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0 pointskilo_bravo_38y ago0 comments

I don't even know how some US manufacturers stay in business with how abysmal they are at actually conducting business.

I work in aerospace product development, and my company has projects where we can source components from anywhere and projects where components must be US-supplied.

If I need a 12-fiber Male MT to Female MTP custom wiring harness I have to play email and phone rinky-dink with some regional rep for weeks to get it ordered when dealing with US-based suppliers. Then it has to go up and down the "value adding" chain between the rep, the sales department, business management, purchasing, and finally manufacturing. I have to have an account, deal with purchase orders, and the terms are usually 30-90 days ARO.

Or I can send a crudely-drawn picture with connector part numbers and some basic length figures to a cable house in China, get a quote the next business day, and order the damn thing with a credit card and have it in my hands in a week or two.

And no, the quality is no different. OM3 is OM3, Amphenol connectors are Amphenol connectors, and skill is almost irrelevant when the whole thing gets done up in the same automated fusion splicer that a US firm would use.

With US-based companies that are actually subsidiaries of international firms, I have an entire address book full of points of contact in the "mothership".

With US-based companies that have substantial overseas presences, like the company formerly known as GE Intelligent Platforms, even then the overseas folks are less worthless than the US-based ones.

It actually is a major source of job dissatisfaction when I have to get stuff done and the only POC I have for something I need is "sales@uscompany.ignore.me" when I know for stone-cold certain that there's a Wang Da Nian in Shenzhen who will abuse Google Translate for hours trying to get my employer's money.

0 comments

sverige8y ago

> Then it has to go up and down the "value adding" chain between the rep, the sales department, business management, purchasing, and finally manufacturing.

This times 10. One factor is that many US manufacturers incentivize their sales people so heavily that it actively interferes with getting things done, because that sales rep has to be involved every step of the way.

Another factor is the (apparently) natural tendency of all purchasing departments to become little bureaucracies that turn themselves into the customer by requiring the people who want to buy stuff to do it their way. ('Their' referring to purchasing or whatever the department is called.) Often that bad habit of turning themselves into the customer spreads to other departments.

In fact, I have seen software in use that turns entire sales departments into the customer, insisting that people calling for quotes spend far too much time providing information in the order the application requires it rather than allowing sales people to do what they are supposed to be best at: finding out what the customer wants and giving it to them for a price. I could have solved that problem, but it's tough to get directors interested in changing those kinds of things, let alone VPs and C level executives.

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