Pricing Strategy

One of the current themes that we have here is a customer coming in with an over intolerance on their print. For a part that they want us to manufacture for them and that really comes back to good communication between the customer and ourselves. So we see something, we look at it, we don’t understand what the end process is for that part or the end assembly that it goes in. So we bring them in and try to really understand it and we tell them this is a part that you have a tolerance of + or – 2000. Which is achievable but it takes a level of, a degree of confidence in the machines and inspection to make sure we have that for a part that is going on a tractor.

So if we understand that and that tractor is allowed to have a + or – 10 tolerance there is less inspection processes that we have to put that part through. Which will in turn be a cheaper cost for the customer. I think if you can look at the part, if they can engineer it sometimes in different ways, it might be out of materials it doesn’t need to be. If it is a different grade you might be able to go to a different thickness of material because of what it is being used for, things like that.

If a customer comes to us with a part they want us to manufacture and they have some similar capabilities that we have where they put all the R&D into designing this part they probably have electronic files.  So instead of just supplying us hard prints, if they can supply us with all the stuff they have associated with that part 3D models, electronic files, DXFs is the preferred format that we have here.  That aids in the process of us being able to identify if we are going to run into a barrier anywhere through our manufacturing process.

Again I think a common theme is just good communication with the customer. Really understanding their process, getting in front of them or them getting in front of us to really talk one on one with what they expect from the product they are asking us to manufacture.