[5xmill]

Steve T has hit the nail on the head, quoting quickly, easily, accurately and professionally is the "A" point of getting the jobs. I am a trainer/programmer for a large machine tool company and a comment customers always make is, " we can buy a machine IF we get the contract". There should not be an "IF" when they have quoted correctly. I have seen what some of our customers use to quote and I am truely shocked, the items they forget to put on the quote or certain simple operations or costs at the end of the day cost them money. I also see customers want the cheapest quote but honestly guys we all know "you get what you pay for" and NO company doing
high accuracy and quality work will be in the $10-$20 mark. I have seen contracts go to other companies as their bid were alot lower, but we all do know that they cannot be making money, which means they will have to up their prices and then loose the contract. We are even wanting to buy the software for our sales guys to help a customer on quick cycle time calculation, machine cost, running cost and what he should be looking at per part comparing it to what he has calculated.

[universalfab]

Thats what we can all expect when there is competition of third world countries, times our tough. I guess the only people we can blame are the greedy ones looking to support third world countries by paying them pennies on the dollar and selling their garbage to us Americans and Canadians for boo-koo proffit, while totally destroying America and Canada and their economy/industry. They don't care that you have bills to pay and mouths to feed, it's a shame.