mfg quote

[MBG]

Does anybody on here use it?

[JPWMachining]

I signed up for the demo to look at some of the RFQ's that were listed but you still cant see the real prints. I could not find the cost anywhere on the web site. But three days later a rep called and gave my the annual membership fee price of 4875.00 a year. I told him that I was an one man operation and the price was way to high for me. He didnt seem to care for the size of the company he said this is the price. He did say you will receive 1000 or so RFQ's a month but that does not me you will get any work. So you could spend alot of time quoteing for no return. He also would not tell me how many machine shop could be quoteing any given job so I figured that means there is a lot of shops for any given RFQ. So how does a rfq get picked if the customer gets say 500 quotes or more? It is to bad MFGQuote doesnt give you a 30 day trial and take some commision to let you try it. So thats what I know and I hope this helps.

Joe

[cadman]

There have been at least a couple threads here about MFQ and a few on www.mmsonline.com . I did subscribe a few years back and needless to say, was very, very disappointed. I have yet to hear anything very positive about MFQ since, other than the subscription fee has moved in that direction.

CM

[joe1970]

scam... scam.... scam..nothing good to say about it was a member when I first started this insane business of my own shop . spend alot of money to become a member. Quoted lots of jobs didn't get one. Stayed local and did well..
my opinion is guys looking for parts for material cost...... Not bitter just smarter...

[little bubba]

If your looking for jobs, don't waste your time, its a joke. We tried it, and you spend more time quoting than anything else. You need to seriously prostitute yourself to get a job. After we figured that out we used it to our advantage, we would farm jobs out on MFG quote, which is free by the way. Some of the prices that came in were so low that I would dismiss them right away. I really don't think that someone can make 125 2-56 screws 1.25" long, with safety wire holes out of 303 for $16.00 total, and supply the material.

Your not going to establish any longterm relationships with people putting up RFQs, they are on there just for a cheap price and will return there for a cheap price instead of coming back to you. We only subbed a couple of jobs on their as the quality was sub par, I don't think they were bad shops just by the time they got around to making our parts, they were a little POd at the low price and with the whole MFGquote expierience in general.

Take that $4800 dollars and spend it on a couple of beers for the purchasers from a local company. When there are 1000 people quoting on the same job, what are your chances, slim to none. Visit a couple of local shops, I'm swamped right now and would love to have a couple of local HSMs take a bit of a load off of me.

[MBG]

thanks a lot ACTUALLY wnat I wanted is if somebody bought a membership I could use it heheh

[MBG]

Originally Posted by little bubba If your looking for jobs, don't waste your time, its a joke. We tried it, and you spend more time quoting than anything else. You need to seriously prostitute yourself to get a job. After we figured that out we used it to our advantage, we would farm jobs out on MFG quote, which is free by the way. Some of the prices that came in were so low that I would dismiss them right away. I really don't think that someone can make 125 2-56 screws 1.25" long, with safety wire holes out of 303 for $16.00 total, and supply the material. Your not going to establish any longterm relationships with people putting up RFQs, they are on there just for a cheap price and will return there for a cheap price instead of coming back to you. We only subbed a couple of jobs on their as the quality was sub par, I don't think they were bad shops just by the time they got around to making our parts, they were a little POd at the low price and with the whole MFGquote expierience in general. Take that $4800 dollars and spend it on a couple of beers for the purchasers from a local company. When there are 1000 people quoting on the same job, what are your chances, slim to none. Visit a couple of local shops, I'm swamped right now and would love to have a couple of local HSMs take a bit of a load off of me.

I pmed you..

[MBG]

so if you guys so no mfg quote. Then what do use?

[MBG]

this mfg just looks soo tempting hah... I could be bidding for these jobs now..

[DLMACHINE]

I am a paid user and I like the service.There are many users looking for cheap parts. You have to weed them out.I have been awarded 20% of the jobs I quoted and 75% of those have repeated with larger orders.The service isn't for everyone, I'll grant you that. However it does work if you work it right.

[little bubba]

How do we get jobs, basically the same way that a vacuum cleaner salesman sells vacuum cleaners, and the way a mechanic or a restaurant keeps you coming back. First you need to find your customers, then sell your services to them. Like I've said before $4800 dollars a year buys a lot of lunches and beers. I've been lucky, in my position I've never had to go get customers, tried it for a bit with the MFGquote thing and that is not the ticket, unless you like spending money to quote, for the one month we actually did it, I spent about 60 hours and never even came close to getting a job, I did get some nasty replies about how dare I offend them by quoting so high, well you know, I at least have to cover the material cost. When the RFQ ended they would let you know where you stood and we were always at or a little under the median, which to me says we would have been competitive if there weren't 6 million prostitute machinists bidding on the same job.

Anyways your going to have to get to know the buyers in your area. Companies to look for are ones that do government contracts, but don't actually make anything themselves. I'm in a small city in an isolated area and there are 4 that I know of that do just that. The cool thing is they have dedicated purchasers, they also have sales people that will send you piles and piles of quotes for jobs they don't have yet(not so cool, but you get to quote). All the ones I've dealt with buy the material and deal with all the outside processes, it gives them better control of all the certifications. You can make some really good money with some of these companies with quick turnaround, (you do get to charge more for this), just two weeks ago we made a quick $300 bucks deburring two holes on 150 parts, they needed them in the morning to ship so there was no time to ship them across the country and back to shop that made them, it took a part timer 2 hours. Happy me, happy customer.
You just have to get your name out there, get some business cards(not cheap looking ones) and a tax number, so that you can be paid properly. A cage code wouldn't hurt if you get into doing work for government contractors.

I suggest the government contractors because 90% of the time it is low quantity/high dollar, lots of ones and twos, 50s 100s very rarely over 5K, and not a lot of repeat work so they don't have "established" vendors for a part.
A lot of the work is fun too, its cool to be watching a race on sunday and seeing a B2 flyover and thinking theres about 20 parts on that plane that I made.
Medium size shops would be a good place to look, don't go to any place that has a big ad in the yellow pages because they are doing the same thing you are, looking for work, I've had many arguments with idiots fromt he phone book people trying to explain how an ad in the yellow pages will increase my business, no it won't, it will increase the time I have to spend on the phone explaining to Joe Schmoe that I can not make it cheaper than Advanced Adaptors.

Now that you have a job, how do you keep them coming back, make the parts good, and make them ontime. QC inspectors like shiny things, deburred things and they must like oily and dirty things because they feel the need to touch and inspect them until they find something to reject them for(usually BS), but clean deburred parts keep QC people happy. When there is a problem, QC usually goes straight to the purchasing agent so that they can come and wring your neck, this makes more work for the buyer, less work for you. Others things, once in a while you will have a part that you kind of messed up but is otherwise functional, let QC know, talk to them, it works.

Good luck, breaking in will be the hardest part, but once your there, it should be pretty easy to maintain and/or increase.

[cubicfish]

I use mfgquote quite frequently for buying parts. Mostly I need simple laser cut parts or small machined aluminum fixtures. Its interesting to see the range of prices you get. I had one part (milled aluminum) that got quotes ranging from $30 to $500+. The system definitly allows for bargain shopping due to the competition. At the same time, I now work directly with two companies on a recurring basis that quoted parts for me on mfgquote.