One supplier includes a presented carton and prepared kit. The cheaper offer starts with our operator doing that preparation and calls it customer assistance. I need to compare the complete job, not punish the fuller quote for admitting there is work before the robot moves. What should we put beside the totals?
What exactly does the operator prepare in the cheaper option, and how often? I'd list the actual tasks before anybody assigns one optimistic assistance allowance to all of them.
Open and present the cartons, orient the boxed kits, then replenish both. The other supplier includes a presentation concept but hasn't finalised the fixture price. Neither total is complete.
Compare interruptions as well as the steady feed. If the same person replenishes and deals with an awkward carton, the work can overlap. A total of separate best-case times won't tell you whether they can cover the station.
Ask the packer to check that task list before the suppliers price it, because the missing bit is often the thing everybody thinks happens somewhere else
Keep the two process options if both are worth considering. Align their task coverage and assumptions without pretending they must allocate the work to the same person or machine. That difference may be the point of the comparison.
Thomas, yes. I don't want Joseph to buy automatic presentation merely because it makes the quote look more complete. I want the manual preparation named and costed so the choice is real.
Packer says clearing unfinished kits at a format change is missing from both. She wants that included, particularly when the next order uses the same carton but a different kit.
That is worth keeping distinct from replenishment. Returning the old kit supply and confirming the next one can be a different task from simply topping up an empty tray.
Does either offer include the required safeguarding, commissioning and operator handover for its complete method? A change in preparation can affect the tasks that need reviewing, even if the arm and gripper price stays the same.
Both have provisional lines, with different assumptions about operator access and changeover. Our integrator is reviewing the complete methods. I haven't treated the manual assistance line as permission to work anywhere around the cell.
Who owns pricing the internal preparation and changeover time, Joseph? It needs an answer from your team rather than another supplier guess about how available your packer will be.
Packing lead owns it with the operator. Fixture allowances remain separate. Our summary now shows the two methods and their unanswered costs, not a cheapest-supplier ranking.