Procurement

I don't know what's considered usual, but being able to say "So-and-so down the street can get this to me for half of what you're asking" certainly works for me.

Of course, when I get that sort of bargaining chip tossed in front of me, my response is usually along the lines of "Well, I'm happy for you. When you find it doesn't work, I'll make you something that _does_ work for this here quoted amount."

Vendors are usually eager to know what other vendors are charging; I certainly am. I can't see anything unethical about telling them, especially for catalog items. They can always find out anyhow; I have spies do it for me.

It might be tackey to work with someone on something custom, and then shop the requirement around. But unless there's an NDA or equivalent, it's not illegal.

What really annoys me - happened again yesterday - is when vendors respond to an RFQ with "how much do you want to pay"?

I've done that. A year later they came back to ask me to fix their problem. I raised my price... inflation, you know >:-} ...Jim Thompson

That's kind of a gray area -- in your case if you're doing something that's based on a regular product, with modifications, then it'd be hard to get your foot in the door without helping the customer to refine their desires.

I'm in a different boat, which means that if a customer comes to me with insufficient requirements and insists on a firm fixed price, I just tell them that I won't bid until the requirements are detailed enough, and I give them a price or an hourly rate to do _that_ work.

(I usually try to talk such customers out of a firm-fixed bid: if they don't know what they want, then even with set requirements they'll change their minds about the requirements as soon as they see the first working example. When they do -- and I tell them this -- I'm going to say "yes, we can change that -- let me bid the NEW price!")

Why should you be annoyed when a potential vendor announces up front that they want to either soak you for as much as they can get, or purposely underbid a project and deliver crap? I should think you'd like getting the clear warning!

A lot of the Chinese stuff is so cheap that no US company could survive at 3x the price. And I suppose most won't.

We don't use many Chinese parts, especially not semiconductors. We do buy some nice machined SMB connectors that are probably/have to be made in China, for about 1/3 the price of the AMP parts (which are made in Mexico, and have problems.)

A lot of semiconductors are actually fabbed in Taiwan or wherever, but I trust that Xilinx or whoever is riding herd on quality.

Don't! Never give them the competitor's actual price (unless it's in DigiKey). I'll give them a target but never the quoted prices.

Purchasing would string me up if I gave our costs to anyone. The funny part (I was raised in IBM, too) is that I do deal with costs and often talk to the suppliers about their prices. When I'm done with them, purchasing will squeeze them again, though I've been doing a pretty good job of it (and getting lunch, too). ;-)

Then you would starve, if we were your customer. If you're out in left field, there isn't much reason to consider your parts.

Dangle the carrot in front of them, and if they can beat so and so's price you have the order. Just don't screw them and go somewhere else, it will bite you later on.

Cheers

If you show supplier B's quote to supplier A, they'll assume you'll do likewise when the tables are turned.

If they think it's going to be a Dutch auction, they may not give you as good a price starting off next time, and that wastes everyone's time.

There may be times when it is appropriate, but I think those times should be rare. I'd rather they give me their 'best' price up front and if they lose the order this time, try harder next time (and reward the supplier who isn't screwing around trying to get a bit more).

This is for non-life-and-death situations and moderate quantities- GM is going to have more cutthroat policies, and if the price of an item is make-or-break for the viability of a project, you do what you have to.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

If some guy down the street is doing the job for half the price I can come in at, he's doing it for way less than half the quality.

If quality doesn't matter to you, then you and I don't need to do business together, no matter who's buying.

I find that a very funny comment. I think you would be hard pressed to find a better fab than the major Taiwanese companies like TSMC. Xilinx has to ride herd on them??? As if!

It has been a long time since the US was the center of semiconductor fabrication.

hmmm - When the problem is systemic, the quoter is powerless to do anything about it. Here's what I mean, and I imagine this is relevant. Any organization has at least 100% over head - and most bean counters would laugh at 100, quoting 200. (Uncle Sam runs at 500). What that means is just reselling something triples the price.

I'm also looking at the contrast between Ali Baba and ebay. well, you should really use the Thomas Catalog, which is the closest functional parallel. Is it possible little Jack Ma created something which is totally missing from the US? The usual narrative is that the US can't compete because labor is cheaper in China. But is it possible the Chinese are winning because they have a better system?

I'm afraid your questioning of prices is like asking a zombie where the beach is. People are trapped in the system they operate in. My 2 cents, er 2 bitcoins worth.

The Alibaba website itself is not comparable to eBay, it's primarily B2B. I think a lot of people are confused by this. They own Tmall and taobao, which are retail sites.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

The Alibaba website itself is not comparable to eBay, it's primarily B2B. I think a lot of people are confused by this. They own Tmall and Taobao, which are wildly sucessful B2C retail sites.

Lots of nice stuff like NSA-free Huawei phones for sale, along with a ton of clothes and other (mostly) girl-stuff. Chinese ex-pats seem to be always browsing the site.

I would not say that the Chinese are "winning", they're actually quite far from even catching up on a per-capita basis. They're winning the fight against their own poverty, with 600,000,000+ people lifted out of poverty in the last 30 years- nothing like that has happend in human history.

By that token, you could say that Europe "won" because they are now the biggest and richest market in the world, but their per-capita GDP lags somewhat, and really, in both cases, it's more of a return to the natural scheme of things after a bad 100 years (Europe) and 200 years (China). Even the Russian market has been growing at 20% per year recently (but there are a lot fewer Russians).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Or have a look at

joe

You're making shit up.

You're wrong, of course. Price and quality are only tangentially related.

Absolutely.

I agree 100%, however some suppliers are harder to train than others. ;-) Some just aren't set up to do a decent job on quotes - too much bureaucracy. Some have a very steep piece price curve, with others will quote a flat price or at least a much flatter curve. The latter has experience that shows that a good price up-front will encourage use, even in smaller production programs, and then expand to others. One is fighting for something in between but keeps quoting from the "sheet", which *really* distorts the curve.

Yes, it depends on how hungry the supplier is (and of course how much purchasing power you have).

Xilinx would be crazy to not be heavily involved in the process, and to not do serious performance and quality inspection. Even the best fabs have problems now and then.

Intel develops its processes in their prime fabs in Oregon, and then does an amazingly rigid CE! (Copy Exact!) dispersion to other fabs around the world, including some in the USA.

The CE! concept is that *everything* is an exact copy of the Oregon fab. Pipes, outlets, doors, lighting, machine placement, processes, everything. If you are plopped down in any fab, anywhere in the world, you're not supposed to be able to tell the difference.

There's lots of semiconductor design, and process development, done in the USA. And a lot of process equipment is fabricated here. The actual fabs are all over the world, which makes sense.

USA manufacturing in general seems to be picking up some lately. Maybe the outsourcing craziness has peaked.

Some nice big cherries (che li zi) from the American Pacific Northwest (mei guo xi bei)* at Y65 (the equivalent of USD $10.40) for a kg.

• literally 'America West North'

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany