Keeping a forging customer between schedules: how to stay visible when orders come in releases

The schedule for connecting rods was 3,000 last time. This one says 1,800, and nobody has told you why. Release-based buyers call off forgings as their stock runs down, against an open order that names you and, quite possibly, a second forger. Five moments decide who gets the bigger share of the next release. A release shrinks. Steel moves. A die nears its re-sink. The vendor rating comes out, or a new model is planned. Be in touch then. Calls in between are noise.

Who decides the size of your next release

The open purchase order fixes the price. The quantities come from the buyer's planning system, released part by part as the build plan changes. When a forging has two sources, the split between them is a person's decision. The planner or the purchase engineer sets it, and defends it with the vendor rating: deliveries on time, rejections, and how fast you answered.

The second forger already has a die, an approval and a vendor code. Moving quantity to that forger costs the buyer one keystroke. So between releases your job is not to ask for orders. It is to keep the rating on your side, and to hear about a change before the schedule shows it.

Five moments worth a message

Each moment has a person and a thing to send. Anything else can wait for the next release.

1. A release smaller than the last, with no change in the buyer's market. The split may have moved. Ask the planner directly whether the quantity was cut for everyone or divided differently.
2. Steel moves. Forgings are priced on steel. Send the revision with its working, the reference rate, its date and the input weight, before an invoice reaches the buyer's accounts. A buyer who learns of a price change from an invoice starts asking the other forger for a rate. How to word the steel basis in the first place is in what goes in a forging quotation.
3. The die nears its re-sink. Tell the planner when it will come off, and offer to forge a stock ahead against written approval, so no release is missed. Who pays for the re-sink is a separate question, answered in our post on die ownership and die life.
4. Your vendor rating card. If the buyer scores suppliers, ask for your card when it does not arrive. Reply to every mark against you with what you changed, in writing.
5. A new model or a drawing revision. The development engineer hears of it long before the planner does. Ask the engineer which forgings the model needs, by part name and weight, and when sources will be chosen.

Two messages, ready to send

Send these by hand on WhatsApp from the shop's own number, not a sales person's personal phone, so the thread survives when people change.

When a release shrinks:

Good morning, Sir. Release 14 for the connecting rod, drawing CR-110 revision D, has come at 1,800 against 3,000 last time. Is the build plan lower, or has the quantity been split differently? If anything on our side needs fixing, delivery or quality, please tell me directly. Rakesh, (shop name)

When the die is due for re-sinking:

Sir, the CR-110 die is close to its re-sink. We would like to take it off after release 15, and forge 2,500 extra pieces before that, held at our works for your next call-off. Please confirm in writing if you want the extra pieces, or suggest a better week for the re-sink.

The second message does two jobs. It protects the buyer's line from a gap, and it reminds the buyer that the die, the history and the approval all sit with you.

Imagine: a connecting rod forger in Aji GIDC, Rajkot

Imagine a hot forging unit in Aji GIDC, Rajkot, forging connecting rods for a maker of small diesel engines and pump sets in Ahmedabad. The details are illustrative.

Over two schedules the releases fell from about 3,000 to 1,800. The owner put it down to a slow engine market and waited. In fact the buyer had moved part of the quantity to its second forger after two late deliveries, both caused by the outside heat treater. Both were marked on the vendor rating card. The buyer had emailed it to an address used by the shop's former sales engineer, and nobody had opened it.

The owner asked purchase for the last three cards and read the two late marks. From the next release, heat-treatment furnace slots were booked when the schedule arrived, not after forging. He sent the purchase engineer one letter: the cause, the change, and a promise to share the delivery record once three releases had shipped. He also asked for the rating to come to the shop's office address. At the next vendor review the owner asked for the share back, with the record in hand, and it was restored over the following releases.

What to leave unsent

"Any requirement, Sir?" between releases tells the planner you have spare hammer time and nothing useful to say. The planning system will release when it releases.

Do not forge ahead of a release to look ready, unless the buyer has approved the quantity in writing. A drawing revision turns that stock into scrap on your floor. And do not cut the rate to win back a share you lost on delivery. The rating will still show the late marks. You will have paid twice.

When staying visible will not save the part

Some buyers re-quote every part each year by policy, or run e-auctions. Visibility gets you invited; the rate decides. A model reaching the end of its life takes the part with it, and no message changes that. And a buyer who moves from one forger to two for supply security is not judging you. Accept the split and protect your share on the rating.

Winning new buyers for the same press range is the other half of the job; the rest of the forger's selling job is on the forging and metal forming page.

Find the release that shrank

Open the last six releases for your three biggest parts and mark any that fell without a reason you know. Send the first message above about the most recent one, today. If you want the five moments, the messages and the account plans built around your own customers through strategic account management, tell us what you need.