Customer Visits

[cdlenterprises]

Some companies like to visit a potential vendor before sending business to a new shop. By new I mean that they have never done business with a company before. Just curious, but how many of you guys with professional(I use that term very loosely ) shops have had your customers visit your shop? What criteria was most important to the visiting company in making a decision?

[Metal Head]

I'm usually one of those guys who are visiting so I can offer just a couple of things that are important to me when I do visit.

1. Does the company look like they have the ability to do the job or are they stretching.

2. Do they look like they will be in business for a while.

3. Do they do work for my competition. (sometimes this is good, sometimes bad)

4. Does it look like my job will be a good fit for the company or will our job get lost (we usually have small jobs).

[miljnor]

Clean and organized as well.

When I was a job shop virtually all of my customers came by, and if you are messy and disorganized then the chance of a well made and accurate is generally touch and go.

[Geof]

It almost goes without saying; clean organised shop, if you can swing it provide standard coats or coveralls for employees, this looks much more professional. Also have an office, either separate from the shop or partially separated in a corner. Something more or less organised but not spotless; you don't want to give the impression you have no work. Photographs on the wall of past projects, some examples maybe being used as paperweights on the desk. None of the examples of a broken off mill welded into a part. An organised job board showing scheduling of current jobs. I good chair for the customer to sit down after walking through the shop.

In short present an image to be proud of and which would instil a sense of confidence in you if the situation was reversed.

[holbieone]

we have shop inspection all the time

look up the iso9001 guide lines

costumers like to see a clean organized shop

jobs must be clearly identifiable

all machines running a part are tagged with the part number and job number(no other tags on the machine)

all stock is tagged with a job number and is identifiable (they like see that there parts are being made from the correct stock)

make sure there is no loose papers or prints hanging around (they also like to see that the parts are being made from the correct print)

from the time there job comes into your shop and until it leaves your shop there is 100% traceability of all stock, print ,tools (all things that have to do with that job)

they also like to see inspection stickers on the measuring devices ,micrometers ,calipers ,scales etc

and an inspection station is also nice to show you customer

[holbieone]

one thing you can do if you have a lot of shop stock is put a hold tag on it (as well as new stock that comes in your door)

leave the hold tag on until you have a job packet to put on the stock

[miljnor]

one thing to be careful of is to steer customers away from sensitive items.

I had one customer walk in a pick up a just finished magnesium part, and this particular part couldn't have any fingerprints on it, and if your familiar with magnesium it etches from the acid on your fingers almost instantly.

Then another time I had one bone head pick up a fragile part that took about 4 hours in the mill to machine, then proceed to drop it!

fortunately both were very minor customers and Me "loosing it" and yelling at them wasn't a big loss.