. I find it hard to believe that
that is their only reason. If so you have to wonder how they ever make any
money as they'd having trouble keeping books.
Sounds lame to me.
Surely they must want the work? Why would they have accpted the job in the
first place if they can't measure stuff? Weird.
Besides aren't they now in breach of contract?
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Date: 05 Aug 2006 13:58:59
From: Dan Bollinger
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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> Here is the latest reason for a delay. They subcontract manufacture of
> components and one component is engineering grade plastic boxes to be
> used in the glove box. The subcontractors told the manufacturer they
> could make these boxes and now because the dimensions are in metric
> units - the subcontractors can not manufacture these units.
>
> This sounds almost as lame as the cat eating a kids home work. What is
> the big deal about converting centimeters to inches? The guy who came
> up with this excuse has a PhD from a reputable institutiion.
It doesn't matter how easy it is to convert, nor their credentials, nor does it
matter what their reasoning might be, nor does it matter what their equipment
is, or QC is involved, they are all moot points. The only important point is
that they have told you they won't be making your part. If you have a contract
with them, then the next logical step is dealing with the breech of contract. If
not, then the next logical step is searching for a new supplier.
Dan, who owns and operates a mfgr. business
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Date: 05 Aug 2006 20:59:04
From: Robert Harmon
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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Go one step further next time & check your vendors out more carefully. My
bet is that this isn't the first time they've bitten off more that they
could swallow. Ask for references, check with the BBS where they're located,
do a credit check, and anything else that'll give you some insight into
their business practices. I was lucky, NASA requires all vendors & the
vendors vendors to be ISO/CMM certified so we had a pretty good list of
companies with a proven track record to choose from.
Just do your homework next time & put this one down as a lesson learned.
--
Robert (duck & cover) Harmon
http://tinyurl.com/pou2y
http://tinyurl.com/fkd6r
"Dan Bollinger" <danNObollinger@insightSPAMbb.com > wrote in message
> It doesn't matter how easy it is to convert, nor their credentials, nor
> does it matter what their reasoning might be, nor does it matter what
> their equipment is, or QC is involved, they are all moot points. The only
> important point is that they have told you they won't be making your part.
> If you have a contract with them, then the next logical step is dealing
> with the breech of contract. If not, then the next logical step is
> searching for a new supplier.
>
> Dan, who owns and operates a mfgr. business
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Date: 06 Aug 2006 02:11:43
From: HomeRoast@gmail.com
Subject: Re: OT - Production Engineering Question
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The first time was disappointing.
The second time was less surprising.
Why are you still in this arrangement for a third or subsequent time?
Perhaps you should just ask them nicely again (and again, and again,
etc.). After a few more times around the same mountain, you might be
ready for retirement.
I don't blame them for any more misses, it's the contractor who isn't
managing this one...
Brett
butch burton wrote:
> There are several people in this group who have significant expertise
> in the area of making things. Here is the problem - I am representing
> a company which has introduced a fairly technical product manufactured
> in Europe to the US market. They manufacture similiar units - glove
> boxes - for other market segments. They have repeatedly missed
> deadlines for products I have sold and now my clients are furious.
>
> Here is the latest reason for a delay. They subcontract manufacture of
> components and one component is engineering grade plastic boxes to be
> used in the glove box. The subcontractors told the manufacturer they
> could make these boxes and now because the dimensions are in metric
> units - the subcontractors can not manufacture these units.
>
> This sounds almost as lame as the cat eating a kids home work. What is
> the big deal about converting centimeters to inches? The guy who came
> up with this excuse has a PhD from a reputable institutiion.
>
> There are some significant bucks riding on this thing as well as my
> reputation. Tell me if you think this is a very lame excuse.
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