[Jim Estes]

If someone has a machine just sitting around gathering dust, why wouldn't they take on a job that might turn into something else later? There are a lot of ways to make such a simple part. The material cost could vary wildly also. I have a place nearby that I can get CRS and HRP steel by the pound dirt cheap. I have to go get it myself and it is in short lengths, but it is much cheaper that way. Labor costs can also vary. If you are only running a CNC, and depending on that machine to make you money, then maybe you need to make $50/hr for every hour it runs. But if you are only walking over to the machine every few minutes and removing parts and replacing steel, then do you really NEED to make $50 for every hour that it runs? If you can run 2 machines at once do you need to make $100/hr, 3 machines $150/hr? I believe this is how the labor cost is being reduced to almost nothing.

A good operator can keep at least 2 machines running, and with longer cycle times, maybe 3 or 4. With very complicated parts, you can do multiple setups and run with the lights out and the heat turned off, and come in the next morning and have finished parts waiting for you.

With all that being said, there is a limit to just how low you can go, and when you get busy, you can't turn down the good paying jobs for the charity work. I think that is why you see all these same small jobs coming back for re-quote over and over again. Also, some shops specialize in doing just this kind of work, they have the necessary tooling and equipment that is meant to do this kind of short-run work at dirt cheap prices.

That's just my $0.02 worth. I'm not trying to get in the middle of anything, just discussing the current state of the industry.

BTW: I didn't quote this job at all, it's too cheap for me, even with the lights turned off.

[Jim Estes]

I would really like to hear from the person who got this job. Not to find out the specific price, but to find out how it is that they can do the job so cheap and still make money. I'd be willing to bet that the material cost is almost nothing because the material was paid for by another customer, i.e cutoffs, or scrap, or nested within a cutout hole in a larger part on a waterjet. I would also guess that the labor is almost nothing because the operator will be multi-tasking, and is being paid below average wages.

I have been amazed at some of the ways that machininsts make money. I once saw a guy making stampings in 3/8 inch steel, with two bends and two holes punched, with a die that cost $100 to make. It wasn't close tolerance or high volume, but he made money on the job.

I have also seen a man make more money with a $1200 pantograph machine than he was making with the $100,00 Wire EDM or with the brand new $60,000 CNC mill sitting next to it. It still amazes me.

[Dualkit]

Anyone who charges less for a second or third machine is going to run into a lot of trouble if any of the business repeats, customers do not like price increases, even if they come from China. So if somebody follows the logic of an extra machine put on a operator lowers the price charged for the machine, you are basically following the reverse of how supply and demand normally works. So in that model the more machines that have work, the lower the average shop rate. Less machines running the higher the shop rate, you don't have to be a Harvard MBA, to see that won't work very well.
Parts like the one awarded here basically do not have an upside for someone who got their foot in the door by making them cheaply. The "usual" (notice I said "usual" so I am not singling out the OP) "more work to follow" will be another
part in the same class. Low quantity with 50% of retail pricing needed to guarantee the purchaser a profit. These appear to be simple aftermarket automobile parts, that market is saturated with a high number of sellers who take turns undercutting one another and copying each other's designs. No one in that market is ever going to sell 10,000 of something. So if you think someone is going to eventually ask you to make 10,000 at 50% of retail, it is not going to happen. I know this to be fact as I am a small shop who has maybe had 100 different customers in my lifetime, yet I get RFQ's from new people asking to quote to the exact same part I have made in the past for someone else. A lot of guys in this field get their ideas from others. They see an o2 bung being sold on a website for $7.50 then post an rfq here to see if they can make a profit selling them at $7.25. Everybody here seeing a potential new customer, run over little old ladies and children to quote a low next to nothing price because of the "potential" of future business. I will take a pass on quoting those type of jobs.

[Jim Estes]

Not only is the aftermarket automotive business saturated with high numbers of sellers, but the CNC machining market is also super-saturated with high numbers of small shops looking for that next customer that is going to help them make thier next payment on the $250,000 they have invested in equipment. I would love to make my shop rate for every man hour or machine hour, but the demand for my services just doesn't support it. I doubt there are many shops that can say that they get full price for every hour either.

This was a very small job that someone got with just a few clicks of a mouse. Whoever got this job didn't have to send a salesman to take a guy out to lunch every week for a year to get his foot in the door. Maybe it leads to some more work, maybe it doesn't, but whoever got the job probably is glad they did.

I don't know about Canada, but around here, there are probably 50 shops within 50 miles of here that could do this job. If this customer was close by to me, and I could go see his operation, I would gladly do the first few parts for free to get my foot in the door if I thought it might lead to more work. But it's hard to do that when you can't go and see the customer. Maybe there aren't many shops close by in Canada.

