At 05:12 PM 10/15/98 -0500, Dave Roesler wrote:
>In the new company for which I work (We are a flex circuit design and
>panelization service bureau) we will call our customers who send us data
>that is incorrect.  However, many manufacturers do not communicate back to
>their customer because they are afraid that they will be viewed as "hard to
>do business with".  When I call a designer who has given me incorrect or
>poor data, I typically get the answer "None of our other vendors had
>problems with our data".  If we are all to improve it is important that we
>be able to freely communicate back and forth regarding data without being
>viewed as difficult.

This problem can cut both ways. I remember one time in the pre-CAD days
when I was buying some films. I was using a photo shop which was really a
lithographer's service. But they had a camera capable of precision work,
and quite a few local companies were using them. Anyway, I noticed that my
reduce-to-dimension film was off by 20 mils or something like that, I do
remember that the error was significant. I called it to their attention.
Their response was that no other customers of theirs had complained, and
the implication was that I should take my business somewhere else; in fact
I think the man was more explicit: if you don't like our work, go somewhere
else. I did.

I did try to explain that not everyone checks the film carefully, simply
relying that the photographer and camera have done a accurate work, and
with many PC boards, even a percent error would not necessarily cause a
problem. And with others, it would be a total and very expensive disaster.
But it fell on deaf ears.

I think that company went out of business.

I get called by fabricators from time to time. Usually it is something
about a job which looks unusual, and they want to make sure that it is
correct. Usually, it is, but once in a while, they have caught a real mistake.

I appreciate the calls.

[log in to unmask]
Abdulrahman Lomax
P.O. Box 423
Sonoma, CA 95476

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