Outsourcing Checking 9

[KENAT]

About 2.5 - 3 years ago a team was started here to improve the quality of documentation and part of the approach was to introduce checking.

The experienced, good, fast... checker we had was laid off last June and I got the job

This coincided with Manufacturing/operations finally deciding that they wanted everything checked not just some stuff, and so the work load doubled or more.

Since then there has been a massive backlog and/or stuff not getting checked.

We now want to outsource parts manufacture to Asia to save $ but, our drawings for the most part are still too poor for this.

They now have a plan to 'outsource checking'. Apparantly because they don't want head count to increase they don't just want to hire someone as a temp or contractor so...

So, does anyone know of any design houses or the like that do checking to ASME standards?

Also pointing out any of the obvious problems etc is fine by me.

Ken



KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[fcsuper]

I'm am the king of typos! man-oh-man.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[BARM]

KENAT, What kinds of products are you guys involved in?

---SolidWorks 2008 SP3.0---

 

[KENAT]

Atomic Force Microscopes.

Similar to stylus profilers but at a much smaller scale, measuring nanometer size features.

We produce them both for nanotechnology research type fields and for semiconductor.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[KENAT]

Hey Chris, I must have missed something, was the cass reference related to weight loss or relationship issues? Ahh just looked in Pats Pub, I take it you're referring to the cactus incident, ouch.

baseball, if saner heads prevail I'll mention your shop. Part of my bosses job when he first got her was to find alternative suppliers but because it wasn't his idea and for various other reasons the operations VP & others stopped it from going anywhere. I notice next intent were one of your clients, I think they're someone we looked at.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[ctopher]

Yes, the cactus.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 06/08
ctopher's home (updated Apr 30, 2008)

 

[ajack1]

KENAT I am not sure what you are trying to achieve here.

Yes you can contract out checking, you can contract out everything from walking your dog (if you have one) to building the house you live in, or given the time and drive you can do it yourself, businesses make decisions on what to do in house or outsource for a variety of reasons, however I am sure you are aware of that.

Any country that is cheaper than the country you live in gets bad press, that seems the same the whole world over. To assume that a product that is produced for less money in China than in the USA or Europe for example is bound to be inferior is totally wrong. It is highly likely that the car you drive, the electrical products in your house, your mobile phone, the computer you are sitting at, the bath you wash in and just about everything else are partly made in China and they all seem to work fine for me. There are huge rewards to be gained from outsourcing, especially to countries with a lower cost of living/ cheaper work force, but there are also risks, but again I am sure you are aware of that.

Here is the bit I don’t understand, if you are as your handle says, “Probably the least qualified checker you’ll ever meet” then surely you should be getting your head down? You state that you are the only checker in the company but they are falling behind. Judging by your profile you spend a lot of time on here, in this thread alone you have made 11 posts so far and this is on a topic that in your own words “I have no involvement or say in who gets picked”. What is the point?

You then go on to bad mouth the management on a public forum that you know they read, I am sure that goes down well!

To turn this around, if you spent less time concerning yourself with things out of your control and more time working on things you do have control over would that not help the situation? You might even find the company see what an impact you are having and hire more local staff rather than outsourcing, possibly overseas.

Like I said I am not sure what you are trying to achieve?

 

[powerhound]

ajack,

Keep in mind that those of us that posted in regards to China spoke from personal experience, not from stereotypical notions of which we have no experience. I also added at the end of my post that it was only our vendor of which I was speaking, not the whole country, or countries with lower labor rates in general.


Powerhound, GDTP T-0419
Production Supervisor
Inventor 2008
Mastercam X2
Smartcam 11.1
SSG, U.S. Army
Taji, Iraq OIF II

 

[vc66]

Wow, KENAT. You're brave.

Godspeed.

V

 

[vc66]

Ajack1-

KENAT did not bad mouth anyone in his OP. He simply asked for advice as to whether outsourcing checking was a viable possibility. I believe some misunderstood the question, and began telling their experiences of vendors in China (shouldn't be a problem, as it still is relevant.) Once understood, all other posts were about the outsourcing of checking.

I don't believe criticizing him is any help. You do not work at the company that we do (yes I work at the same place), therefore, you don't know anything about it. I completely understand where KENAT is coming from, and I don't believe you post was, at all, helpful.

