Supplier Incompetance?

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Grumbling Mike

Grumbling Mike

CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2
Joined
Jul 13, 2000
Posts
258
Loc
Toronto Canada
How many joined frames with obvious defects, scratches, poor corners etc would it take to dump a supplier? If say they moved or got new staff how long would it take to get things right on a fairly regular basis? How much will you put up with? sending things back and rearanging my production schedule not to mention 1/2 finished jobs laying about is starting to ware on me.
 
Mike,

Not sure if that was a real question or a hypothetical rant (either one is fine with me) but here's a real answer.

It depends. </font>
  • On how badly you want the line in your shop </font>
  • On how unique or replaceable the line might be </font>
  • On how much history of good service you've had with that vendor before things went sour </font>
  • On how hard their rep or customer service people appear to be trying to remedy the problems </font>
I decided a few years ago how many chop vendors I could actually use and set up a system for periodically grading their performances according to the criteria that matter to me most. Each vendor ends up with a score. If I want to put in a new vendor, the existing one with the low score gets canned. It doesn't happen often, though it's happpened twice in the past year.
 
We have had some badly cut mitres, and some joined frames that weren't satisfatory. So far, it has been very easy to get them replaced. Sometimes they want the moulding back, and will send a UPS pick-up tag.
All our suppliers deliver now, so UPS is no longer a factor.
We did order some assembled ready-mades from a supplier, and were not satisfied with them, and, to the best of my knowledge, Janet decided to go somewhere else in the future for that particular type of frame.
It's been a good while since we had these problems, so I consider us lucky.
 
I'm not sure which frame companies you are referring to (if any, this may be theoretical) but many times it depends on which warehouse the chops come out of.

Here in the heartland we can get chops from "Mr. Big" from 2 different warehouses. I order chops on mouldings over 3.5" because my 10" chop saws can't cut them and I have had numerous bad chops from one of the warehouses and good chops (consistently) from the other warehouse.

It probably boils down to supervision and the dedication of the guys doing the chopping. If they are horsing around on the line when doing chops or not checking their equipment for square during the work day, anything can happen. When you are working with a moulding over 4", an out-of-square saw by 1 minute of a degree will show up as a gap in the surface of a miter which may be over 6" in length from throat to tip. That saw better be on the money for a wide moulding like that or you will have trouble joining it. You will be over 1/6 of a degree out of square when you get to the last joint. That is quite a gap to compensate for and a 4.5" moulding won't bend to take up that kind of slack.

Framerguy
 
Ron's List is right on.

But with no historical information -- I'd complain to the proper personnel and give them a few more orders (time to get their act back together). I'd also start researching some other similar lines.

When we start getting errors we have a tendency to gravitate toward selling other lines for awhile. One time on a unique line I raised the prices --for having to deal with the supplier we didn't really like!
 
A problem I have with all my suppliers is the pattern matching at the corners. I buy chop. Even the most expensive LJ frames do not match and my customers are asking for matched corners for the price they are paying and should get a perfect frame. I have discussed this with my rep, but it is up to quality control at the warehouse and this means waste and less profit for them.
 
Originally posted by maureen:
A problem I have with all my suppliers is the pattern matching at the corners. I buy chop. Even the most expensive LJ frames do not match and my customers are asking for matched corners for the price they are paying and should get a perfect frame....
Click to expand...
Maureen,

Even with the most expensive frames you order chop from Larson-Juhl, LaMarche or any other distributor, the most you can expect them to do with a patterned profile is "pretty good", UNLESS you are willing to do matched mitering. (This has been discussed several times
on previous postings, so you'll find info in the archives.)

This is really a different subject than Grumbling Mike's concerns.........he's speaking of general poor mitreing (Angles).

Let's say you charge $22/foot for an expensive, patterned European imported moulding for a 22x28 inch frame, and the moulding is 3inches wide. That's 10-1/3 feet of moulding or $227.33. I would simply order this frame in "Short Length" to fill the order and cut the mitres myself. We typically would charge the customer an extra 2 feet* to achieve this. That would put the retail charge at $271.33.

This should be a "Heads Up" for us, the salesperson (Read - Custom Framer) who needs to be aware of which profiles should be offered in two versions, standard joined, and match mitred.

The overall frame size will increase slightly as well increasing mat dimensions (Not a bad thing) and the overall cost of other charges (Again - not a bad thing).

* Realize that different profiles require less and more footage to achieve matched corner patterns.

John
 
We have had various problems with vendors in the past and after complaining, most have been fixed. One time there was literally a saw that was not calibrated in the warehouse.
I really like Rons idea about grading the vendors, even if it is just to let the reps know! ;)
 
Grumbling Mike:
Oh boy do we know what you mean, and it very well could be the same company!!! We've had everything from the same damaged metal moulding coming in twice to three frames, all the wrong size even when I faxed in the order with the right size on it in legible writing, (they were too small) when they finally got the size right, the finish had a multitude of little paint bubbles in it, so we sent it back again.
We can't trust this company for mitres either. We now order chop two to three inches larger and then cut it down ourselves with our Pistorius. The scary thing is that this company moved in the middle of the fall to a new location and things haven't been the same, they also managed to get the contract to supply frames to two new M******'s stores in the area. We got fed up, the final straw was when it took 40 feet of moulding to do one 20x20 inch frame. We're quickly weeding out their corners, we just can't trust them any more. I know that the sales rep lurks around on this sight and he knows who he is, he's a nice guy but even his hands are tied. We even asked the local manager of this company to come in and talk to us. She was very nice and understood all of the problems and was taking all of our 'concerns' to the annual sales meeting. In short, we've given up on them in the moulding department, about the only thing we'll be ordering from them until they smarten up is Bevel Accents. We would be interested in finding out if this actually is the same company but we don't know if we want to post it for everyone to see...yet...
It does seem that we have the power$$$$ if we all work together to get a message across, even if we aren't a big box stores...
Small shops up here represent over 30% of the total market, last time we checked, that was alot of money out of our pockets, but maybe in the end, our customers will be even happier when we stop carrying crap.

Paul
&
Nikki
 
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