A page a stranger can tick

1

A proposal to switch a supplier is not a complaint about the current one. It is a page a person who was not in the argument can score. Northline's buyer wants to move a bracket from the present mill to a second mill. The page fails if it says the new mill is more professional or easier to talk to. It holds if it gives figures the reader can mark. The current defect rate is 4 in 100. The proposed mill's last audited rate was 1 in 100. The unit price is 6 percent higher. A reader can accept those three lines or dispute them. A reader cannot dispute a mood. The proposal becomes a document when a stranger can tick a line without asking what the writer felt.

2

The criteria have to be the ones the firm already uses, or the page has to say it is asking for a new rule. Lead time, price per unit, and who pays if a lot arrives late are checkable. A plant tour that felt modern is not. Put the numbers in a row. Lead time is 11 days against 18. The price is 6 percent higher. Late lots are paid by the new mill, not by Northline. A criterion with no number is a preference, and it changes with the traveler. If the firm has never scored a supplier on the cost of a late lot, say so, and ask whether that rule should start with this trial. Do not hide a new rule inside a word such as quality.

3

The switch itself needs a limit. A full cutover on one date bets the line on a mill Haeundae Plant has not run. A proposal that asks for a trial of 500 units in June, with the old mill still covering July, gives operations a way to stop. Name who decides after the trial, and the date of that decision. The plant can reject the lot. The buyer cannot quietly extend the trial because the visit went well. Five hundred units is a number. A few months to see how it feels is not. Write the stop rule in the same paragraph as the request, so the approval and the exit are one decision, not two meetings that nobody scheduled.

4

Readers should be able to refuse the proposal without refusing the relationship. A page that says trust us makes a no sound like an insult. A page that says approve the June trial, or keep the current mill and accept a defect rate of 4 in 100, makes a no into a choice. The choice has a cost either way, and the cost is on the page. The skill is not enthusiasm for the new mill. The skill is a set of checks a stranger can tick, a trial with an end, and a sentence that states what happens if the checks fail. A proposal that cannot be refused in one line is not yet a proposal. It is a request for faith, and faith is not a criterion.