[Dualkit]

Gladly work for free? Our profession seems to sink lower and lower, by the day, when will it hit bottom? How many other professions will give away work? NONE!
I am sure once you prove yourself by working for FREE, the prospective customer will heap high paying simple work on you, NOT! I think I am going to be sick.

[universalfab]

Gladly work for free? Our profession seems to sink lower and lower, by the day, when will it hit bottom? How many other professions will give away work? NONE!
I am sure once you prove yourself by working for FREE, the prospective customer will heap high paying simple work on you, NOT! I think I am going to be sick.

Totally moronic to even consider doing anything for free. They way I get my foot in the door is doing things that nobody else can do, or wants to do or just can't do as good as I can. That modo of do it for free doesn't even work for the annoying neighbor guy.

[Jim Estes]

dualkit,

I don't know why you feel so strongly about what I do with my time and my money. If you don't like it don't give YOUR time or money away for free. I don't exactly know where you get this idea that YOUR profession has sunk to some low level if indignity.

What exactly do you classify as YOUR profession anyway?

The work we are discussing is taking a piece of steel and putting three holes in it and then cutting the OD out. How hard is that for YOUR profession to do? To make things even easier, whoever is doing this work will likely have a personal computer capable of millions of calculations a second, computer controlled machine capable of lightning rapid speeds and feeds, and all the operator really has to do is place the steel in a vice or fixture and close the jaw tight and hit it with a deadblow hammer and then hit a button.

As they say, it's so easy a caveman could do it (no offense to the cavemen of the forum).

Why does it bother you so much that someone is willing to put forth a little bit of work even if they aren't guaranteed a million dollar contract?

MY profession has been hiring salesmen to go around and spend thousand of dollars taking bigwigs out on business trips, and bribing government officials for sweetheart deals on defense contracts, and lobbying the government to levy tarrifs on imports so that union shops can compete, for generations. That's what is embarrasing about the profession that I am in.

Other profession give away work all the time, ever tasted a sample at the grocery store? How about test driving a car before you buy it? How about tooling, did you ever get a free endmill in the mail? Has a saleman for an industrial supply house ever given you a FREE gift? Other professions do it all the time, it's called MARKETING, and it comes on all forms.

The days of THE GENERAL WIDGET CO. cornering the market on widgets is over. No longer does the consumer have to shop for his widgets at the Widget & Roebuck or the J.C. Widget Co. These days they can shop at Widget-mart and Widgets-R-US.

No longer are the prices dictated by the United Widget Workers Union, these days anyone with a new widget design can place an ebay ad for pennies and reach billions of potential customers. Anyone with a widget design can even shop for new suppliers every day if they want, if doesn't cost anything to log onto a forum and post an RFQ for the WORLD'S LATEST AND GREATEST WONDER WIDGET. They can even eliminate having to warehouse their widgets, with LEAN WIDGET MANUFACTURING and ON-TIME WIDGETING. Shipping widgets is now even easier than ever, no longer do they need their own dedicated trucking company, they can just drop ship widgets direct from the manufacturer and never even see widgets.

With the advent of e-commerce, widget wanters can log onto a website and even design their own widget and have it delivered to their door in just a few days.

So Dualkit, is YOUR profession really sinking lower, or is your way of doing business just being left behind?

As I said before, I didn't want to get in middle of anything here, I was just commenting on the state of our industry today.

That's just my $0.01 (discounted rate) worth, you can take it or leave it.

Jim Estes

[Jim Estes]

Totally moronic to even consider doing anything for free. They way I get my foot in the door is doing things that nobody else can do, or wants to do or just can't do as good as I can. That modo of do it for free doesn't even work for the annoying neighbor guy.

This coming from the guy who has spent 10 times more time complaining about how much time he has wasted quoting a job that he know he isn't going to get in the first place.

As for the annoying neighbor guy, I'm going to have to deal with him one way or another, since he is my neighbor. Bill Gates was someone's neighbor once, so was Steve Jobs, and even that Dyson guy with the vacuum cleaner.

I choose to be an optomist rather than a pesimmist.

[levelzero]

Why do rfq's constantly turn into a debate on the state of the economy/industry? Quote or don't quote. Using my rfq to express your personal views does nothing except waste my time and ensure I will not be doing business with you (with the exception of people that have contributed positively). This is the second time I posted this rfq. The first time I lost patience with the drama and instead invested the time/money elsewhere in my business.

This time I found a shop that not only can provide me with what I need, but also understands my specific needs. These are automotive flanges and as such there is a lot of competition, especially from overseas. I could ordered these from china but that is not how I choose to run my business. I have made these in house and know how long it takes to make them with efficient processes on a smaller machine. In order for me to be competitive I not only have to be efficient but can only afford to work with shops that are also.

