Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach Norm
As a mentor of our team, I am very disappointed to see some of the posts on CD blasting suppliers as some have. Is this the example we are wanting to set for our students? If these posts are from students, mentors where are you when the students need your guidance?
If you have such issues, deal directly with VEX. They have been very open to communications with all the teams here on CD and offered several ways for teams to communicate with them.
We are very fortunate to have suppliers who believe in FRC and the opportunities it provides for the students involved. I am certain that the prices and services they provide are not what we would find from other suppliers or we would see more vendors in this arena. AM, VEX and WCP are all veteran FRC'ers who know how the season goes in regards to getting orders in, managing time and completing builds.
Best of luck all.
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Well said.
There is a teachable lesson here for all FIRST team members. Buying from a manufacturer like Vexpro or Andymark is much different than going and buying something from Amazon.
1. Small suppliers can only keep a small supply on hand. They have to pay taxes on inventory, and over building and surplus inventory is a drag on a bottom line. All too often, that bottom line is very very small.
2. Small suppliers order in batches. They don't call a store two counties over and ask to have some stock sent over. They have to guess demand ahead of time and try to stock up.
3. Small suppliers have a small workforce. AM and Vexpro have one 'big' season. During the rest of the year, they're fullfilling orders but on a scale that is probably a couple orders of magnitude smaller. They can't quadruple their workforce then fire all those people.
Those who work in manufacturing or own a small business understand these things pretty well, but for most of our team members it's a new concept. They're use to retail: Amazon, Itunes, and Mcdonalds. Those people who have been with FIRST for some time have a point of reference in comparing good versus bad suppliers. Those who haven't been around don't have a reference point, and don't understand how excellent the service that we're getting really is.
Back to the original subject at hand - I absolutely love versa planetaries. They blow the Banebots products out of the water.