DEMO — fictional range. Local brief only, NOT SENT. No personal data is collected or transmitted.
BUYING
What a quotation needs in order to be a quotation.
Most packaging enquiries stall because the buyer has a product and no packing station. This is the list worth completing before the first message.
- The contents
- Size, weight and whether it has a sharp edge
- The parcel rate
- Because it decides whether equipment will actually be used
- The bench
- Its dimensions, because equipment that does not fit is not used
- The journey
- Transfers, stacking and how long it is in the network
- The machine
- For stretch film, because the setting is part of the specification
- The print
- Process and substrate, and a proof made the same way
- The quantity and the split
- Across sizes and print variants
- The inspection
- Including seal strength after conditioning
Why the parcel rate comes second.
Because it decides whether the equipment is used at all. A void-fill system that adds eight seconds a parcel is skipped in the peak, and the material saving appears on the invoice but not in the pack.
The most useful sentence in an enquiry.
"Two hundred parcels an hour off one bench, and the contents have a machined corner." It tells the supplier which two properties matter, and it is the sentence most enquiries leave out.
Why written beats verbal.
The expensive conversations in a programme are the ones about what was agreed. A brief that exists only in a meeting leaves every disputed detail open.