MAPP Plastics Discussion ForumThe MAPP Plastic Industry Discussion Forum allows members to rapidly communicate with each other. Post both questions and answers to questions that other MAPP members have about any industry topic from material and process issues to R&E Tax Credits and other business issues. |  |
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| Posted: 18 Jul 2008 22:40 | |
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Hello MAPP Members,
Is anyone including a standard Terms & Conditions document that accompanies a quote and/or order acknowledgement to OFFSET a PO's Terms & Conditions document from a customer?
Thanks for your input!
Teresa
Marketing Manager
Plastic Components, Inc.
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| Posted: 19 Jul 2008 16:39 | |
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We don't have anything that specifically offsets our customer's t&c's, but we do confirm each customer order witht he wording "Acceptance is subject to MET Plastics Terms & Conditions of Quotation".
Mike Walter
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| Posted: 19 Jul 2008 19:37 Last Edited By: Troy Nix | |
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This posting has been archived and is no longer active This may not directly answer you question, but it may provide you with more information to make a decision on how to approach the t/c issue.
Published in January of 2006, the MAPP organization completed a white paper and benchmarking study on Terms and Conditions used in the Plastics Industry. Statistics used in this publication where gather from 28 sets of terms and conditions documents provided by different plastics manufacturing companies.
Over 50% of the respondents had their Terms and Conditions Document reviewed by legal council and none had been officially challenged in a legal setting.
Penalty Clauses: 22.2% of the Terms and Conditions documents contained penalty clauses which were placed on customers if work was pulled early or the production contract was breached. Nearly 52% of the respondents had no such clauses in place.
Pulling Business: None of the respondents had any contract provisions in place to protect how much work a customer could pull at any given time. The goal of this question was to see how plastics manufacturing companies were protecting themselves against a large customer pulling their entire block of business at any given time.
Tool Storage: Only 4% of the plastics business leaders who responded to this survey had provisions in place to charge for any type of mold storage whether active or inactive.
In this document, which is FREE to MAPP members, there are 28 examples of full terms and conditions policies, scrubbed of any company specific information, that may be used to help you.
Please send an email to info@mappinc.com and simply request a copy of the Terms and Conditions booklet and it will be emailed to you directly.
Troy Nix
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| Posted: 21 Jul 2008 14:59 | |
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At York Imperial we post our Terms and Conditions on the website and make reference to it on our quotation. Our Terms and Conditiona are specifically plastics related.
Bob Holbrook
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| Posted: 21 Jul 2008 15:34 | |
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Hi Teresa,
Yes, we do use a std terms and conditions statement to off set our customers P.O. statement...Would you like us to email you a copy of it?
Thomas Houdeshell
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| Posted: 23 Jul 2008 23:53 | |
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At Parish Manufacturing we send a copy of our standard terms and conditions, as well as our limited warranty, with quotations. If a customer purchase order indicates anything different we resolve it with the customer before acknowleging (accepting) the PO. How we do this depends on the customer, but is always documented.
Dan Cunningham
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| Posted: 24 Jul 2008 22:14 | |
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Teresa,
We have T&C's that we include with the quote.
However, I would ask you/others that have replied thus far... if the customer buys over $250K per year or some high level... do you enforce your T&C's or just accept theirs?
Kelly Goodsel
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| Posted: 25 Jul 2008 00:34 | |
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Kelly,
We do accept the customer's T&C for some higher value customers. "Higher value customers" are not determined by volume alone.
Dan Cunningham
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| Posted: 06 Aug 2008 17:32 | |
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We do the same thing as York- refer to a website link on our quote. We also make sure all of our customer service people have the following note at the bottom of every email they send:
ALL ORDERS SUBJECT TO IRONWOOD PLASTICS TERMS & CONDITIONS. VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT http://www.ironwood.com/terms.html
Our attorney, of course, wants every customer to sign our terms and conditions (I actually paid money to hear that advise!) and says our approach probably won't hold water in court, but agrees it may be the only way to get "something".
Mark Stephens
President
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| Posted: 03 Oct 2008 16:37 | |
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If you do not have a standard Terms & Conditions of Sale and make certain to place it in the hands of both your customers and prospective customers, you could possibly weaken your position both in customer negotiations and legal situations.
T&Cs can also be helpful in dealing with large corporations where high turnover rates in purchasing can wipe previous agreements clean.
It is also a good idea to have a standard T&C of Purchase to be included with purchase orders.
In addition, with new customers, we try to include a contract review as part of every project, covering things like credit, what is being sold, lot sizes, firm release horizons, tooling, provisions for review of contract (what can change prices), terms of commitment and warrent & limitation of liability.
R. Daniel Arvin
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| Posted: 22 Oct 2008 23:27 | |
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I become very interested on the subject of Terms and Conditions when 21st Century Plastics received an RFQ from Delphi Corp. The first sentence on the response form indicated that any response signified the supplier's acceptance of all Delphi Terms and Conditions, without alteration, which are found on Delphi's website. On the website, I found an 11 page document that you should be able to link using the address below. Otherwise use Delphi.com and go to the supplier portal.
https://portal.covisint.com/portal/cmdocs/bc9 ...
My attorney said these conditions are "about as bad as they get." They anticipate anything you can think of and cover it only for the benefit of Delphi. Nothing is for the benefit of the supplier, from tool payment to warranty of parts. I would encourage ALL processors to read the document just to get an idea of what the industry is exposed to.
When I discussed this with a molder friend, it was obvious that he had not read his customer's documents, which is what I suspected. When this subject was brought up during MAPP’s Benchmarking Conference, the group of attendees response reinforced my suspicions. My friend told me "If a customer told us we would have to pay for warranty, I would just say 'No, we won't pay for it'." I don't think hope and bravado will work well as a strategy in dealing with the problem in court and most processors must face this reality!
I have now seen similar documents from Collins & Aikman, Lear, JCI, Magna, and Navistar. None of them indicate any willingness to negotiate with a smaller supplier. Perhaps the fact that no one has concerns about this (except me) indicates it is not a big problem. However, if a typical MAPP supplier is molding a critical part that has lots of problems in the field, or a recall, these terms and conditions could easily bankrupt the molder. Maybe ignorance is bliss, after all!
Gordon Wright
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