TO QUOTE OR NOT TO QUOTE?

摘要

Job shops that quote every request that comes in the door are shooting themselves in the foot. Regarding this, a tooling engineer recently told me, "It took me 12 years to learn what you just said." It's not an easy concept, and understandably so. It's difficult for a job shop not to answer every request for quote (RFQ) because it doesn't know when the next order will be won. Job shop owners and managers have that common fear of people being idle on the floor and expenses running ahead of revenues. If a shop takes on unprofitable work, managers often say, "At least it pays the light bill." Unfortunately, that rationale really doesn't work, and building a quote database will make this abundantly clear.