For those not willing or able to
thumb through Schultz’s gear buying
bible, there’s another way to obtain information
looking you right in the face.
According to Werschky, company executives
dealing in the buying of gears
should confer with their engineers before
delving into any serious negotiations.
“One of the key things a buyer should
do is be willing to partner with his engineering
staff, because the engineers
are going to be able to provide insight
as to what kind of quality you’re going
to get from a particular supplier,” Werschky
said. “Not all suppliers are designed
the same way, obviously.
“For [Delta Gear], we’re working
with larger OEMs or large assembly
companies, so they often have a large
staff of buyers who are buying anything
from widgets to gears to shafts.
There may be a dozen different buyers
for the whole project.
“Granted, we may only work with
one or two of those buyers, but many
times these buyers are untrained. They
don’t know the difference between a
bearing and a gear. To them it’s just a
thing that they have to purchase.
“Some are very educated and were
engineers at one point, but others just
get promoted from fresh out of college
and are very new and green, if you will.
That’s why it would be good for them to lean on the knowledge and expertise
of other people in their facility to
make sure that they’re quoting the
right companies, as opposed to, ‘Hey,
I found these three companies on the
Internet and their website looks pretty
cool.’”
Know Your Supplier
That brings us back to lawnmowers.
Remember, Delta doesn’t make that
kind of gears. Not even close. It would
seem impossible to confuse a manufacturer
of high-end prototype gears
with someone who could help get your
Kentucky bluegrass a much needed
haircut, but it’s happened.
If you search “gear suppliers,” there
are 29,500,000 results (yeah, the old
Google trick isn’t a terribly creative
way to deliver a point but the effects remain
poignant), and out of those nearly
30 million hits only a handful will
link you to a company that can provide
you with exactly what you need.
As a buyer, you don’t have many
chances to get it right. There’s a million
ways to get it wrong.
“There are companies out there who
are a wholesaler of parts and they call
us out of the blue for a part that we’ve
never made before,” Werschky said.
“They don’t have the drawings for it,
and it’s not a part that’s our forte, so it’s
a situation where they probably don’t
have an engineer on staff, nor have
they ever tried to procure the part in
the past.
“Maybe it comes down to these
companies just needing to get another
quote before they buy from someone
else, but it happens quite a bit where
someone will call us looking for something
that we can’t really provide, or at
least don’t usually provide.”
As someone who has been on the
wrong end of nonsensical inquisitions
many times, Werschky said that while
there are no dumb questions, there are
unnecessary ones – and it’s often better
to burden yourself with answering
those questions before picking up the
phone.
“You need to ask, ‘Where is the raw
material coming from?’” added Schultz.
“‘Are you doing all the work yourself?
Where are you getting the heat
treating?’
“That opens up a whole line of questioning
to your heat treat vendors,
because there are a lot of good heat
treaters and there are a lot of guys I
wouldn’t ask to heat up a shovel. I
mean seriously, there are gear heat
treaters and others who aren’t gear
heat treaters – and they don’t pretend
to be. But if you send it to them they’ll
put in the furnace and heat it up and
cool it down.”
The moral of the story is that not all
gears are created equally. Manufacturers
service a multitude of industries,
from aerospace to automotive to mining
to oil and gas, and each industry requires
precise specifications. Delta, for
instance, manufactures custom gears,
shafts and gearboxes for the aerospace
and automotive industries. Could they
make a part for the Dubuque Mining Company? Sure. Is it what they possess
an astute expertise in? Not exactly.
Finding the proper gear supplier
may take time, but it’s an investment
with a continuous payout, because
partnering with the perfect manufacturer
is essential to achieving smooth,
long-lasting success.
Buyers must know their own products,
yes. But knowing what the seller’s
selling should never be overlooked.
Draw it Up Right
So you’ve read “Introduction to Gear
Design” a half dozen times and conducted
a caffeine-powered search of
the World Wide Web until you’ve located
the one gear manufacturer that
makes you swoon.
It’s time to open that corporate bank
account and coat the sky with leafy
green rectangles, right?
Whoa, easy there Gordon Gekko.
Step away from the ATM machine.
Take a deep breath. Let the parameters
of the deal swirl around in the old noggin
for a while. Then get a pencil and
paper.
Before you can run, you have to
draw.
“Having clear and concise, understandable
drawings is important as
well,” Werschky said. “We’re building
to print. Someone sends us a request
for a quote (RFQ) along with a drawing,
and the drawing has all the information
in order to make that part. It
has everything from material to heat
treatment to any special coatings. The
gear geometry is on there.
“It’s important that the information
you’re providing is as complete as possible
so that the supplier can quote it as
competitively as they can. When there’s
lack of information, inside sales people
have to be conservative with what they
quote in order to protect themselves
from the worst case scenario.”
For custom gear suppliers, such as
Delta, the drawing is everything. Each
and every part they make is specially
crafted to fit your machine. Not his. Not
hers. Not that guy over there – yours. So
make sure your drawing does your machine
justice.
Spending the necessary time to create
a thorough, detailed drawing can
save you weeks or even months down
the line.
