Steve, the statement about purchasing people rings true. Back in the
80's when I ran my own CM shop, my present company was a customer. They
refused turnkey, instead consigning parts to us - a disaster. One time
I received circuit boards with no solder mask or silk screen on them.
When I questioned it, I was told that the buyer had gotten a lower price
on the boards by eliminating them. I screamed over the assembly
difficulties (non auto-insertable design) and the issues with touch up
and rework. I was told to adjust the final price.
Why? The buyers were given bonuses on how low they could drive the cost
of parts. So, if the order was for 50 pieces of something and a key
component was $1 each in quantity of 50, but you could get them for .10
at a 1,000 quantity, they bought the 1,000. 50 were consigned to the
appropriate CM and the rest put on the shelf. The buyer got a nice pat
on the back.
After I sold my interest in my outfit, I ended up coming to work here.
In the first month I was with Nielsen, they scrapped out in excess of
$4M in excess inventory. They did sell all the silicon for ten cents on
the dollar, but the broker buying it never paid them, so they were out
another $215K, all in 1990 dollars. I asked why we were not running MRP
and was told it was unnecessary.
Twenty years later, I've finally been able to push addition of a system,
so our new handlers aren't stupid, just somewhat misguided.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steven Creswick
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2010 8:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Contract PCB Design Services T&C
Inge,
Gee! I had all but forgotten about that....
We had a very good team there at CTS Microelectronics! I was glad to be
part of it for 20 years. We are scattered to the four winds.
You know, in many cases it simply boils down to, "you get what you pay
for".
If it costs very little ... many times it is worth very little. How
many times have we each seen that when we buy a low cost widget at the
store, only to have it fail - practically before we even get it home..?
So may Purchasing people are beaten over the head about cost reduction,
yet no one allows them to monitor the overall cost of quality impact of
their actions - if that info could be collected. We used to have the
old saying, "Stuff rolls down hill" [It was not 'stuff', but had the
same first letter].
Steve Creswick
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevencreswick
-----Original Message-----Sent: Monday, April 12, 2010 3:29 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Contract PCB Design Services T&C
1. I represent a medium sized company, and as such, we have of course
our own commerce jurists, which are familiar with laws and regulations
and all such stuff. In our purchase orders we refer to common purchasing
rules as well as to our own ones. To do business without such rules
would be suicide.
2. No, we don't pay anything if contracts are not written. Many
companies count on coming affairs, and they do many a times a lot of job
with own spent money to meet our requirements, such as making
preliminary drawings, present ideas for testing, make prototypes, make
protocols and a lot more that is necessary for a coming agreement. They
are well aware that there may
be no business at all. Ourselves, we have sometimes spent lots of money
that
way, and a competitor got the job. That's the way the whole world works.
It seems as you are asking what to do when you want drop off from a
level when letter of interest is already signed, and the process has
advance to contract. I don't quite understand what you expect. In the
later case you have broken a contract, and I'm sure your counterpart
got the paragraph tools to demand a sum of money from you, often with
several levels of 'fee'
as you call it. I've been into some such situations, sometimes a
nightmare, when both parties throw paragraphs on each other. If you do
not want risk own money, it's advisable to have your own contract
manager, or hire a consultant for creating the necessary documentation.
The time is gone when you went home after a handshake.
When it comes to the details specifically for PWBs, I think there is
no 'PWB Purchasing & Contracting Handbook' which you can just copy. If
there is, I would like to see it.
Finally, I've learned that for each paragraph you bring to your
supplier's desk, he hits the + button for the pricelist that you will
get. A skilled purchaser can feel when it's time to stop.
( Reminds me of such a business we had going on with CTS. Our guys had
written a centimeter thick bunch of papers with lots of conditions and
quality requirements and so on. One of CTS' guys called me and said '
Sir, are you trying to kill your own company? ' It was Steven
Creswick. Hope he has forgotten our clumsyness and lack of
professionality at that time. My
boss made a very wrong decision when CTS aquestioned our conditions. He
went to a smaller company, which ones did not critisize at all, but
promised
it would be a piece of a cake to make our thickfilm hybrid package. It
was the most advanced one at that time, and the little company in X in
the US got a hell. And so did we. While CTS had made, not quite so
advanced, but not far from. I still have a CTS package, that Steven
smuggled into my pocket for demonstration. If his boss had known....but
on the other hand, I did not demonstrate it at my company. Actually I
was regardes as obstinate and a critic, and was excluded from that
project. Erudition: use all your engineering capability..and then allow
the use of common sense's red pen. )
/Inge
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Crowell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2010 8:03 PM
Subject: Re: [TN] Contract PCB Design Services T&C
> If he was good and is still available, your best bet is probably to
hire
> your old employee as a contractor; at double the rate if you're lucky.
>
> Gary
>
> On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 7:11 AM, Croslin, Robert
> <[log in to unmask]
>> wrote:
>
>> Dear Technetters,
>>
>> In my company's desire to save costs, the decision was made to lay
off
>> our own PCB designer and contract PCB design services to external
design
>> firms. So far, it's working, but not as well as we had hoped. The
>> engineering staff realizes that when you dump an amazingly capable
>> designer willing to work all-nighters and weekends without even being
>> asked, something is lost, but Sr. Management does not.
>>
>> 1. I'm being asked to provide a set of standard terms and conditions
for
>> such arrangements. Do any of you who use or provide contract PCB
design
>> services have a standard agreement you use?
>>
>> 2. Next, if when using a contract house and you discover they're not
the
>> right ones for that particular design for some reason, and mutually
>> choose to move it to a more specialized firm, do you simply not pay
>> anything to the original firm, even though they did build libraries
and
>> do placement and original routing, or do you negotiate a fee for time
>> spent to date?
>>
>> I contend that these are services similar to what you receive at a
>> doctor or dentist who "practice" their arts using learned skills and
>> that it's simply not an exact science. Am I wrong here?
>>
>> Bob Croslin
>> The Nielsen Company
>>
>>
>
>> ----------------------------------------------
>
> Gary A. Crowell Sr., P.E., CID+
>> www.linkedin.com/in/garyacrowellsr
>>
>
>
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