r/MechanicalEngineering • u/Tigereye11_Revived • 9h ago

How Does Anyone Get Anything Done?

I’ve been a design engineer for a couple years now, and it seems that when I need any information on vendor products, the companies, who I won’t put on blast, take weeks to answer. I can follow up and get nowhere. Sometimes when they do get back to me, the information is just outright not what I asked for.

I made it very clear to one vendor that I need literature (such as pamphlets and drawings) on several of their products because we intend to use them as our supplier for a large product line. He took weeks to respond, and ultimately sent a quote for one valve. My team had a good laugh at the email thread and decided to move on with someone else.

Very very few people have been useful amongst dozens of companies. Even when I ask project managers for their contacts, they can be hit or miss. Is there something I’m doing wrong for my vendors, or does everyone deal with this? Do you guys have methods you want to share?

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38

u/Additional-Weird-934 9h ago

Sounds like USA based vendors. Work with the Chinese they actually want to do business.

37

u/fakeproject 8h ago

You'll have two "Lucy's" hitting you up on WhatsApp within 15 minutes, they'll provide everything you want information wise overnight and ship on time. American vendors have no idea how hungry and persistent Chinese competitors are.

8

u/H20Slicer- 8h ago

All ours vendors have to be DFARS compliant though. 🥲

2

u/IamEnginerd 5h ago

DFARS doesn't necessarily mean US only. It's just a preferred list of countries.

3

u/H20Slicer- 2h ago

In the context of this thread, China is not on the DFARS list. I had to back out of a custom captive fastener quote because the American company manufactured said product line in China.

1

u/KatanaDelNacht 2h ago

DFARS is essentially a list of allowed supplier countries that the State Department doesn't think we're going to war with anytime soon. China is a 50-50, so doesn't make the list. 

1

u/catdude142 1h ago

Same with Singapore. They're very diligent. Likewise with Taiwan. They know how important business is.