what's with big companies?

This happens over and over:

Some big or pretty-big company contacts us to do a controller of some sort. It usually involves something their engineers don't want to do, precision measurement or picosecond timing or something. The requirement is a panic: they absolutely have to have it in six weeks, two months, three months, something impossible like that. So we work overtime to give them a best-effort proposal.

Then nothing. Nothing for six months, a year, even more. Then, after we'd written them off, they're back, still in a "we must have this in three months" panic. We say OK, we'll do it, cut a purchase order. They then *don't cut a PO*, but start the clock on our ship date. Even if we quoted shipment "ARO".

The other thing they'll do is expect 3 months design/test/firmware/ship, but not answer critical questions or make decisions for weeks. And some of the decisions they make are clearly politically driven, even when they are technically wrong and impact the project negatively.

Bizarre.

Since these are usually big, very profitable companies, they must possess some mysterious economy of scale that lets then make big bucks but still run projects this way. I wish I could do that.

John

Reply to
John Larkin
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John, It is the 'cash cow' scenario. Most of these big firms have products that they developed early in their corporate lifetimes that bring in the real money for the firm, and are now in basically 'caretaker' mode to make sure that those cash cows keep bringing in the cash.

Now, seeking new sources of revenue, new profits, new products you would think would be a high priority, but you would be wrong. Such things tend to be in the same industry the firm is already in, and have the potential to impact their existing products, perhaps drawing market share from them, and as such, must be controlled carefully! Politically, within the company, this is where you put the hotshot manager who keeps threatening to upset the apple cart. You give him enough rope, then you hang him out to dry with it!

Yes, I have personal experience with this... ;-)

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie E.

On a sunny day (Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:37:22 -0800) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

I think this is normal in very big companies. Some guy has an idea for a project, and cannot do one part, and asks you, he has a deadline -in case his project gets approved-. With the info from you (now he can make it) he goes to his boss and asks for a budget. This boss - in the next management meeting- goes one step higher, and with some luck and many of those meetings later, the project gets approved. Now the one who signed it has to get a budget from the financial bean counters. he cannot sign a purchase order himself, so he has to wait. IF he ever gets the money he will order it, but it won't be payed for until several month after you deliver, as the bean counters put it to the bottom of the list as the big things where lawyers threaten them, come first. Now it is 3 years later, you have send your stuff, they have used it, and you wait for your money. in case it does not make it to top for approval, you hear nothing. You gotta know the big boss, that helps, one phone call and the things rolls. Go to Washington an lobby Obama.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

My company experiences the same thing, (though at a smaller scale). Don't you just love it when they get all in a hurry for a week and then disappear for a month?

I've grown to just expect that now, and be more relaxed about it.

I think that large companies must simply make a lot of money to pay for the overhead caused by inefficiency and incompetence.

Reply to
Gary Peek

Happens to me a lot.

Panic! Please go ahead and start while we get the "paperwork" created.

I've learned no P.O., no start, period!

I've been burned and unburned variously...

Do the work, deliver, not only no promised "paperwork", no pay.

Two years later! Panic again. I told them, pay what you owe, with interest, and pre-pay the new project. They did ;-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

Two years is the record. So far.

Yes, we expect it now. And find ways to profit from it.

But they do make all that money!

John

Reply to
John Larkin

I think it's called "government contracts". If you are a certain size and meet other criteria of interest to people who like to cover their backs with bits of paper, you can get some mega-contracts. The amount of co-ordination on such a project dwarfs the pure engineering, but that's the nature of dealing with complex bureaucracies. They are multipurpose tools which have evolved over centuries to survive and grow; any other functions like efficiency at their stated purpose are purely by chance.

You should probably be glad you *can't* get those contracts, or you'd be a much less interesting person.

Nemo

Reply to
Nemo

I've experienced this.

I have a problem with a US company. They placed on an order on us and the product has to have a custom made part manufactured by their specified sub contractor.

We ordered the custom part on 8 to 10 week lead time. We had a call to discuss delivery. They were ranting over the late delivery of said custom part holding up the project. First we knew of the delay.