“Usually [poor drawings] result in
delays,” Werschky said. “What happens
is we quote a job and if the job is released
to us and we start to make it, we
go through an engineering stage where
we’re processing the job to go out on
the floor. At that point, if there’s missing
information we have to go back
and contact the customer, they have to
get the information to the right person,
that person has to provide the information
that we need – sometimes, in
larger companies, that will take weeks.
“Everybody is in a hurry. They all
want parts fast. I don’t know anyone
who will say, ‘No, take your time. I can
wait.’ They all want parts as fast as they
can get them.
“Not having the right information
when you initialize an RFQ is going to
slow down the process, and that’s only
going to slow down your ability to get
to market with your finished product.”
And it’s not just time you’re going to
save by producing pristine drawings –
it’s money, energy and ever-important
peace of mind.
“I have a client who routinely sends
people drawings that aren’t legible,”
Schultz said. “Then he’s unhappy because
the gear shop has to ask a lot of
questions.
“[If you don’t have good drawings]
you’re going to get parts that don’t fit
or don’t work. You’re going to have
delays. If you have tooling that goes
with the job, you have to make sure
you explain that to them or you’re going
to pay for tooling twice. If you have
spline gauges or bore gauges, you have
to identify that.
“Make sure your drawings are readable
and understandable for everyone.”
Get the Proper Papers
This one seems pretty simple, but
somehow it’s a step that some buyers
gloss over, according to Werschky.
“You want to make sure you’re getting
the documented proof of what the
quality is you’re looking for,” he said.
“Meaning, you want inspection reports
with what you’re getting.
“It may sound like a no-brainer, but
unless you spell it out, some companies
won’t provide that information
to you. While other companies, like
[Delta], always provide it because
we’re ISO certified and AS9100 certified.
It’s part of our standard operation
procedure to provide those inspection
reports.
“It’s something that costs money to
provide, so it’s included in our price.
That makes us less competitive against
someone who doesn’t really inspect
parts. But it’s crucial [the buyer] gets
documented proof and they spell that
out in their RFQ.”
If things go awry for unbeknownst
reasons (maybe your drawings weren’t
up to snuff, cough, cough), it becomes
nearly impossible to prove it was the
supplier’s fault – and get reimbursed
those precious greenbacks – without
the proper paperwork.
“[Without paperwork] the buyer has
no way of proving that the gear was
produced correctly,” Werschky said.
“That leads to noise problems, failures
in the field, all kinds of problems
they don’t want to have. Sometimes it’s
hard to point the finger after the fact.
The cost of quality is so much more
expensive when there’s a failure in the
field as opposed to catching it before
the parts are even shipped.”
And remember one of gear buying’s
golden rules: Ask and you shall receive.
“You want a certificate of compliance,
but if you need more than that
you have to say that and you have to
expect that you’re going to get charged
for it because there is time involved,”
added Schultz.
“If you don’t get the documentation,
you’re going to end up with a [confrontation]
later on why the gears are noisy
or why they didn’t work. I have some
information about chart reading in my
book. You can have gears that have really
good looking charts but still don’t
perform well, simply because the design
isn’t right.
“If you expect to get something, you
better ask for it.”
Fight the Lure of the
Cheapskate
As a species, humanity has an abundance
of strong natural responses, one
of the most prominent of which is the
irresistible tug that pulls us from common
sense and leads us straight to the
lowest bidder.
Just call it the Lure of the Cheapskate.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with being
frugal. Saving money is certainly a
dignified and respectable course of action,
but being irrationally cheap at the
forefront of negotiations is usually just
a harbinger of an excessive money sink
looming in the future.
And if “ask and you shall receive” is
the golden rule of gear buying, then
“you get what you pay for” is probably
the platinum one.
“The cost of quality is so much more
expensive if you have a problem,” Werschky
said, “and [problems arise] when
you have lack of information, or when
you have someone who is trying to produce
a part of a certain quality without
really having the right equipment
to produce that quality. For example,
they’re trying to cut a gear and heat
treat it and have it be finished, when
really it needs to be hard finished after
heat treatment.
“When there’s a problem the cost associated
with backtracking and replacing
it is so much more – it’s 10 times
more expensive, I would say – than just
spending a little more at the time of
procurement to have that knowledge
and peace of mind that the part is to
the print.”
How do you avoid the Lure?
Well, first of all, go ahead and tie
yourself tight to the mast of a schooner.
You can thank Odysseus for that one.
Second – and much more importantly
– get multiple quotes.
Be patient.
Weigh the pros and cons of each offer.
Remember that more money up
front isn’t wasted change but a smart
and sound investment for years down
the line.
“There’s more to buying a gear than
just getting a low price,” said Schultz.
“I encourage people to visit their vendors.
I wouldn’t place an important order
without visiting people.
“People lose their jobs all the time
for vendors not providing the right
stuff. Don’t be one of them.”
Then, when all the factors have been
accounted for, untie yourself from that
infernal mast and sign on the dotted
line.
Congratulations.
You just bought some gears.
For more information:
Delta Gear, Inc.
Phone: (734) 525-8000
www.delta-gear.com
Beyta Gear Service
Phone: (630) 209-1652
www.beytagear.com
