Bill, I'm out of the buying end of it now, due to a job change about 3 mos. ago.
Last job, we dealt with our same old suppliers (GE Supply, Rexel, CED) and never put material quotes out to bid on the net.
We got great customer support from our suppliers (company doing business with them for >30 yrs). Due to the enormous supply of materials in this area, almost anything could be will-called if we needed it in a hurry. Could this be done with an e-company as well?
Plotting is done in house. Taking diskettes to the printers gets expensive. We try to keep the plotting to a minimum and work with just the files as much as possible. Almost everything is either R14 or 2000 Autocad, so all the different formats haven't seemed to be a problem.
It seems like most of the contractors we deal with are still in the "Stone Age". Lots and lots of business is still done via massive amounts of paperwork, FAX & phone. The customers seem to be much more high tech & willing to work the "modern" way.
