Question about relation between measure department and customer

here we're usually a subcontractor so getting a drawing change requires 1) we submit a request to our customer 2) they decide if it needs to be changed then 3) they have to go through the print change request process with their customer (who has a terminal case of "not thought of here" desease") so we end up having a lot of red-lined prints from our customer's engineering dept. to "get by for now" (read indefinitely)

the fun part for us is our 3 biggest customers are supplying the same end user. we make the same parts for each of them so the end customer gets the parts from 3 vendors who all get their parts from us.

here we're usually a subcontractor so getting a drawing change requires 1) we submit a request to our customer 2) they decide if it needs to be changed then 3) they have to go through the print change request process with their customer (who has a terminal case of "not thought of here" desease") so we end up having a lot of red-lined prints from our customer's engineering dept. to "get by for now" (read indefinitely)

the fun part for us is our 3 biggest customers are supplying the same end user. we make the same parts for each of them so the end customer gets the parts from 3 vendors who all get their parts from us.

I love that.How about this scenario.... Part is out out of print by .005, will that work in your assembly ? This is probably the tol / variation we can hold long term. OK please send them and we will do trial fit. THE PARTS FIT AWESOME !!!!! Please send as many as you can as fast as you can for the next 10 years.. Great to hear ! Can we change the print to the larger TOL. now that we know the parts will function / assemble and will be acceptable long term..... Ahhh, no. We need to hold the existing print TOL. Thanks though...1 week later... By the way why are the parts held up in quality with out of print conditions ???

Nice one @Schlag!!! Sometimes the prints don't get changed because it costs a bunch of money, by the time all the top payed engineers are done looking at it. Other times you have to re-submit a First Article (for the entire assembly, even whole bird/car or whatever you're making) which is another ton and a half of money.

exactly Schlag , we have a sub-assembly that by itself is quite flexible, its two identicle plates (14"x4"x.25") connected by a 15" shaft attached to a corner of the plates, just picking it up causes the concentricity of a bore at the end of the plate away from the shaft to move OOT, but when it is installed in the final assembly it assumes the alignment of the things its bolted too. i have about 50 of the sub-assemblies sitting in my inspection room on hold by the customer because they wont accept the sub-assemblies because the concentricity is out .1mm across a 15" span when they inspect it after they receive it from us. as far as we can determine the fit-up of the final assembly is fine. these things have been sitting here going on a year now

Other reasons why prints can't get changed: Governing board approved design (FDA), Reliability analysis would have to be completely re-done (Space), change will put all produced/on-the-field product in question (molded product)...

I worked for a company who internally-designed product based upon basic customer parameters, so we had an internal design engineering team of 1 supervisor and 5 engineers. They were all buddy buddy dinosaurs. All had all been there 20+ years, and NONE "believed in GD&T". They literally put a generic note on each drawing 'GD&T per ASME Y14.5M', but no year. I asked what revision year GD&T applies to our prints and they said, "Well the current one, I guess." Facepalm. Some prints were created as far back as the 1970's so design intent would totally change if judged by today's gd&t (mmc bonus implied in 73 release).

Datums would be out of order, missing, etc. it was a mess. They would produce drawings that compounded cost so much, that we had some parts with 100% dimensional on all parts made (thousands per day), even though customer never had a single quality complaint.