[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?