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. I told him that the success of the hydraulic relief valve development would be counted as the contribution of the technical team, and the failure would be counted as mine, because I can't fail to live up to the customer's support for our development.
Some people in AAK can not understand how this could be a kind of support. Maybe he didn't think about a question, that is, what would the mentality of the technical team be without customer support? Behind these are two completely different ways of thinking. One is that if you haven't done it yet, think about failure first, think about whether there is a bottom plan first, and if not, don't do it. There is also a way of thinking, which is to think about how to start first. If conditions permit, start working first.
The difference between these two ways of thinking is not just the difference between conservative and radical, but whether people are the key factor to create value. With the starting money, the hard work of the technical team and the best logistics support of AAK, the probability of successful development of hydraulic relief valve may be high.
AAK hydraulic relief valve, no matter how difficult it is, just do it first. You are welcome to give it a try.
AAK HYDRAULIC VALVE (179) 2022-03-28
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