Is it worth cre­at­ing a spec­i­fi­ca­tion sheet

for rub­ber and plas­tic articles?

In con­ven­tion­al rub­ber and plas­tics projects, spec­i­fi­ca­tions are rare. Most cus­tomers tend to explain their require­ments dur­ing a con­sul­ta­tion meet­ing. The rea­son for this is that many design­ers come from the met­al sec­tor and have lit­tle expe­ri­ence with the devel­op­ment of rub­ber or plas­tic com­po­nents. They lack the know-how.

For this rea­son, many com­pa­nies pre­fer to call on the con­sult­ing ser­vices of a man­u­fac­tur­er and clar­i­fy open ques­tions in dia­log. As a rule, a spec­i­fi­ca­tion sheet is still pro­duced in this way, but it is drawn up by the sup­pli­er and rep­re­sents a doc­u­men­ta­tion of what has been discussed.

How­ev­er, dis­pens­ing with an inter­nal­ly pre­pared require­ments spec­i­fi­ca­tion pos­es chal­lenges that com­pa­nies should keep in mind. For exam­ple, the rub­ber and plas­tics pro­duc­er’s review of the project request runs much faster and more smooth­ly if all the impor­tant infor­ma­tion is already avail­able. Clar­i­fy­ing require­ments dur­ing the con­sul­ta­tion process often means that cus­tomers have to dis­cuss open ques­tions inter­nal­ly before pro­duc­tion can start. Aspects often come up that the cus­tomer has not yet thought about or has not spec­i­fied to a suf­fi­cient degree of detail. This can lead to delays that could have been avoid­ed with a pre­pared specification.

In addi­tion, a require­ments spec­i­fi­ca­tion can facil­i­tate the selec­tion of a suit­able devel­op­ment part­ner for the project, because the detailed spec­i­fi­ca­tions record­ed there also rep­re­sent deci­sion cri­te­ria. They allow the sup­pli­er to clar­i­fy whether he can imple­ment a solu­tion with his exist­ing capa­bil­i­ties and capac­i­ties and at what con­di­tions. At the same time, the cus­tomer receives valu­able feed­back, which he can use to bet­ter com­pare the man­u­fac­tur­ers contacted.