Like I said I am not sure what you are trying to achieve?

He's trying to achieve a guided answer from other professionals in the engineering field, to a question of which he doesn't have any experience. Seems like a good idea to me.

Back to the question. I asked around here, KENAT, and one guy said that it had been done at his last company with disastrous results. Same reasons as most pointed out above.

V

 

[powerhound]

Hmmmmm...who gave ajack1 the star for his valuable and helpful post? :S

Powerhound, GDTP T-0419
Production Supervisor
Inventor 2008
Mastercam X2
Smartcam 11.1
SSG, U.S. Army
Taji, Iraq OIF II

 

[ajack1]

Powerhound we currently outsource work to China and it has allowed us to win contracts we would not have otherwise been able too, so I to am speaking from experience. If you simply google China and checking I am fairly sure this would lead to disastrous results, however with time and effort it can be very beneficial to both parties, as to who gave me a star I have no idea.

Vc66 you are correct I do not work with you or KENAT, I was not aware this was
the criteria to be able to post on this topic. I do however have over 34 years of experience in engineering and I also own a company that outsourses work to China (but not checking) so I felt my experience might be useful, the fact that you didn’t find it so is your opinion to which to are perfectly entitled.

I wasn’t aware I criticised KENAT and I do not believed I ever said he bad mouthed anyone in his original post, however I do believe he did in later ones.

As with most posts on this forum, except where you can give a definitive answer to a question, we all post our opinions, some you will agree with some you will not.

 

[powerhound]

ajack1,
Nobody here is disagreeing with you about your success doing business abroad, what they are disagreeing on is your chastisement of KENAT where none was due.

You said:
"...the fact that you didn't find it so is your opinion to which to are perfectly entitled."

The fact that I have had bad experiences with outsourcing to China is not an opinion, it's a fact. Are your positive experiences with China your opinion or are they a fact? There's no question that outsourcing is beneficial when the conditions are favorable. Either you did your homework and got the wrinkles ironed out beforehand or the company you work with is just plain good...or both.

You said:
"...I do however have over 34 years of experience in engineering and I also own a company that outsourses work to China (but not checking) so I felt my experience might be useful,..."

Can you help me out and point out which part of your post you thought to be useful?

Powerhound, GDTP T-0419
Production Supervisor
Inventor 2008
Mastercam X2
Smartcam 11.1
SSG, U.S. Army
Taji, Iraq OIF II

 

[ajack1]

Powerhound you said

“The fact that I have had bad experiences with outsourcing to China is not an opinion, it's a fact. Are your positive experiences with China your opinion or are they a fact? There's no question that outsourcing is beneficial when the conditions are favourable. Either you did your homework and got the wrinkles ironed out beforehand or the company you work with is just plain good...or both.”

They are fact; we took on a project that involved outsourcing to be able to get it within budget. Yes I did my homework and tried to get all the wrinkles ironed, to not do so would be crass stupidity IMO, however I fully appreciate that as with most things this still leaves an element of luck, all you can ever do is cut this down to a minimum. It is not quick or easy; I spent many hours and a lot of money getting things in place. To just think you can google China and checking (for example) and throw all your problems at them will not happen, however given the time and drive it can work and is the only way to win certain contracts, if you are not prepared to do it someone else will.

As to the advice I thought might be useful, I guess that is as a company owner. Looking at the situation KENAT describes, I would see him as part of the problem, not all but part, as checking is holding up workflow. If I then saw the numbers of posts he has put on here (and I am possibly incorrectly in assuming) during work time I would take a very dim view of that as in his own words "I have no involvement or say in who gets picked". So again I ask what can be achieved other than getting even more behind with his work?

You seem to have a military background looking at your handle, so let me ask you this. If a soldier was given a task to do and it turned out they didn’t do it because they had been discussing an issue with others that they had no control or involvement in what would be the outcome?

 

[baseballninja]

Guys,

It seems like KENAT is saying that he has no control over where the machining goes (since this is not the area he works in). The solution for checking, on the other hand, might depend on his input. So I don't think he's part of the problem at his company; I think he's trying to be part of the solution by offering the best input he can for a permanent checking system, and he thought that perhaps other engineers on this board had seen checking outsourced before.

