How to Choose a Dummy Workshop - Criteria & Recommendations

It's easy enough to choose a breadboard workshop . It is only necessary to determine the criteria by which it must correspond.

Of course, armed with the Internet and typing in the search engine * mock-shop *, and to specify the query, add, for example, * in Kazan * (from the mock-shop, which is next, it's easier: to control the manufacture and adjustment ...), then you will get a number of Proposals for the production of mock-ups.

Moreover, advanced Internet resources will allow you even to place a tender and find the most suitable offer for the price!

But is it really so simple, as it seems at first glance?

It is known that the qualitative process of making mock-ups in many aspects is very complex and time-consuming. In addition, the process is creative and individual. Accordingly, the mock-up workshop should attract your attention not only through an attractive price, but also by possessing a number of technical, engineering, creative features and advantages in comparison with other offers. All this together influences the fact that your expectations from the results of the work of the mock shop will be justified.

Another obstacle to the search can become "fake" companies: there are a lot of so-called "Internet-mockers" in Internet resources. In addition to the name and even, perhaps, a primitive site, there is nothing else. The result will be no one to ask. Identify them is not difficult, but still, be careful!

So, you went to the mock shop. How to understand, can you trust her?

• Portfolio
  
  With this it all begins ...
  
  Ask how long the mock-up shop works on the market. Pay attention to the number of works performed. Specify for which presentations they were made, what level were the exhibitions on which the work of the mock shop was demonstrated. The level of the event will tell a lot: the scale of the exhibition, whether it was of an international character, was held abroad. Of no small importance is the accompaniment of mock-ups at international exhibitions by specialists of this model workshop: this is how the world experience is developed, the quality of mock-ups is growing and new methods of manufacturing are being searched for.
  
  If you show only one, two or even three of their work - it's not serious. Such - either beginners, or casual people in prototyping, or "firms-one-day". Are you ready to entrust the manufacture of the layout in this case?
  
  The company you choose should be known on the market. Reputation of the mock-shop will give you certain guarantees.
  
  It will be important to get acquainted with the company's website and find out who are the customers and partners of the mock-up workshop. All works on the site must be signed: the name of the layout, for whom the layout is executed, the scale. Thus, you can get feedback from real customers. If there is no site, then the seriousness of the company in relation to the work performed is questioned.
  
  The site is a virtual face of the company.

• The depth of study, artistic presentation is a very important criterion!
  
  In the photos, pay attention to the artistic, designer presentation of the layouts, their color solution. The depth of study and the degree of detail. For investment projects, this plays a major, and sometimes decisive, role. Good work can be seen right away.
  
  It's like artists. You can roll a canvas with a roller with a uniform paint: blue - the sky, green - grass. Or you can make a layout like that of Aivazovsky and Shishkin so that you will hear the noise of the streets and smell the city. The layout should not be "poster", it must be fascinating, cause images ...
  
  However, when viewing the portfolio you have to be attentive: very often someone else's portfolio is issued for their own. In this case, ask about the works you liked: when the customer was made, who the customer was, his address, who in the company took part in the production of this layout, the features under which the work was marked and where you can see it now.

• Quality
  
  The bitterness of poor quality is felt even then,
  
  When the sweetness of a low price has long been forgotten.
  
  Ask what materials mock-ups are made of. Use of such weak materials as paper or cardboard is not permissible! Many mock shops declare that this is to reduce the cost of the layout, as a consequence - the price reduction. But, in my opinion - nonsense. In percentage terms, the cost of high-quality, expensive material to the total cost of the layout is 15-30% maximum. Therefore: either the mock-shop makes a poor-quality assembly, that their labor in relation to the material is cheap, unless, if cardboard or even plastic is cut with a jigsaw or a knife, and this is the last century. In addition, manual cutting of material means a significant reduction in quality and an increase in the production time. A laser engraver does not care what to cut - cardboard or plexiglass.
  
  As our oldest model Uncle Slava says: "... it's all the same that you can score nails with a microscope ..."
  
  Either in such a mock-up shop they do not like their work and work for "fast money", because Models of cardboard do not live long, and to make a layout with the realization that he will soon die means to do it simply and without a soul - this is not professionally ethical.
  
  I think that any of the latest options will not satisfy you.
  
  The quality of the layout from the photos is difficult to determine. For a real assessment of the quality it is worth to find out where the production base is located, in order to view real samples and ask you to organize a small excursion. In a serious company such a question will not cause concern. If the representative of the mock-up workshop hesitated, then it is an intermediary, or models are made in apartments in kitchens. What kind of quality or purity of the transaction can we speak about in this case? You can safely delete from the list of such an applicant!

