Fighting back against big company requirements

[Bill D]

I wonder if there is a yearly fee like. cnc programs no longer bought and owned, just rented. Will you have to update the policies every year or two. Does your state or county business helper department publish samples?
Bill D

 

[Portable Welder]

I wonder if there is a yearly fee like. cnc programs no longer bought and owned, just rented. Will you have to update the policies every year or two. Does your state or county business helper department publish samples?
Bill D

Yes, there's a yearly fee to belong to ISN.

 

[Portable Welder]

We'll, I've lost this battle, I'm giving in to big business, they won...

They had their corporate smooth talking safety guy call me and he sent me some formats to copy from, so my daughter is coming in tomorrow to start building us a safety manual.

On the upside, the safety guy name dropped some big companies near me that also have to hire ISN approved companies and that I would be in their registry for other companies to seek me out.

And yesterday I had an emergency job for a large company that supplies hospitals, I asked my contact if he's heard of ISN and he said his company is starting to implement ISN approved venders.

So I guess this might be a good thing for me, you get to charge more when you're only quoting against other ISN approved contractors.

 

[Phil in Montana]

Ignore there request and triple there charges, worked very well for me..

 

[CarbideBob]

They had their corporate smooth talking safety guy call me

Corporate health and safety guys are.... interesting creatures.
As a supervisor I had to do the weekly H&S talk to my team. Prepackaged things from upstairs sent to me.
Many were good, some a tad silly. Wintertime and the slip and fall coming in from the parking lot talk. (be very careful, ice can be slippery)
And the one on how to be safe when mowing your lawn at home.
They do have very good intentions.

If an employee gets a cut from a chip and leaves a few blood drops on the floor what to do?
If like me one tends to play fast and loose with safety until someone gets hurt.
Having such program or documents might not be so bad.

Then one needs the employees to read it all and talk about it. .....Pizza party.
I know this is lost part making time and the real costs. The odds of oh-shit are way up there.
Yet if such happens? The job up top is to care and make sure nobody gets hurt doing what we ask of them.
When you have to call 911 or drive a guy/gal to the hospital and then safety may seem more important to you. (BTDT)
Bob

 

[specfab]

I have had some (sad) experience with this sort of large-company extortion in the recent past, although it was a more expansive intrusion, IMO. My company designs/builds optical measuring systems using interferometric principles, for sub-nanometer shape mapping. We received a PO from a large global corp., based in US, for (2) systems which had a total value in excess of $100K., and it was an application that was perfect for our gear. Along with the PO, there were links to the customer's code of conduct, which was a lot of ESG requirements, and instructions for the "onboarding" process as a new supplier, for which we would need to pay a $1K fee. Our quote for the systems states that our terms and conditions will be the governing T&C's. The PO stated that their T&C's would govern. In reviewing their T&C's, there were explicit statements that we would be responsible for adhering to their code of conduct document by accepting their PO, and ensuring that our supply chain would also do so. We went around the barn with their legal reps trying to fix this, and finally ended up refusing the order, because they had no ability or interest in removing the offending language, and thereby coming to an agreeable situation. This was very painful for us as a start-up company, still trying to get our heads above water. I think it's a fine thing for companies to aspire to make the world a better place, generally, but to mandate that your supplier must do so, and ensure that THEIR suppliers will also, is just madness.

 

[ronf]

This really snowballs, I do some machine work for the oilfield as a side line but I'm a farmer or was until I retired. Well to add to the story I was growing barley under contract to a mexican company, they was good to deal with, then Heinekens bought into them the next thing we had to sign a paper saying we would treat our livestock humanely, that was okay as I had none, then it got so they wouldn't write checks out in your landlord's name just one check to me, it was my responsibility to split it, ya okay i can handle that, then the state is after me because I show a check to an individual and hadn't paid workers compensation on them, finally got tired of the shit and dropped growing for them, life is to short for all the stress they through at you.

