Theme: the vendor stopped being a partner
Dual sourcing bought the relationship. Design work kept it.
A dealer demo bag is not packaging. It is opened in front of a homeowner, on a kitchen table, at the moment a sale is won or lost. When the supplier who makes it runs out of capacity, the problem is not procurement. It is the sales floor.
The situation
A manufacturer of entry doors and windows sells through a dealer network that works from physical sample kits. The bags carrying those samples travel constantly and are handled in front of customers.
The pain
The existing vendor was too busy to get them manufactured. Not unable. Not more expensive. Simply unavailable at the volumes required, which is the failure mode nobody writes into a supplier scorecard.
A separate programme with a different supplier records the same shape from another angle: projects were taking too long and were expensive. Two vendors, one pattern.
What happened
The answer was not to rip out the incumbent. It was dual sourcing, taking the more challenging volumes specifically, because those are the ones an overloaded supplier drops first. That makes the second source useful rather than threatening, and it gets a decision made quickly.
A later programme went further and consolidated two separate bags into one, reusing a foam the customer had already designed rather than restarting tooling they had already paid for.
What it led to
Three programmes: 2,500 entry door demo bags, a consolidated window presentation bag running at 2,500 a year, and 2,000 privacy glass fanfolds. A 5,000 unit order followed in September 2026. The consolidation deal's own record states why it was awarded: the customer asked for it based on history with this customer and our quality of design work.
Capacity opened the door. Design work is what widened it. The first order was won by being available. Every order after that was won by having an opinion about the product.
Customer name withheld. Every figure and quoted phrase on this page is taken verbatim from the account record. No statement here is presented as customer speech; a direct quotation will be added once the customer has reviewed the piece and signed a release.