• Industrial base
  
  The production base is the most important component of the mock-up workshop. These are large, specially prepared premises for the arrangement of equipment and the organization of workplaces, since everything requires a lot of space. And the production base should be prepared precisely for the production of mock-ups, and not anything else.
  
  If the mock-shop has only a small room for receiving visitors, and production of mock-ups is carried out at home, then you will not be able to control the process of making a layout and its quality, and even with this organization of work something is hardly possible.
  
  Manufacturing of the layout takes place in several production stages, for which separate rooms are allocated: design, production, manned with all necessary workplaces with a well-thought-out arrangement of specialized equipment, assembly areas, painting, storage for consumables. All premises should be linked in one technological chain. Such information will immediately emphasize the seriousness, organization and high-quality technological, production process of the company and effective project management.
  
  And if the firm does layout design in one place, cutting, manufacturing or coloring of elements sends to another, and the final assembly produces in the third, this will certainly affect the build quality and timing. In addition, such a chain excludes the elimination of errors in the "design-assembly" section, and errors necessarily occur. Moreover, such a scheme makes it impossible to improvise and search for new optimal solutions in the pilot production process, since it is impossible to foresee everything at the stage of developing the concept of making a layout and drafting a technical task.
  
  On the production base, you can look at the models live, touch them and feel the quality. Do not believe if you are told that all the layouts were left for the customers and there is nothing to show. Production always leaves traces of its work and samples.

• Progressive technical equipment, equipment
  
  When choosing a mock shop, ask yourself about the availability of your own progressive technical expensive equipment, such as 3d-milling-engraving machines, laser engraving plants, 3d-plotters for prototyping.
  
  
  Only such equipment can perfectly handle any material, create perfectly accurate shapes of objects and provides the manufacture of complex configurations.
  
  
  This is a kind of company status. Such weapons testify to the foresight of the company, which applies the latest developments in science and implements new materials in the manufacture of mock-ups. And it will also point out not only the use of techniques that significantly improve the quality, increasing the elaboration and accuracy, but also on fundamentally new technological, progressive methods that significantly reduce the time for the manufacture of the layout.
  
  It will not be superfluous if you ask a specialist to cut something for you on laser equipment. Look at the process of laser cutting and pay attention to the process of manufacturing miniature parts.
  An experience. Practice. Professionalism
  
  Layouts are not a serial impersonal product. In fact, mock-ups are complex works of art, and only creative people, specialists of the highest level of completely different areas-architecture, ship modeling, mechanics, electronics, woodworking, programming, design, are capable of creating them. It should be a large team of professionals.
  
  Justify the low price of the fact that in the manufacture of the layout involves two or three people - it's not serious.
  
  In addition, specialists apply a special approach to each model and introduce innovative ideas. Consequently, the production of layouts, in the first place, is individual, has no analogues.
  
  It is worth talking to the team. Ask a few questions to the masters about the production. They will better tell without pathos and embellishment in what the exclusivity of their work and the uniqueness of production.

• Presentation
  
  When choosing a mock-shop, assess the level of work of managers with you: their competence, knowledge in the production of mock-ups and how professionally they formulate the terms of reference.

• Legal Issues
  
  Frequent cases, the provision of documents and settlement accounts of third-party one-day enterprises are frequent. Beware of these. The organization may not be the "one" that you will be offered for legal relations. The worst quality will be the least of the problems.
  
  Ask to show the originals of the constituent documents, registration with the tax authority, the lease agreement or the property documents of the production premises.
  
  
  It will be interesting to you to look at the specification attached to the contract, which justifies the price of the layout. If there is a list of consumables in pieces and square meters - this is ridiculous. As I said earlier, the cost of expensive and high-quality materials is on average 20% of the cost of the layout. Consequently, prices will be indecently overpriced, or the specified consumable will be so much that it will be enough to make a life-size model ...))) Such specifications are usually submitted by agencies involved in outdoor advertising. In relation to the production of mock-ups, such documents are not acceptable. Of course, you can take such a document for your accounting, but in my concept such an indicator is not the competence of the technologist of the current project and can cause increased interest from the tax authorities.
  
  This specification should be a list of specific operations in the appropriate sequence with a description of the technological processes and only then use the consumable material of specific brands at each stage of manufacturing.
  
  Only in this way can you determine the actual amount of work and estimate the costs from which the cost of the layout is displayed.
  
  Models by their very nature are fragile. They require care and careful attitude. Therefore, a lot of important issue - warranty obligations, including services for restoration, cleaning the layout, responsible delivery to the place of exposure. Ask if there is a service after the layout. Is this item included in the terms of the contract ...
  
  The choice is yours.
  
  Good luck to you and reliable partners ...
  
  Igor Romanov, director of the mock-up workshop of the Creative Association "Autograph" Kazan.