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The most precious thing in any industry-- information, specifications, clear instructions-- is like other precious things, I guess: precious because the supply is short. Many, many times in the plastic injection mold business, I have had customers try to get me to build, say, an $80,000+ mold for a part that they could not clearly define. Then of course they were hoping to get 1/4 million parts a year-- but they weren't quite sure just exactly what it was to look like. Information age, right. In the case of automotive customers, they usually compensated for this by pounding their little fists on the table and shaking their little fingers in someone's (mine, often) face. Glad to be done with all that.
My gun customers are usually more knowledgeable about their hobby than the average $80K/year Big Three engineer is about his or her profession, and if they are not, then generally at least they are more tractable and willing to listen to reason and (hopefully) good advice. My volume is not at all like yours though, George.... all I can say is what I learned from working with the above-mentioned customers. I gave up trying to train them and basically made a good living giving them my best filling in of the blanks and interpretation of what I thought they were thinking when they designed their part. I would put it all in text, sketches, CAD format, get it back to them and not ask "Is this what you want", I would say, "This is how we've interpreted your design and if we don't hear otherwise within 48 hours, that will constitute an approval to proceed". Had to do that since it was usually hard to get a response and that could hold things up while they still considered the clock to be ticking. Anyway, I guess the bottom line is, whether they realized it or not, they were paying for my time spent in cleaning up the specs.
On the other end, in both my plastics-related and gun-related careers, I often find my own carefully-written, detailed, logical instructions.... wasted! But I never stop trying, because clear instructions are the only hope of getting what I want when I'm the customer. And as the provider, they are the only hope of doing right by the customer.
My gun customers are usually more knowledgeable about their hobby than the average $80K/year Big Three engineer is about his or her profession, and if they are not, then generally at least they are more tractable and willing to listen to reason and (hopefully) good advice. My volume is not at all like yours though, George.... all I can say is what I learned from working with the above-mentioned customers. I gave up trying to train them and basically made a good living giving them my best filling in of the blanks and interpretation of what I thought they were thinking when they designed their part. I would put it all in text, sketches, CAD format, get it back to them and not ask "Is this what you want", I would say, "This is how we've interpreted your design and if we don't hear otherwise within 48 hours, that will constitute an approval to proceed". Had to do that since it was usually hard to get a response and that could hold things up while they still considered the clock to be ticking. Anyway, I guess the bottom line is, whether they realized it or not, they were paying for my time spent in cleaning up the specs.
On the other end, in both my plastics-related and gun-related careers, I often find my own carefully-written, detailed, logical instructions.... wasted! But I never stop trying, because clear instructions are the only hope of getting what I want when I'm the customer. And as the provider, they are the only hope of doing right by the customer.