Cermark Job Pending

[Tim Bateson]

I’m trying to quote a complicated order for a couple thousand plaques (2 sizes)… Stainless using both Black and White Cermark… and have several additional stainless pieces Cermarked and attached to the main stainless plaque.


Total Run times – large plaque 9 minutes - Small plaque 6 minutes This is totaling all of the pieces and colors and not adding spraying, drying, or washing times - just laser time.


I’ve lost several major contracts recently, so I could really use the business, but am thinking to underbid could financially ruin me on this job.

Any suggestions… other than passing the work your way?

[Joe Pelonio]

if you need the work, and have done similar jobs at all, you should be able to handle it. the best way to come up with a decent bid is to do a dry run.
hand brush with whiteout or paint, on any scraps you have of similar size.

If you haven't seen the artwork you should ask for a jpg or something before bidding, then try to duplicate it in Corel for a run time test. Are they supplying the material? If so, just charge your hourly rate based on
the test time and then put that on the quote then show a discount for volume, maybe 10%. Also make sure they give you enough time to run
it.

[Rodne Gold]

Well at 15 mins per set - or average out at 7.5 mins per plate or 9 mins including loading , positioning etc - means you can do 7 an hour at best - or 70 a day being realistic.
2 000 of these will take approx 30 working days.

If you need the business , I would not quote on a per minute basis but rather what you want to earn profit wise in a day + 2x the cost of the cerdec you use.

I would also try to do optimisation to reduce the time taken to do these , worth an hour or 2 of experimentation to shave off a minute or 2 on each job.

You can recover cerdec as well , brush off dry residue into a bowl and then rinse the plate - you can even recover from the rinse water ....

The thing is , if all these jobs are the same , there might be much cheaper ways of doing this - like screenprinting the SS with a bake on enamel or acid etching, yag lasering or the like , if all are different , it's another story. So you have to bear this in mind

Good luck and I hope you get the job at a decent price.

[Gary Hair]

If you need the business , I would not quote on a per minute basis but rather what you want to earn profit wise in a day + 2x the cost of the cerdec you use.

This is really perfect advice for any large job. Forget about the unit price and just determine how long the whole job is going to take and how much you need to make in that time period. The idea behind it isn't any different than doing a smaller job but in large scale it make more of a difference when you are under/over by a second or two per piece.

Good luck with the bid, I hope you get it!

Gary

[Tim Bateson]

Well at 15 mins per set - or average out at 7.5 mins per plate or 9 mins including loading , positioning etc - means you can do 7 an hour at best - or 70 a day being realistic.
2 000 of these will take approx 30 working days.

If you need the business , I would not quote on a per minute basis but rather what you want to earn profit wise in a day + 2x the cost of the cerdec you use.

I would also try to do optimisation to reduce the time taken to do these , worth an hour or 2 of experimentation to shave off a minute or 2 on each job....

Thanks, makes perfect sense. I know to some they may say " well duuu", but sometimes we get focused elseware and don't see the obvious solution. That's what's great about our forum - a chance to bounce things off one another.

[Dan Hintz]

Time,

Does the quoted runtime include more than one plaque on the machine bed at once? A 10 minute/plaque job can become a 14 minute per 2 plaque job if you can fit it on the bed...

[Mike Null]

Have you considered having the job etched and filled? Maybe that would be cheaper with so many to do.