Trade and fleet
Ordering a run rather than a unit
A run of ten units is one specification ordered ten times, and most of what makes it cheaper to build comes from that rather than from the quantity.
The reason a second unit costs less to make than a first is not that somebody applied a discount. It is that the engineering is already done, the jigs are already set, the approval work is already established and the inspector already knows what they are checking.
All of that survives only if the drawing stays frozen. A run where every unit is slightly different is ten first units, and it is priced like ten first units, because that is what it costs to build.
What is ours
And stays ours
One specification, frozen once
Agreed in writing before the first unit, and every unit in the run built to it. A change mid run is a written variation with a price and a date, not a message.
Approval work done once
The route is established for the destination market once and applied to the whole run, which is where most of the saving on a repeat order actually comes from.
Consolidation
Mixed models against one drawing set, planned into shipments by us rather than absorbed by you.
Inspection per unit, not per sample
Inspection arrangements are confirmed in the written order, and where it includes inspection each unit goes against the frozen drawing rather than a sample, because a run where one unit is wrong is a fleet where one unit is wrong for its whole life.
A file per unit
Drawings, certificates, test results and identification per serial, as confirmed before an order is accepted. A fleet with one shared document pack is a fleet that cannot prove anything about any individual unit.
What is yours
And stays yours
A volume you will actually take
Committed in writing, because that is what makes it a run rather than an intention. An uncommitted forecast is priced as single units.
The destination markets, at the start
Approval headroom is finite in at least one market we sell into, so the number of units and the countries matter before the first one is built rather than after the fourth.
A frozen specification, and the discipline to leave it frozen
This is the one that decides the price, and it is the one buyers underestimate.
What we will not do
Said before it matters
- Publish a discount schedule. A number published to everybody is a number negotiated with nobody, and it would be wrong for most readers of it.
- Quote a run against a specification that is still moving, because that quotation would be fiction.
- Treat a verbal volume as a commitment, in either direction.
No prices here
They belong in a contract
Discounts, minimum quantities, margins and payment percentages belong in a contract with a named counterparty. A number published to everybody is a number negotiated with nobody, and it would be wrong for most of the people reading it.
What is set out instead is the shape of the arrangement, which is what you need before you spend an afternoon on it. Supplier terms follow the same rule.
Questions
Asked before an arrangement, not after
What is the minimum?
There is no published minimum, because the thing that changes the economics is a frozen specification rather than a quantity. Two units to one drawing behave more like a run than five units to five drawings do.
Does the price drop per unit?
The cost to build drops for the reasons above, and what that means for your price is a conversation with your numbers in it.
Is there a limit on how many you can supply?
In Australia there is, and it comes from the approval route rather than from capacity. Concessional entry to the Register of Approved Vehicles is capped at four low ATM trailers per twelve months, and above that a vehicle type approval is required. Tell us the annual volume at the start and the route is planned around it.
Can we add units later at the same specification?
That is the point of freezing it. A reorder is placed against the same drawing, and if we have to change something we raise it before the build.
Tell us the market and the volume
Which country, how many units a year, and what you sell now. That is enough for a first conversation and it is enough for us to say no quickly if it is not a fit.