 

[Greg Menke]

I sliced the side of my left thumb pretty badly on the jagged sharp edge of the stamped steel frame of a disk array in the server room- to this day I'm grateful I handled it myself. The mountain of health/safety drama that big organizations bring is amazing & I'm pretty sure its in large part not about protecting me.. just like "convenience fees" don't generally involve my convenience. I know a guy who reported some hearing damage- he ended up doing lab inspections from then on- you know, the scary stuff like making sure the foam blocks we plug the raised floor air registers with weren't above shoulder level in the bookshelves.

Short of cutting off a finger or being carried out on a stretcher I'm sure not reporting anything that happens to me- half of the job is protecting the project from the company, and part of that is protecting yourself from the company.

 

[???]

My take on big company requirements is to just ignore them. I've got a medical customer who keeps sending me supplier paperwork to fill in and I keep not filling it in or replying and they keep coming back with more work. I did once explain to them that I don't comply with any of their requirements and if they need it they should go deal with a big engineering consultancy but be prepared for 6 months of meetings and a long drawn out process. I explained that I offer quick response, fast turnaround and good pricing. It's a new year let's see if the procurement guy wants to start his year off with a failure by trying to get me to fill out the paperwork again, his batting average is pretty crap so far.

 

[Pete Deal]

I've been on the delivery end of this anal violation before. At my last job the safety department bought into this ISNet bs. I worked in engineering and we had to force our good contractors into this nonsense. ISnet company is just a parasitic outfit that has found a way to take advantage of how big companies are always looking into the crevices for risks. Couple that with the lazy ass know nothing frat boys that safety people generally are and you got ISNet. It's disgusting!

I'm skeptical it will make you any more money. In my one man world overhead like this is a killer of productivity. The next thing the scum bags will be asking you for is net 60 or more payment terms.

 

[Donkey Hotey]

In reviewing their T&C's, there were explicit statements that we would be responsible for adhering to their code of conduct document by accepting their PO, and ensuring that our supply chain would also do so.

And somewhere inside that corporation, the vice president of Global Supply Chain will have a chart touting that "77% are ISN compliant and we're on track to be more than 90% next year." Golf claps from around the table as they move on to other meaningless metrics. People never believe when I tell these stories.

 

[F35Machinist]

Bureaucracy is a fact of life. You will never be able to change these companies by refusing their demands. They would sooner go out of business than change and there are many that have. They are doing what they're going to do and that's all there is to it.

Contract manufacturing will always be the bottom wrung of the hierarchy. If you don't want to do what they say, then they will find someone that will. To be successful, you have to play the game, Sign on the dotted line, Get the certification, Jump through the hoop, Do it with a smile.

 

[F35Machinist]

I have had some (sad) experience with this sort of large-company extortion in the recent past, although it was a more expansive intrusion, IMO. My company designs/builds optical measuring systems using interferometric principles, for sub-nanometer shape mapping. We received a PO from a large global corp., based in US, for (2) systems which had a total value in excess of $100K., and it was an application that was perfect for our gear. Along with the PO, there were links to the customer's code of conduct, which was a lot of ESG requirements, and instructions for the "onboarding" process as a new supplier, for which we would need to pay a $1K fee. Our quote for the systems states that our terms and conditions will be the governing T&C's. The PO stated that their T&C's would govern. In reviewing their T&C's, there were explicit statements that we would be responsible for adhering to their code of conduct document by accepting their PO, and ensuring that our supply chain would also do so. We went around the barn with their legal reps trying to fix this, and finally ended up refusing the order, because they had no ability or interest in removing the offending language, and thereby coming to an agreeable situation. This was very painful for us as a start-up company, still trying to get our heads above water. I think it's a fine thing for companies to aspire to make the world a better place, generally, but to mandate that your supplier must do so, and ensure that THEIR suppliers will also, is just madness.

You screwed up IMO. This type of nonsense is nothing to get hung up about. Just say yes and email some forms to your vendors. Everyone just smile and nod. Tack the 1k fee onto your quote. Big companies are rigid so you have to be flexible.

