I think SteelX need to look at alternate options for 3rd party engineering or drafting services again to support our franchises. The cost of customising sheds designs (even for stuff that has been on the too do list for steelx for 4 plus years) is becoming prohibitavly expensive and just can't be budgeted for. Just looking through my latest run of bills from sharp and we are paying $140 per hour for Drafting and much much more for engineering, it now seems like $2-3k for any sort of engineering. This is not affordable or cost effective when we are trying to provide simple services like abutting sheds to existing building, high side eaves, custom openings or changes in cladding. It all well and good to say we can get our own local engineering down but this still needs to go throguh SCE and Headoffice for approval which ends up costing twice as much again. Over 30% of the work that I do in order to not just cut costs to compete with cometitors is custom work because you can make goo money on it however over the last 18 months any value in this work has been lost because of escalating engineering and drafting fees. Can we please perhaps have a zoom meeting as a franchise group for those who do a lot of this work to discuss some optinos that can help us continue to provide a valuable service to our customers which sets us apart from our competition but actually would help us make money as a business.
