Responding to Jim ’Textbook’ Wynnes comments regarding his ask the customer suggestion. In an ideal world yes, and as instructed in many textbooks (which I might add, tend to be written by scholars who haven’t worked in industry for many many years – and there will be a reason for that) you could do that, but practically, in most instances, hmmm.
If the suggestion is that I lack practical experience, you're going to be disappointed. I have it on both sides of the customer/supplier fence, and a
lot of it, from doing basic mechanical inspection to managing large quality departments. I have, on
innumerable occasions, been the poor schmuck with a part and a drawing and no clue as to what the designer might have been thinking, or what was actually needed. I have no idea what you might think the big obstacle is in (gasp!) actually talking to customers about how best to make them happy. True enough, it's not
always possible, but it is in most instances, and I'm speaking from personal experience.
To be honest if I had a supplier who asked me how to measure a knurl, I’d be worried no matter what the value of the product issued to the supplier was.
One would think you'd have better things to worry about. It's not a question of asking a customer how to measure a knurl--I have a suspicion that I was measuring knurls before you even knew what a knurl was--it's a matter of understanding the customer's needs, and making sure that when there's any ambiguity at all, you do whatever's necessary to
know and not
guess. Look at the OP's question. It's not just a matter of how to measure the knurl; there's also the small matter of a "Cpk check." It appears that the measurement over the knurl might be important.
And speaking as a person who, for the past several years, had dealt with supplier quality for a large OEM, I
like it when suppliers call to discuss measurement methods. I don't assume that they lack basic skills just because they want to understand the requirements. The fact that you seem to think that suppliers who want to talk about important things with their customers are perhaps not very bright, I can understand why many suppliers are reluctant to call customers.
I have never been requested to measure features of a part in a certain way (except for GD&T callouts whereby features are measured against datum’s), but that’s not actual measurement in this sense.
We're not talking about being told how to measure something, we're talking about asking questions when ambiguity exists. But if you've never been caught in a position where there's conflict over measurement methods, then...
In any way, there is no need to speak to the customer regarding basic measurement principles, I’m sorry to say that measurement of this types is at its basic state, I’m not sure where you’re being educated but to measure knurls and/ or diameters in three places is absolutely ridiculous, I was trying to offer advice in this matter, besides falling off my chair in amazement at this question.
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Everyone's advice is welcome.