Good craftsmanship alone is not enough

The aspect of precise job costing and, above all, post-costing is often neglected due to lack of time. Especially in times of crisis, when the share of well-paid orders decreases, this can threaten the existence of the company.

Contract coating is a challenging line of business. On the one hand, strong competition leads to considerable cost pressure, which limits the achievable margin; on the other hand, the damage caused by quality deficiencies can quickly threaten operations. In addition to mastering the actual craft of pretreatment and coating, however, another aspect is crucial to the future security of a contract coater: calculation, pricing and, if necessary, optimization of coating costs for individual orders.

Particularly in difficult times, the temptation is greater than usual to accept orders whose profitability is already doubtful in advance. In particular, the fact that the direct costs of material consumption are often virtually negligible tempts companies to underestimate the amount of work involved and thus the costs of plant technology, but also of their own employees. If orders are not calculated to cover costs on a large scale and this tendency is not recognized in time, this can have fatal consequences for the operating result. Especially in economically turbulent times, an efficient and above all accurate price calculation is therefore particularly important.

What advice does an experienced contract coater, who has experienced and survived many economic ups and downs over the past 30 years, have for other companies?

Read more about this in the January-February issue of Surface Technology magazine, which will be published on February 1 - or right now with premium access to oberflaeche.de

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