Apparently they ordered a large volume for another project and made it a priority with the supplier. So the supplier told them it would delay our order. So we got the blame for the project delay because the part was not going to be available in time. We should have ordered them before they ordered from us.

Reply to
Raveninghorde

...especially since many government contracts are "cost plus" -- as has been mentioned here before, some companies will knowingly underbid an ill-specified project to get the contract, and then know their real profit is pretty much guaranteed.

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Charlie E. wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Must be why Apple only has ONE phone and ONE tablet.

(c;]

Makes a lot of sense.

Reply to
Fred

It's the "hurry up and wait" syndrome. I think a lot of this is caused by their trying to externalize their own internal inefficiencies. Whether it's bean counters, or politics, or whatever.

Also, often, they don't really know what they want and/or need in the first place. I think this might also explain why some companies insist on having full blown staff meetings to cover items that could be easily handled via a couple emails.

-mpm

Reply to
mpm

Give them a quote 10-100 times what you would quote to a sane buyer.

Reply to
Robert Baer

Ever see a request for quote where they have no clue as to what parts would get the job done and they just want to rip you off for your ""recipe""?

Reply to
Greegor

"John Larkin" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Hmmm, sounds like GE

I think it?s the country club atmosphere that does this.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

No, that would be immoral and unprofessional. Not to mention hard to get away with. 2x is more reasonable.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Yes, that is why you ask them how they want the end product to work and give them no details at all on how you're going to do it.

Give them a quote and time line and tell them to have good day and call back when they're serious about the proposition.

Jamie

Reply to
Jamie

No, modern management.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
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Reply to
Nico Coesel

I made the mistake once (and only once) of providing a potential client details of how I would solve his problem. Nothing more heard. Later found he had used that exact approach in his supply to *his* end-user. Not enough to take to a court (this isn't the USofA) but enough to learn that important lesson.

Reply to
who where

Yes, lesson learned.

And the another lesson learned is, if you elect to go on site to look at a job and give them a quote and they decide to have you not do it, you charge them for the visit.. Your time, although wasted, is still worth something.

Yes, I fell into that same trap many times years ago. But when you're first starting out you need to do something to give them insurance that you do know enough to do the job. You just need to know where to draw the line and what to tell them to give them that fuzzy warm feeling, you know, like a most of the crooked politicians we have running this country.

Now days, when they ask me, I tell them I would need to look at the application and if they allow me to get that far, while they are hovering over my shoulder being nosy, asking me how I am going to do it, I just tell them, "Ah , there are many ways to complete this, I'll just shift gears as I go along to save you as much money as possible and the fastest turn around".

And the best thing to do is complete as much as possible out side of their view.

When they sign off on the job, make sure they see the little note you put on there about duplication of design..

Kind of reminds me of a little device I made to detect tension loss on a eddy current clutch with out adding any extra hardware to get at the actual clutch circuit on a spinning masts. This clutch was commutated via slip rings and there was no more room to add more for a more basic approach. I made few, they worked, it take some time for each one between my other duties. One of our other plants wanted to try one, we sent them one with all the paper work, including prints etc.. A few months go by and we decide to add some more since we didn't do all of our machines that employed these clutches. My boss while in contact with another plant was told that we could buy a device board that would do the same thing mind did and would be cheaper, labor wise. so, they order a couple, I looked at one, it was in a enclosure so I didn't bother to look in side how ever, the manual that came with it has a photo copy, a poor one at that, of the schematic, and what did I find? my John hand c*ck down a the lower right... Seem like some one decided to exploit that circuit with out permission. Who is that stupid to use a photo copy and not block out things like that? I mean, why did they even supply it!

Jamie

Reply to
Jamie

If you can get a place to agree to something like that, more power to you. :-) ...but personally I don't think there's much real loss in just providing a small amount of free advice to anyone who asks in the name of building relationships and networking; these can often come back to help you in the future, IMO.

[Detecting voltage loss on an eddu-current clutch]

In all likelihood they didn't even realize they were doing anything they shouldn't have -- it's kinda par for the course in electronics that few people think twice about taking any schematic they come upon and, if it does what they need it to do, they start building it, you know?

---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

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