Guides / For Shops

The Ten Questions a Titanium Buyer Is Really Asking Your Shop

Buyers rarely tell a shop why it lost. They just stop replying.

This is what a procurement engineer or a design engineer is actually testing when they send you a titanium RFQ, in the order they test it. It is the mirror image of the checklist we publish for buyers, written for the other side of the table.

1. Did you read the drawing

The first thing a buyer notices is whether your reply references their part or a generic capability.

A reply that says “yes we can do titanium, please find our quote attached” tells them nothing. A reply that says “the 1.2 mm wall on the left face is the constraint, we would run this in two ops with a support fixture” tells them you opened the file.

That one sentence moves you ahead of most of the field before price is even discussed.

2. Do you cut this grade now

Everybody’s website says titanium. Buyers have learned to discount it.

What they are looking for is production evidence: which grades, what sizes, how recently. “Grade 5 brackets last month, around 80 off, 200 by 120” is a different answer from “we machine all materials including titanium”.

If titanium is occasional for you, say so and say what you do run. A buyer with a Grade 2 marine part may be delighted with a shop that is honest about being a Grade 2 shop.

3. Where is the material coming from

This is the question that separates shops that have been burned from shops that are about to be.

In titanium the bar sets the lead time more often than the machine does. A buyer with a real deadline wants to know:

• Do you buy the stock or do they supply it
• What do you hold, in which grades and sizes
• What is the current lead time on their size, not in general
• If their size is awkward, will you propose one that is on a shelf

A shop that answers all four without being prompted looks like a shop that has done this before, because it is.

4. Can you prove the tolerance

Anything tighter than ±0.02 mm turns into a metrology question.

Buyers want to hear about the CMM, whether it sits in a temperature controlled room, who writes a first article report and whether anyone there has produced one to AS9102. Confidence is not evidence. A shop that says yes to every tolerance on the drawing, including the one the buyer added by accident, sets off alarms rather than confidence.

5. What is your plan for holding it

Titanium deflects and springs back. Buyers who have been through it once know that fixturing is most of the job on a thin or awkward part.

“We will put it in the vice” is an answer. It is just not the one that wins aerospace work. Soft jaws cut for the part, sacrificial tabs, a vacuum plate, a second operation on a dedicated fixture: naming any of these signals you have thought about their part specifically.

6. Do you understand the paperwork they need

Mill certificate to EN 10204 3.1, heat lot traceability, first article report, AMS 4928 rather than ASTM B348. The buyer is testing whether you know the difference.

The strongest answer includes what they do not need. A shop that says “you have asked for a 3.2 certificate, that needs a third party witness and adds weeks, are you sure your customer requires it rather than 3.1” has just saved them money and time. That shop gets the next enquiry.

7. How do you keep the heat number attached

For aerospace and medical work this is not a paperwork question, it is a scrap question.

Buyers want to hear the actual mechanism: transfer marking before the original marking is machined away, witnessed by QC, segregated storage, identification that survives an outside process. A shop that can send a redacted certificate of conformity within the hour has answered the question completely.

8. Will you tell them when they are wrong

This is the quality buyers value most and the one shops most often suppress out of politeness.

If the drawing calls Grade 5 where Grade 2 would do, if a tight block tolerance is applied to everything, if an internal corner radius is forcing a small cutter, the buyer usually does not know. Telling them makes their part cheaper and makes your quote lose on price.

It also makes you the shop they call next time. Every buyer has a shortlist of suppliers who tell them the truth, and that list is short.

9. How fast do you reply

Not how fast do you deliver. How fast do you reply.

A buyer chasing three quotes is running a project with a date on it. The shop that acknowledges within a day and asks two intelligent questions is managing their risk for them. The shop that goes quiet for a week has told them what working together will feel like.

10. Do they believe you will say no

The final test, and the one that decides whether you get a second enquiry.

Buyers are not looking for a shop that can do everything. They are looking for a shop whose yes means something. A shop that declines a part it cannot hold, explains why, and suggests what would make it possible, is a shop whose next yes is worth trusting.

The short version

The buyer asks	They are really testing
Can you machine titanium	Do you cut this grade this quarter
What is your lead time	Do you know where the bar is coming from
Can you hold ±0.01 mm	Can you prove it, and on what equipment
Do you have AS9100	Do you know whether this part needs it
What is your price	Did you read the drawing before you priced it

None of this requires a bigger machine. It requires answering the question behind the question, and most shops never do.

If you cut titanium in production

We introduce titanium RFQs to shops that run the grade in question now. You see an anonymous preview before you pay, you get the buyer’s contact when you take it, and there is no commission on the order.

Register your shop, or read the six lead sources compared first to see where a matching service does and does not fit.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• Six Ways a Machine Shop Finds Titanium Work, and What Each One Costs
• Marketplace, Matching Service or Direct Sales: What Each Does to a Shop