I live in another side of the globe and ethics and business code are not developed here in a manner such as in western civilization. In addition the code is ignored each time when money involved...
As for the drawings or even projects from vendors... my opinion is "NO".
And here are some arguments why:
1) Vendor design kills subcontractor business. Here in CIS we have tonnes of "I just know that guy-integrator" who consist of one or two people like CEO and accountant and the business is fully built on personal relations of the CEO. and not because he is smart, but because he plays football with a decision maker of a targeted customer... I personally hate such business rules adoption but still this is unavoidable evil of modern society. But this one person integrator after some talks with a client should do some work to get the deal and this work should be done by at least semi-professional people and thus the selling integrator MUST subcontract somebody to do the work including design. And if vendor can substitute the subcontractor and moreover substitute for FREE just to sell their solution... brain-based companies like my are out of the business...
2) Vendor kills optimization, they just don't care cause they have sales annual plan. When I was young a decade ago and only started the career in integration business I was convinced that people in integrator know some info to help clients, if they fail there is a mighty distributor with advanced pro to solve some advanced tasks and if they fail there is the HOLY Vendor with godlike abilities and knowledge. Now some things get sorted and filtered a bit ))) but not for the customers. Typical customer thinks that vendor has much deeper qualification than any integrator and the power work of a vendor is beyond controversy. And I've experienced several situations when vendor who did the specification and design of a monovendor solution supporting one person integrator was opposed by me on technical bidding for absolutely inadequate solution for customer needs. My specification contained just several positions of a given vendor. And what do you think a customer with absolutely no expertise in given field decided? Of course, "vendor approved" solution is better... who am I with a bunch of men against vendor brain resources throughout the globe))) And after the purchase of a suboptimal solution there is no client who will step ahead and say: "yes I was stupid, forgive me please... next time I will not trust foreign men in expansive suits". After the purchase almost any client will try to explain the holy rightness of his or her decision cause he or she will not claim own stupidity even for themselves.
3) Vendor saves people from (inquisitors) auditors. I was conducting the network audit in a government bank of one of CIS countries. And I have discovered a budget gap in several hundreds thousand of dollars I've asked WHY so expensive and WHY such solution? It was like buying the ore track just to do the shopping, I was answered that the solution was vendor approved and prices also approved by vendor with special discounts.
4) Vendor support corruption. After a small investigation I've discovered that the deal was made again by one-hero integrator and 99% of work was done by a vendor. And again when I asked the vendor and the client they both said that that was exactly what they wanted a year ago... both on specification and in price. The customer who was in charge for that deal said to me: "I understand now that it was an overkill, but we are learning" and he smiled... We both knew what is hidden behind that smile... but again who am I against the power of "vendor approved"?
5) Vendor designs are killing the market. I had several bidding when there were 3 competing proposals that differ from each other just by company names and corporate styles... Yes, all 3 companies have forwarded technical assignment to the vendor and received the exact same design and specification. I've received the same but have changed it in several way. It was interesting feeling when you've sent a request and a 8 pages document and in 15 minutes I've got answer with all calculations and design... I was amazed how vendor developed speed reading, speed typing and brain-clusters technology among their personnel. ))) Of course I've understood that someone already got a request processed before and if I want to win anyhow what should I do? Of course, either switch to other vendor which is unlikely solution or DROP the price to minimum. And that is what has happened on the bidding all companies dropped prices to the floor... Vendor is happy and what about us?
In addition, as I said I have changed and optimize the solution with reasonable arguments to fit customer needs better than general solution provided by vendor. But you can guess what have happened? I lost... because of one against many... I even had an appointment with the customer to discuss details, and he said that bidding committee decided to choose one out of three "vendor approved" solutions because statistically 3 typical solutions from different integrator companies should be right and your original one - wrong.
To Sum up, I am not against vendor help, I am against vendor doing all technical work instead the integrator.
NOTICE: This comment was moved from an existing discussion: Integrators, Do You Want Manufacturers To Do Camera Layouts / Designs For You?