Job Shop Questions, Customer supplied Solids and/or Prints Survey

Job Shops, what is your mix.
What do your customers give you in order to make their parts?
(please indicate all that apply) 1 [ ] Supply prints only
2 [ ] Supply prints & usable solids
3 [ ] Supply prints & would supply Solids but your company doesn't have a means to import and use their solids
4 [ ] Supply prints and unreliable solids. Need to compare and check because supplied solids and prints don't always match.
4a [ ] print overrides solid, you edit solid to match drawing and send revision to customer 4b [ ] Solid overrides print, you mark up dwg for production 4c [ ] Error/s found, send package back to customer for rev. 4d [ ] too risky you (re)draw the solid from scratch 4e [ ] solid needs to be edited for machining, solid not programmed to mean
6 [ ] Supply Solids & engineering data for tolerances (no prints) so you can program and inspect parts directly from information contained in solid.
7 [ ] Supply Solids but depends on which engineer made them as to whether they are usable for machining or not.
++++++++++++++++
Exception to receiving part information from customer.
8 [ ] You manufacture standards and create your own solids.
(standards can be any industry standard like) (tool holders, fittings, fasteners, nuts, bolts)
9 [ ] You manufacture standards, no solids, straight to CAM
+++++++++++++
10 [ ] Other (none of the above, please specify)
What percentage of your work load for each item?
Tom

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:
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Hopefully money at some point <G>

On Mon, 19 May 2008 13:10:00 -0700, "John R. Carroll"
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LOL......
What is your mix?
Tom

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:
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Mostly CAD data with CTF drawings. I've done some product work in the last year and a half and that was done from sketches and hacked out samples.

wrote:
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LOL. Things ARE way better on your side of the fence.

On May 19, 1:08 pm, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:
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I like to get the solid model, and a toleranced print, without every single dimension of the whole part. I am on good terms with the engineers at pretty much all of my customers, so if I can get involved early in the product development stage, they are usually THRILLED to hear that you don't want a print with 5000 dimensions. I just tell them, "I'm going to machine the part to the model, just put your datums, tolerances, and hole callouts on the print."
I've had some parts where the engineer told me I saved him an entire weeks worth of work by not needing all the dimensions.

Joe788 wrote:
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This is us too. We prefer to be involved at the design level when possible. Working with minimally dimensioned drawings. Solid model w/Spec defining general tolerances. Just dimension the critical features, and save yourself the time dimensioning everything. I prefer to understand what we are making, so we can pay attention to the things they are most concerned about too.
ca

On May 19, 12:08 pm, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:
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We can take a concept and design a functional working part. Then we build it.
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number 2 is about 50%, with the next 40% being in-house design. The final 10% is how I experienced all those other things.
Later,
Charlie

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote in
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snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:
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Tom:
    This is going to be difficult to answer, since it's so variable.
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just ask them to send in a different format] Supply prints & would supply Solids but your company doesn't
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    We often generate CAM data/programs from prints, solids, napkins, verbal descriptions, sample parts (broken and otherwise), etc.
    We create solids when necessary.
    Probably 30% of our work is sent in one Solid format or another.
    Probably another 30% is prints (PDF's or real prints) only.
    Probably another 15% are parts we design as replacements or tooling created to meet the customer's needs.
    Probably another 10% are verbal/napkin parts.

wrote:
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Use CAM exclusively to draw part (solid or wireframe) & generate tool path.

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:
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Tom:
    "Most" of our programming is like that.
    I knew trying to split up our work into percentages was going to be hard. My other answers were related to CNC work (6 guys), but I left out the manual work (3 guys). Obviously an undimensioned solid model would be less than useless to them. So for them; prints, sample parts, napkins, and winging it, rule. LOL
    Good questions, but I'm just curious, what the purpose was for asking them?

wrote:
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BB,
I know my experiences, circle of people & shops I am familiar with and was wondering about others on their situations to see if my experiences are representative or skewed.
I hope more will respond, the larger the sample the better.
Tom

On Mon, 19 May 2008 13:08:22 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:
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If I'm lucky prints, many times just a bent, broken part they need copies of.
Solids = 0%
Then there's the French blue print with things like "bolt 3/8 x 100mm" on it. (dated 1965)
Then... there's the one customer where I actully do some OEM production type stuff for gave me a print drawn 1:0.473 scale. It was fully dimensioned but I had to redraw the whole thing as I could not rescale it and get things exact. I expect that was drawn by an older guy thinking old school, he resized it to fit a D size dwg.
Thank You, Randy
Remove 333 from email address to reply.

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Most of our work still comes in a form of printed drawings. Usually emailed or faxed (I hate those, can't read half of them) and some customers send their prints via mail. Recently we have been getting some solids and we realized that a lot of the customers have them if asked. One will send both (print and solid) but always points out that if there is any difference print is the law. This creates a problem as we have to compare them and on some complex parts it can take long time. Jerry