How do I handle anodize, plating and heat treat in a quote?

Lot charges and lead days for common outside services

These are the starting values in our pricing engine's US catalog, with several taken from finishers' published lot minimums, piece floors and invoice fees. Your vendors will differ, so get their price sheets and replace them. The last three columns are what the vendor would bill for the housing in this example, which is about the reference size for the per-piece price.

Worked example: ten anodized housings

The part is a fictional 6061-T6 aluminum housing, 5 × 3 × 1.5 in, with one 3.5 × 2 × 0.75 in pocket, four 1/4-20 tapped holes on top, four Ø.266 through holes from the bottom, two 8-32 tapped holes on one side, ±.005 in general tolerance. Without a finish, ten cost $906.40 to make. Clear Type II anodize adds the $125.00 minimum, because ten pieces at $3.50 is only $35. With a 30% markup on the whole cost, the anodize line becomes $162.50 of the price and the order is $1,340.80 instead of $1,178.30.

Switching to hardcoat (Type III) raises the minimum to $170.00 and the lead time by two more days. At 100 pieces the gap is bigger: $800.00 for hardcoat against $350.00 for clear. When a drawing says "anodize" without a type or color, quote Type II clear and say so; when it says MIL-A-8625 Type III, price the hardcoat and check whether masking is called out.

Lead time: add the vendor's days, and the trips

Our pricing engine adds the finisher's turnaround to the shop's own lead time; here anodize turns 12 working days into 17. Two outside processes in sequence (heat treat, then plating) add both, plus a trip between them. Ask your vendors for their real turnaround this month, not the brochure number, and pad it before a holiday or when they say they're backed up.

Quote lead time from receipt of the PO and the customer's confirmation of the revision, not from today. If the finish has a certification (a cert of conformance to MIL-A-8625 or AMS 2700), the paperwork comes back with the parts; make sure your promise date allows for it.

Freight both ways

Somebody drives the parts to the finisher and back, or pays a carrier. If it's your truck, it's your driver's time; if it's a courier, it's an invoice. At an assumed $35 each way, $70.00 on ten housings is $7.00 a part, which is real money on a small order. Either add it as its own line or include it in the outside-service cost before markup. On the quote, say what's included: "Price includes anodize and freight to and from our finisher."

Why mark up outside services

It's tempting to pass the finisher's invoice through at cost. But you carry the vendor's invoice before the customer pays, you schedule and inspect the lot, and you own the outcome if the finisher ruins a part. In this example, remaking one housing after the anodizer scraps it costs about $392.42: a new setup and first article on the mill (the program already exists) plus another anodize minimum. A 30% markup on a $125.00 anodize lot is $37.50, which covers that only once in several orders.

Whatever markup you choose for outside services, use it every time and keep it in the estimate, not in your head.

What to do next

Collect each finisher's lot minimum, per-piece price, invoice fee and current turnaround, and put them in your estimating sheet as their own lines. Then check the last ten quotes with a finish on them: anything under the vendor's minimum lost money on the finish. In QuotedPart each finish is a line with its own lot charge, piece price, fee and lead days, so the quote adds them the same way every time.

• How to quote a lead time you can hit
• How to quote a CNC machining job