Further, it seems to me that the legitimacy of the time KENAT spends on this board is between him and his boss. I know that I personally use my break time and personal time to visit the board. I imagine that many of the others here do the same thing, but some might have permission to use it on company time. It's pointless for us to start questioning each other's use of time; it gets us nowhere.

The original post asked if anyone knew of a company that provided checking services. There were plenty of side notes given regarding checking, outsourcing, offshoring, layoffs, etc., but the bottom line is that none of the responders knew of such a company. Isn't the thread effectively over?

Sincerely,
Josh Church
Vanderhorst Brothers, Inc.

 

[ewh]

It sounds to me like ajack was having a bad day, and KENAT was an easy target.

First, he seems to claim relative knowledge of the problem, but not specific "...(but not checking)", then becomes himself defensive over a defense of the OP ("...I wasn't aware I criticised KENAT") and decides, hey, that's a good idea ("...I would see him as part of the problem"). Come on, that seems like criticism to me. It is also way too much ado about nothing. He does not work for you and you really don't really know his situation.

Many of us spend work time on this forum, some like myself with supervisor knowledge. Actually, anymore, all of us are probably being watched. I feel that I am actually more productive when I have the ability to take small breaks away from the task at hand, especially when I use that time constructively (such as participating in these fora).
KENAT is a valuable member of this site. Many times he has come up with thoughtful solutions to some tricky situations, and I value his presence here as I am sure others do.

Sorry about the segue, carry on...


Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare. - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[KENAT]

Wow, 2 days away and look at all the posts.

ajack, you actually make some salient points in your post(s) though a bit hard to take in parts.

In principle I can see the business case in farming out work to a lower cost of work country. For many things this apparently works fine/well. Most of my concern is rooted in the fact that we have relatively low production rates (from single figure to mid double figures per month, at least at my site) and have a great range of parts, many of them fairly complex/high precision. We have trouble sending some of this stuff to new sources in the same state, I believe, perhaps unfairly, that this will be amplified by sending it to Asia with the language issue, distance, time difference and possibly different drawing standards/units of measure etc.

The checking is not getting farmed out to China, as far as I know. However, we are looking at farming out checking and I was trying to get some input on if anyone has done this, any issues to think about and perhaps even some references. I wasn't really looking for input on the outsourcing of machining issue though I am guilty of getting side tracked by it.

I have no input in the machining outsourcing issue. I have some say in who does the checking.

As to time spent on Eng-Tips, you know what sometimes I probably do spend more time here than may be appropriate, I have before reigned myself in and maybe it's time to do so again.

Then again, when I started this thread it was the morning after staying till 11:30 the night before trying to get something (not checking) done to support a colleague who was out Friday. Based on hours I'd done well over my 40 that week by the time I put the OP, even allowing for Eng-Tips time which my direct Boss has said he's OK with. In fact he told me to spend some time looking into the contract checking issue and this post was part of my effort on that.

As to bad mouthing management/letting my identity be something of an open secret, you're not wrong, it's not exactly my smartest move. I sometimes get carried away, so far I've gotten away with it but that may not last and is something I'm working on.

Regarding being part of the problem, well if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem right? As I haven't yet worked out a complete solution to having all our drawings meet a minimum level of quality that allows them to be worked to by any competent machine shop to produce good product then yes, I suppose I'm part of the problem.

As to holding things up, according to our current procedure drawings can be excused check at the discretion of the relevant Engineering Director (I've even suggested this for specific packs before now). However, Operations are tired of getting poor drawings which cause them problems and so are refusing to accept drawings that aren't checked. I won't go into more detail as berating management etc. may not be a particularly smart move as you pointed out, however it's basically a fight between engineering and operations with me caught in the middle.

Out of interest Ajack, on the side topic of outsourcing machining. Was one of the steps you took to "get all the wrinkles ironed" perhaps ensuring that the product documentation you were sending them to manufacture to was complete, accurate, legible etc?

As to the other, thanks seems that at least some of you get where I’m coming from though hearing the opposing view point isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Well with the length of this post it’s adding fuel to the ‘too much time on Eng-Tips’ theory so I best be off.


KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[pierdesign]

Hello. A few comments that may help.

Outsourcing checking of drawings can be done, I suggest search for engineering companies that have automotive or aerospace experience. They will have staff familiar with all manner of drawings and how to interpret GD&T. It does not require knowledge of the parts' function anymore than machining the part does. Yes, I worked for such a company, and we occasionally took on such jobs, mostly for a select few automotive tier 1 suppliers. In our case, it involved a bit more than just checking, but certainly checking of their existing drawings was about 50 - 60% of the work.

Please note that outsourcing of this work will seem expensive when your boss sees a cash cost. On the positive side, with a good team this sort of work can be done very quickly as it's essentially proofreading.

In my experience, outsourcing low to mid volume complicated machined parts to China can not be successful for the amount of effort and time your company is willing to put into it. Very fine details, surface finishes, plating thicknesses, deburring in odd but critical locations: this type of specialized attention to detail will not be done no matter how well documented. Of course there are exceptions, but I stress "for the amount of effort and time your company is willing to put into it".

Another factor working against successful outsourcing to China of low to mid volume complicated machined parts is personnels' job longevity and training. As explained to me, professional staff move about every 2 years, it's about the only way to advance in a company. Therefore, any specialized knowledge and training they may have gained on your parts will leave within two years maximum. Then, of course, your company has to deal with non-conforming product, severity depending on when it is discovered and time to correct...

 

[KENAT]

Thanks pierdesign.

We've found a firm that we're looking at that has had contracts with aerospace/defense/automotive so have some pedigree in areas working to ASME standards.

When you did it did they basically just send you the packs and you got on & did it or did you work at their site, or did you have a kick off meeting and occasional follow ups as required or some other way?

If they were going to come and be in the office (at least some of the time) I wouldn't be too concerned but it seems they'll be doing it remotely from the Illinois if I recall correctly. I have a hard enough time getting all the information I need a lot of the time and am concerned we will have trouble getting them the kind of data packs they'd need.

We'd be looking for them to check not only completeness and standards compliance but also tolerance, at least basic interfaces. We may also want some manufacturability review.

To do this thoroughly I find I often need some understanding of the function, especially If I don't have all the other data such as dimensions/tolerance info of off the shelf parts etc.

Thanks, Ken (on lunch;-))

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[BARM]

To do a thorough job and to your company standards it needs to be done in-house. Unless that's the problem and I'm not taking about costs$. I'm not trying to offend anyone but as the old saying goes "if you want it done right then you need to do it yourself". Maybe I stand alone on this.

Brent

---SolidWorks 2008 SP3.0---

 

[Xplicator]

I also believe that this task is best left to those who know the functional intent. A drawing can be completely compliant to the standards and still not give you what you need, if you don't have the appropriate dimension scheme specified. This is what you can expect by outsourcing. To bring someone up to speed out of the loop is costly as well. Therefore, I would do everything in my power to block this directive. Checking is to be a preventive measure put in place to capture errors early in the design process before they get down stream and cost ten times more for each step in the process that the error slipped by. Preventive actions rarely have an actual dollar value associated to them, but corrective actions do and you will be dealing with a lot of them if your organization chooses the over seas and outsourcing route. Look up the "Rule of Tens" as it applies to product development. To me the only people who should be checking are people who truly know what the functional intent is, have validated the dimension scheme thru tolerance analysis and can spell GD&T correctly. Perhaps the engineers themselves could actually do this before signing off on a spec instead of passing off there responsibility. Now there is a novel idea, can't believe someone hadn't thought of it before.

Once you have specifications that will indeed produce what is needed then perhaps if justified you can send it over seas. This however would be my last resort always. I for one believe that should we here in the western part of the world stop employing the build-test-fix process and get on board with actual use of the many successful product development practices and dimensional management tools correctly and effectively we then wouldn't have to even be considering the alternatives. We could actually build products right the first time, instead of trying to recoup our costs later because of our missed opportunities resulting in poor specs not to mention the scrap, rework and re-tooling. Maybe then the dollar in my pocket and yours could be worth something again.

This is my opinion and it comes from experience, do what you will but if just one of you doesn't give in and keeps the work here, than I believe I have accomplished at least something.