Anyone else here a 1st-4th tier auto supplier?

[lendaddy]

Just curious if there is any common ground in here. I would say we are virtually unknown to our ultimate customers (big 6) but companies like mine play a vital role. That being said, I want out! We cannot make any money in automotive anymore, atleast with the domestics. We are trying to branch into consumer products, but our sales team (me) sucks We have/ had a few good projects, but they are sporadic at best. Can anyone feel my pain? As a little side info we are maybe 20 employees now (from a high of 35) and do production tube cutoff/end finishing, CNC machining, production welding and electrobrazing. We also do vapor degreasing and wire straightening/ cut to length. I find less and less joy in my business every year due to the shrinking profit margins and high dollar equipment requirements. Also, the ISO/QS crap is mind numbing for a small company with varied and numerous processes.

Just had to vent while the boy and I watch some Saturday football.

[lendaddy]

Guess not, perhaps I would have more luck on a camaro board lol.

No one knows my pain, why couldn't I have just want to engineering school

[5axis]

Not long ago we were doing a large number of lighting mold packages. Then we cut back to just doing the reflector (the thing that holds the bulb and aims the beam) part of the package. And now I can't recall the last one I cut. The terms were/are horrible. A hamburger today for a payment almost a year after delivery = really bad cash flow and a good relation with the bank to float the job that long. I miss doing them as they were challenging and fun to cut. I doubt that we will ever do a lot of them again unless the relationship $$ changes.

This was fun and looked cool too. Those were the days.




last...ISO= E I E I O old mac donald la la la la what a frickin waste of resorces..

[lendaddy]

Ahh that makes me feel better, sorry. The whole thing just sucks. I remember when we would get good jobs out of the big three because we had a great reputation and fair pricing(for instance we made every 4X4 shift lever for every s-10/15 built between maybe '82-'86). Now I am off ALL the lists because we don't have all the QS requirements. It's just annoying.

The backstabbing and underhanded BS that goes on is pathetic. I once spent 3 months setting up a production plan and quote for a tier one. It was a HUGE job. They were giddy with my design and quote. So giddy they stole the whole deal and took it inhouse I have companies I have quoted over 200 jobs for and never gotten one! Why? Because they just use my quote for internal price justification. ARrrrgggghhhhhh

[project935]

Right now, I work for a Tier1-2 metalforming company - rollforming, stamping, cold-forming, etc. Seems that most of our business is won thru online auctions where you basically have a couple days to make a "best guess" at a crude design that is released and then the lowest bidder is the "winner." I say "winner" because once you're awarded the business you need to figure out how the hell you're going to do it for so little $. Sometimes the "better to have work than none" isn't always the way to go.

I just can't believe the balls on the Big3 with the the 5-15% paybacks they want ... or even better they just send you the PO where they've left that 5-15% off the bottom line just because they can.

Right now we're getting pimped because we won some bare-bones programs before the raw steel price hikes ... when you go back to the OEMs to collect the difference they're like "how is that my problem."

Don't even get me started on the whole ISO/QS/TS waste and repetition that goes on ...

I've had it with the domestic auto industry ... not sure I want to support their foolishness anymore.

I could go on for hours ... but my fingers will wear out.

I'm all for shoving good work peoples way if I know of it and who they are ... by all means let me know about ya.

[lendaddy]

Sounds like you've got it worse than me as you have to deal with them directly. As I said, we're small so the big boys would rather not know we exist (I'm sure you understand).

I do have some big boy customers but most of them are customers my father earned long before there were inherent "requirements" to become a supplier(again I'm sure you understand).

I do not mean to down play my company, but in rereading my posts it does sound that way. We are very good at what we do and we have been doing it for over 25 years. My father started our company shortly after returning from Vietnam. We originally did cultured marble (countertops/built in sinks, etc). I can't say for sure why he got out of that, but he did. Then he invented a pump for urea-formaldahyde insulation, that was huge. The company went gangbusters for about a year when the government decided that it caused cancer, end of that business. Consequently, the government was wrong and retracted it's ban, but it was too late they had crushed the industry through bad press.
Then while at a tool show in Chicago he bought a "cold-saw", a new German cutting machine for steel tubing and alas our current company was born.