Price was a concern, but I did not go with the lowest bid. I went with the one that was best suited towards my needs and that was within my workable price range. After a brief phone conversation I not only ordered twice the amount originally requested, but similar quantities of a couple of other parts. Providing I am satisfied with the quality and turn around, I plan to place a similar order next month although of different parts.

Something people seem to forget is that quoting a rfq is essentially a job interview. If you don't act professional you don't get the job. Bellow are some of the reasons I rejected quotes:

- I specifically said I would be paying by Mastercard. One person quoted stating they did not take Mastercard, and then told me I would also have to cover their paypal fees.
- Single lines of text are not a quote. I'm not picky but if you can't be bothered to put a few sentences into the PM this does not encourage me to reply.
- Some quotes were written poorly. I'm not worried about grammar but if I can not understand you clearly, then I am not going to want to work with you.
- I frequent these forums and as such I have read posts by some of the members that quoted. Certain person(s) have an opinion(s) and attitude that I find self serving and quite frankly to be part of the problem with the so called state of our industry. At the end of the day I am spending my hard earned money, and if I think you're lazy or elitist then I'm not going to send it to you.

I think unfortunately a lot of business is chanced away from this forum due to the negative attitudes of a few people. I have friends that have posted rfq's here and ended up waiting months for me to make their parts due to the responses they received. They had no problem paying a fair price for the work, but they wanted a professional that would talk with them ..... not at them.

[Dualkit]

If reading through extra few posts is such a major impact, you must be so busy you can't spare an extra 3 minutes a day. A lot of these threads spark debate on the state of the economy, I think they are a good indicator of how manufacturing is doing, and I believe that should be of concern to anyone who is a machinist. As for not taking Mastercard, I would not find that shocking, as anyone who would be willing to make small quantities of something at half of retail is probably a hobby guy or just starting out. An established for profit shop with overhead cannot work that cheaply. I think a lot of animosity has been created as people drop down the food chain looking for work. Larger shops with full overhead are trying to take jobs from hobby guys and part timers. I am looking for some bright economic news for the likes of us, but I don't see it.
Still baffled by Jim's attitude that he equates trying to make a decent profit to stealing and that we all should bend over backwards to get next to nothing for our years of experience and investment in equipment. I cannot see one of our own minimizing what we do for a living.

[universalfab]

I've been in business for over 30 years and no I don't except credit cards and probabley never will. Pay pal fee money transfer fee!! Yeah if you do business with me your going to pay the fee to transfer me the money, specially you. By doing this job at the price I quoted you was a favor in itself zerobrains. If you make such great business partners zerobrains then why are you back on here looking for someone else to do this job? Because the last guy screwed you or told you to go screw yourself? And if china were to have given you a better deal zerobrains I'm sure you would have went with them.

Ok jim estes, sure they all are somebodys neighbor and guess what jim your a moron too. None of those guys you named are helping their neighbors out or their costumers who buy their garbage and put them where they are today. How about me jim I'm your neighbor too, wheres my handouts and favors for you to complete for me for no proffit? Don't worry jim I'll be kind enough to pay for the shipping. No jim I don't think you'll be doing anything for me. From what I gather from you intelligence you probably can do nothing of any value for me or anyone else, face it your as dumb as a gward and have no common sense. But hey I hope you like being tread on my shoes and your neighbors.

[Jim Estes]

universalfab,

You are on a FREE forum, getting the oportunity to quote these jobs for FREE, and there is thousands of posts with information about all sorts of topics for FREE. So yeah, someone is giving you their work for FREE. It's 2010, a business that refuses to accept any form of credit card is a dinosaur and we all know what happened to the dinosaurs.

BTW: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...959#post705959

Here is a thread where you talked about how you GIVE away material for free (Post#18) and how it's just you doing a favor for the customer (#21).

Have a great life u-fab!

Jim Estes

[universalfab]

Jim your an idiot this website is good, but there is something behind it all, it's called advertising you idiot. There is no one in this world who does anything for free and expects nothing from it. Actually I just remembered that I do accept credit cards through paypal, huh. Instead of having to pay a bill for being able to accept credit cards paypal charges me a fee for the money that I recieve. So what I do is add that 3.5% to the costumers bill and don't have to pay. I guess the free or discounted material makes up for it all and makes me a saint. Yet still my prices aren't near as low as everybody else's on here, how do they do it!! Jim go eat poop.

universalfab,

You are on a FREE forum, getting the oportunity to quote these jobs for FREE, and there is thousands of posts with information about all sorts of topics for FREE. So yeah, someone is giving you their work for FREE. It's 2010, a business that refuses to accept any form of credit card is a dinosaur and we all know what happened to the dinosaurs.

BTW: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...959#post705959

Here is a thread where you talked about how you GIVE away material for free (Post#18) and how it's just you doing a favor for the customer (#21).

Have a great life u-fab!

Jim Estes