| Message: | Some time ago, an old customer in the United States needed us to sign a confidentiality agreement to develop a new hydraulic relief valve. The drawings of the hydraulic relief valve were sent 1 month after the confidentiality agreement was signed. The customer requested that if we were not able to develop it, they would witness us destroy the drawings and documents of the hydraulic relief valve by video. It's the first time for this customer to be so formal.
After receiving the drawings of hydraulic relief valve, we knew that it was to match with a set of aerospace equipment developed by a world top 500 enterprise in the United States. AAK engineers reviewed the drawings for 3 days and still didn't write the sample program. This hydraulic relief valve is not only small in size, but also has material requirements, machining accuracy requirements and use frequency requirements that exceed the parameter requirements of the hydraulic relief valves we have seen. We estimated that the overall development cost will not be less than 20,000 US dollars, and the success rate will be about 10%.
When we mentioned the development cost and difficulty to the customer, the customer's answer is: now I'll give you 30,000 dollars and give you 1 year of time. If the development is successful, you can wait for the order of hydraulic relief valve. If the development fails, this $30,000 will be deducted from the payment for AAK in the future. That’s to say that the customer will prepay for the development cost of the hydraulic relief valve, but if it fails, we will need to refund it by deducting from the future payment gradually.
I did not hesitate to reply to the email and was willing to try to develop this hydraulic relief valve. Our engineer joked that next, it is estimated that he will lose a layer of skin. If it fails, it may be not only a waste of tens of thousands of dollars in development costs, but also the loss of his own job. |
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