We have done everything from production welding (s-10 shifters and ford v-6 vibration mounts were a couple big ones) to CNC machining to electrobrazing (air horns for Mack and Peterbilt) oh man, I could type all day. We have done just about everything that involves metal and some plastics.

Anyway, my father has semi-retired (he actually prefers to work on the floor and does so everyday) and I run the office. My brother does our CAD/engineering/ machine building/ robotics/ etc.. he is quite talented.

Wow what a ramble. But there ya go.

Oh, I saw you are in metal forming. Ever deal with Alofs Mfg? They went bankrupt on us about......damn must be 7 years or so ago and stuck us big. They were the company we did alot of production welding for so maybe there is some potential here?

[project935]

Even a moderatly large company (1200-1500 people) is hard to get on and stay on the "preferred supplier lists" - anything smaller than that and the business must be exceptional, cheap, or family related. Seems the only ones that do well have 3-5K people and somehow manage to outsource just about everything - that's how the Tier 2-4s stay in business I suppose.

Alofs doesn't ring a bell, but I've only been with the metalforming company for just over a year - prior to that I dealt mostly with chassis and powertrains. We claim to do a lot of robotic welding (just buy/install weld cells from other companies), but from what I've seen in the plants, a lot of it is done by hand because they haven't figured out how to run what they buy. PM me with your company info and I'll try to get you on our list - we're always sending out mfg engineers to check out new companies to deal with.

[Bleyseng]

You gotta come up with a idea.
Here a true story...
Friend of mine is a design engineer for a company and a job comes in to build a wallpaper machine where the wallpaper is raised. Over one million dollars is spent in R&D for this machine. Then the company that ordered the machine goes bankrupt..
The owner comes to my friend and says "You have to come up with a use for this wallpaper machine or we are finished".
My friend came up with using plastic sheeting instead of paper and injecting more air to make "Bubble wrap".
He was given a large chunk of stock from the owner and he retired worth a few million bucks.

You have to be better than the competition either cheaper,faster,better or have a great product. Too many products are being made elsewhere (China).
Geoff

[lendaddy]

Project935, you have a PM.

[Milu]

I'm a consultant to a couple of tier four companies.

I could write all night about the horror stories I come across, these are a couple of my favourites.

A product made to the approved drawings does not work when used in an assembley. Consequently it is rejected by the production qc and returned. My client redesigns on site with the tier two design office it and gets the new design appproved. The new design then gets returned because it does not match the drawing the qa function has. Another series of meetings and they agree to accept the redesigned piece. After 10,000 pieces supplied they get rejected as they no longer meet the specs on the original drawing which did not work, and according to their QA the revised design was only valid for the 10,000 pieces, at the same time that the good pieces were being returned their production director was screaming for the pieces his QA was sending back.

another:
524,000 pieces supplied ok since Jan this year, one was found without a fillet. We had to do a full 8D analysis on causes and remedial action - (yeah right)

another:
Client takes four months to look at a prototype then telephone on Tuesday to say they need 5000 on Friday for a production trial. (delivery time two days as it's international)

another:
Production director of client on phone screaming he wants pieces delivered immediately as the line is waiting. Unfortunately the design has not been finalised or approved by his design office (or priced).

And lets not forget their requiring cadmium based treatments as per their specs and then rejecting products treated with it as it's now against eco policies.

They ***** about QS/TS paperwork but obviously never look at it as they are the prime cause of nonconformance 90% of the time.

Their definition of:
productivity: Cheapest price.
productivity improvement: price reduction

How about the latest policy of placing orders for say 5000 pieces a week and then only paying (90 or 120 days or worse) AFTER they take it out of stock and use it.

The only solution is treat it like a game and try and find customers in other industries.