Implied Policies
When dealing with us, we expect adherence to some basic principles. On this page we will briefly present
these policies and a short explanation behind each.
Rates & Fees
In general, all project will either be based on an hourly rate or a fixed rate (where the anticipated work can be reasonably well estimated in
advance). Our hourly rates will depend on the type of work performed and will (as a general rule of thumb) lie somewhere between $25 and $125 per
hour. We are fully aware that freelancers will often perform similar types of projects (in some rare cases even of similar quality) for a lot less.
Our rates are based on a median annual wage for a degreed engineer in the USA (where all our staff resides) and is competitive in that regard.
We generally require an hourly fee base for any work that has a large amount of development or uncertainty associated with the project. Software
development and simulation work certainly falls in this category as does manufacturing of prototypes where several steps are required (such as for
example making molds and casting multiple parts). Simple 3D prints, machining, CAD rework and similar are possible projects that allow a fixed price.
In any case, we are happy to discuss both general concepts and ideas in advance and provide you with a detailed proposal once the project becomes
feasible.
2020 and later:
New starting in January 2020, we will require that all new projects that are considered development projects (where a large portion of the work
only becomes understood as the project evolves) will be considered on an hourly-fee basis only. Fixed fee projects will be limited to those where a
clear amount of work can be anticipated (such as for example cases where a CAD model is available and the physical parts need to be prototyped). All
projects that involve software development and simulation work shall be considered development projects (with some exceptions). We are happy to provide
estimates on the amount of time to develop items, but, due to the inherent uncertainty, need to insist on having hourly compensation where applicable.
The process by which we can be reached and all other aspects stay the same, this is merely to notify interested parties of this new policy.
Detailed Proposals
We would be happy to provide you with a Proposal (in response to a Request For Proposal, "RFP", using our contact page or even simply an email)
though we ask that you first provide any important information during initial conversations (likely over the course of multiple emails) so that we
can justify allocating time to writing the proposal (which can take several hours). If we receive inquiries for work, we expect that these are serious
inquiries otherwise we are likely to ignore future requests from the same source. If you are on a tight budget (isn't everyone?), we fully understand
but would appreciate it if you could share this information with us. Far too often there is a large discrepancy between what clients feel a project should
cost and the reality of how many hours will go into providing the gizmo you just invented. See these links for some thoughts:
How Long does it take to code a simple app
What makes the cost of CNC machining parts different
Project Continuations
We would love nothing more than to have a continuing, ongoing relationship with our customers.
Nevertheless, projects come to an end and people move on to other things. There is nothing wrong with that. However - and perhaps because of
this - we are adopting the policy whereby we consider a project closed and completed 30 calendar days after submitting any deliverables agreed upon.
If we do not hear within this timeframe from the client that something is incomplete, missing or otherwise not as was intended, we shall consider any
requests for additional effort after this timeframe as a new task/project with any associated fees and similar to be anticipated. This does not mean that we
cannot (or usually charge for) provide simple or quick fixes, files that have been generated or similar items. But we do want to avoid cases where a client
comes back to us a year later with drawings of a part that we provided only to insist that some 'minor revision' should have been done in the first place...
please review what we provide to you in a timely manner and let us know if there is any way we can improve upon the work that was provided. In some cases, it
takes longer to review the work due to holidays, travel or similar. Not a problem, but please let us know well in advance and provide a reasonable timeframe for
when any review will be completed.
Emails
If you send us an email or use our contact page we WILL respond to your inquiry, usually
within 24 hours (usually within an hour or
less if you live in the central US time zone). During holidays and similar this may take slightly longer, though that should be rare. If you have not
received a response within this timeframe, please check your spam folder. 9 out of 10 times our email will end up in your spam folder if you have a
restrictive filter. If you do receive our email but don't like the answer, please let us know and perhaps provide options to reconsider. If we do not hear
back from you, we will assume you did not receive our email or are too lazy to reply (just kidding, well..., kind of) and will probably start bothering you with a
lot of additional 'did you get our previous email?' inquiries. Even if your inquiry is about something we can't/don't do, we will let you know - unless it's repeated spam,
then we'll ignore you and perhaps block your IP address.
Warranty of Work
The policy on warranty is quite simple: The work is performed on a best-effort basis but without explicit warranty of any kind (unless explicitly stated so in a contract). We are happy to revise or otherwise
append the work performed, perhaps with validating simulations or test samples or similar, if and where applicable, but it needs to be understood that extra work is
billed on such basis. The reason behind this policy is quite straight forward: if there is a contractual obligation to meet certain goals, then we will meet them or
expect not to be paid. If those goals are only defined after something was completed but 'not quite' what the client expected (but did not define in advance), then
it can hardly be considered fair to blame us for not meeting a goal we were not made aware of.
Quality of Work
We will do our best to provide you with work that meets or exceeds your expectations. Should we fail to meet your expectations, please let us know so
that we can discuss a way to resolve the issue.
Payment terms
Any work invoiced is expected to be paid Net 30 (calendar) days after receipt of the invoice -unless specifically agreed to in writing prior to commencement of
the project. We will ask for confirmation of receipt of the invoice but that is not the deciding factor. If our email gets stuck/disregarded by your spam
filter, that is not something we have control over. Late payments will initially be pointed out and then charged at an additional, compounded 10% per month
late fee for repeated occurrences.
Privacy
We do not collect any private information from visitors. We don't sell customer information - ever. If you purchase software from us, we store the
name provided by PayPal together with email address and license information. If you contract us for Engineering related work, we collect any necessary
information that allows us to perform the contracted services. We are not in the business of working with or selling user data but if you feel that we
have somehow received information in some form from or about you, contact us and we will irretrievably delete anything we may have/are aware of.
One area that is perhaps somewhat special is our InStep application. Here, we track user data with as little personal information as possible. But if we find that
a user account is being used on a large number of different computers and IP addresses, we will investigate the possibility that this account has been made public,
a violation of the EULA and take appropriate steps. All user information is double encrypted (we can't generally read your login information) but keep track of anonymized
hashes that correlate with specific users (without knowing who they are).
If you choose to participate in the Product Improvement program (offered when the application is first initialized or accessible from the Settings), then
the application will submit to the server a message (if a valid network is available) if -and only if- the application encounters an error from which it cannot recover,
usually with a generic message such as 'unable to proceed'. Depending on the allowed options, the error information will be limited to the user name and .NET Exception message
(which provides a way to find which module in the application has cause the issue). If the Log File upload is allowed, then a collection of status messages is also submitted.
You can view this log file from the application's About page. If the option is set to also upload problem files, then the file that caused the issue is also submitted. These
files are considered confidential and will not be used for any purpose other than troubleshooting the application.
If you disable the automatic upload, we ask that you manually submit error information from the Help menu as this greatly helps us resolve issues.
If you feel that we need to remove any information that may have been submitted to us,
inform us and we will do so promptly.
Software Tools
We have and maintain a number of different software packages. In some cases, we let the maintenance of them lapse,
especially when annual maintenance becomes a financial consideration and new versions do not provide additional
functionality that is of interest.
If, during the course of a project requested by a client, specific software tools are to be used that we either don't
currently have access to or where a newer license/version is required, we offer the following:
- We purchase the required package on an annual (or monthly) basis to cover the project duration
- We purchase a perpetual/permanent license for the package
If we get the annual license, then any additional learning, training or similar that is required to get up to speed will be invoiced to client.
On the other hand, if we (agree to) purchase a perpetual license, we cover the cost/time needed to get up to speed on the package where reasonable.