Project Experience

We have worked with a Netherlands-based component supplier since 2002, supplying parts that the customer in turn supplies to other customers across Europe. Over more than two decades, this relationship has grown to cover many different products, each one developed the same way: the customer brings us a drawing and an estimated quantity, and we take it from there.

One product from this relationship is a door roller: a wheel built around a sealed ball bearing. For this part, the customer sent us the engineering drawing together with a reference photo and the quantities they were expecting to order, and we used that information to work out a quotation.

As with the rest of this relationship, price came first: once we had agreed a unit price with the customer, we moved on to discussing tooling costs and the practical arrangements for getting tooling made, so the part could move toward production.

The door roller is just one product among the many we have developed for this customer since 2002. That same pattern — a drawing and an estimated quantity leading to a quotation, agreement on price, and then tooling — is how the relationship has moved from one product to the next, and it continues today.

We supply a long-term customer in South Africa with roller-related components for truck and trailer curtain-side systems, the sliding-curtain arrangement that runs along a track on the side of a trailer. One roller assembly we supply for this system is made up of several different kinds of parts, and our role is to coordinate how they are produced and brought together.

One example is a roller assembly built around a metal connecting plate. Together with the plate, it is made up of four wheels, a wheel carrier, and bushings and shaft parts that let the wheels turn; the plate itself is cut to shape from sheet metal, with fasteners joining it to the rest of the assembly.

The wheels are molded plastic parts, produced by injection molding, and the connecting plate is a cut metal part; bushings, shafts and fasteners bring the two together. Different parts in this assembly come from different manufacturing processes, and turning them into one finished roller assembly means arranging plastic parts, metal parts and fasteners so they arrive matched and ready to go together.

This kind of coordination is a recurring part of our work for this customer: rather than a single component, we organize the production and supply of the plastic, metal and fastener parts that make up their curtain-side roller assemblies, bringing different production routes together into one finished product.

A customer was preparing to produce its first batch of shower enclosures. Each enclosure would be made up from glass, profiles and other fittings, and the wheels it needed would have to go together with those parts.

One of those wheels came from us. We made a mould for it, the customer placed an opening order for the first batch, and we produced the wheels and shipped them by sea through the forwarder the customer nominated, following through on the invoice, packing list and bill of lading.

The customer then came to us with four further parts: two other wheels and two bottom sliders for its shower enclosures. It sent photographs, followed by physical samples, and asked whether we already made the same or similar parts, and if not, what tooling and production would cost.

We received the samples and checked them against our existing range. We had no matching wheels or sliders, so developing them would have meant new moulds. Before quoting for tooling, we asked for the customer's target prices, so that the mould investment could be weighed against the unit prices it needed and the quantities it expected to order. The customer then shared its target prices and expected order pattern and asked us to cost the moulds and estimate a price for each of the four parts.