 

[Thunderjet]

"The more I think about it, old Billy was right. Let's kill all the lawyers, kill'em tonight."
Don Henley.

 

[Portable Welder]

I have had some (sad) experience with this sort of large-company extortion in the recent past, although it was a more expansive intrusion, IMO. My company designs/builds optical measuring systems using interferometric principles, for sub-nanometer shape mapping. We received a PO from a large global corp., based in US, for (2) systems which had a total value in excess of $100K., and it was an application that was perfect for our gear. Along with the PO, there were links to the customer's code of conduct, which was a lot of ESG requirements, and instructions for the "onboarding" process as a new supplier, for which we would need to pay a $1K fee. Our quote for the systems states that our terms and conditions will be the governing T&C's. The PO stated that their T&C's would govern. In reviewing their T&C's, there were explicit statements that we would be responsible for adhering to their code of conduct document by accepting their PO, and ensuring that our supply chain would also do so. We went around the barn with their legal reps trying to fix this, and finally ended up refusing the order, because they had no ability or interest in removing the offending language, and thereby coming to an agreeable situation. This was very painful for us as a start-up company, still trying to get our heads above water. I think it's a fine thing for companies to aspire to make the world a better place, generally, but to mandate that your supplier must do so, and ensure that THEIR suppliers will also, is just madness.

I agree, they want you to govern your supplier's, crazy.

 

[???]

And somewhere inside that corporation, the vice president of Global Supply Chain will have a chart touting that "77% are ISN compliant and we're on track to be more than 90% next year." Golf claps from around the table as they move on to other meaningless metrics. People never believe when I tell these stories.

KPIs rule the world. How many companies have you seen where they rush around going we need to invoice the job to meet target for the analyst's. I worked with my brother when he was part of a listing on the stock exchange. Every month there was this crazy rush to invoice they quickly learnt I wouldn't let them invoice anything that wasn't finished and ready to ship.

 

[john.k]

When the parasites become too numerous ,the organism dies.

 

[Pete Deal]

Bureaucracy is a fact of life. You will never be able to change these companies by refusing their demands. They would sooner go out of business than change and there are many that have. They are doing what they're going to do and that's all there is to it.

Contract manufacturing will always be the bottom wrung of the hierarchy. If you don't want to do what they say, then they will find someone that will. To be successful, you have to play the game, Sign on the dotted line, Get the certification, Jump through the hoop, Do it with a smile.

This isn’t always true. I have enough work now and don’t currently have to deal with such crap as this. If someone came tomorrow and offered me a bunch of work with such strings I would politely tell them i’m too busy. This could change in the future but it’s not a given. And where possible i like to resist stupidity.

 

[Seesecurity]

I supply lots of government organisations and multi national companies, they're probably 75% of my turnover.
Some of their supplier forms run to 400 pages, all the multinationals issue new supplier forms every year which are different to the previous years, the government forms are pretty good tho', once submitted and you're in their system as a supplier that seems to be it.
I pay a consultancy to prep the forms for me and add it on to their quotes, it's just one of the costs of doing business.
One time one of the buyers for a smaller company I supply got a gig as a buyer for a multinational that I also supply with the same products. He asked me why he is now paying more for the same thing as when he worked at his previous job.
I told him it was to cover the costs of all the extra paperwork and the increase from net 30 to net 60, he understood and accepted that explanation.

 

[gottabench]

I'm just a small welding shop and have been in business since 1988, a company that I do a few thousand dollars of work for a year wants me to pay $ 1,200.00 to sign up with a safety company called ISN, unfortunately, I'm just a 2 man shop and don't have company manuals on dealing with blood pathogens, employee discipline and 10 - 12 other areas. So I sent them a email letting them know I'm going to decline any work that requires me making a company manual and paying an annual fee every year to belong to this ISN.
I have always had an abundance of work and don't feel like submitting to their requests.
Is any one else fighting back ? or am I crazy ?

Sounds like a numbers game. If the 1200 is a 3rd of your work raise your cost by 33 percent.