Choosing The Right Machine Shop

Are you in search of machining services? Maybe your last experience wasn’t what you’d hoped for? Whether you need a single machined part, or production machining services you want great service, and you want your machined parts to be precise, accurate, and on time.

Hiring a machine shop can often seem like a roll of the dice. Sometimes quality, pricing and deadlines meet or even exceed expectations. Other times, the experience and results don’t end up so well. This can mean missed deadlines, quality issues, cost overruns, and frustratingly poor customer service.

As a trusted local machine shop in the Dallas, Fort Worth area, we’ve been in this industry for a long time, and like any other industry, some CNC machine shops fare better than others when it comes to quality and service.

How do you ensure your next project lives up to your expectations? Knowing what we know, here are the key areas that can make or break any machining project, as well as a few questions to ask.

SERVICE

“What’s Your on time delivery rate?” “How soon can you provide me with a quote?”

First and foremost, quality service is so important for a successful machining project. Obviously, it’s hard to know what the quality of service is going to be before working with any new machine shop. However, there are a few telltale signs. Starting with:

1. How are they on the phone? Do they answer? Do they respond to your emails? Are they personable? Professional? If your initial communication is met with appreciation, professionalism and responsiveness, that’s a good start.
2. Next, are they responsive to your communications and able to provide you with a timely quote? Even better, how about a same day quote? Do they return your calls and emails withing a reasonable timeframe?  

If not, and they don’t impress you up front, that’s a good indicator that they’re either too busy to care, or don’t place an emphasis on customer service. Neither of which are good signs.  

Again, this is the stage when any machine shop should be trying to impress, and if they drag their heels in delivering your quote, or take their time getting back to you, chances are your machined parts delivery time will suffer as well.

Assuming that you’re satisfied with their initial service and responsiveness, that’s a good sign.

QUALITY

“Do you have the equipment to handle my machining project?” “Do you have a CMM (coordinate measuring machine) to measure accuracy?” “How do you measure accuracy?”

When it comes to precision machining, quality matters. In the machining industry, quality takes on a whole new meaning.

Does the machine shop you’re considering have the capability to machine parts to your tolerance requirements?

When we’re talking about machining parts to precise tolerances that reach tenths, hundredths or even thousandths of an inch, there are a lot of moving parts involved to achieve that level of machining accuracy.

These include the CNC machines themselves, the tooling, processes, design and the machinists.  Each of these play a part in producing accurate, precision machined parts and assemblies.

Multi-axis CNC machines can reduce the number of setups required to run your parts and increase accuracy, as an example.

Documented processes can help to ensure you receive precision machined parts with the same level of accuracy today, tomorrow, and into the future.

Do they have low defect rates? This is a less obvious consideration, but it’s an important one. Higher than normal defect rates could be the result of a few things.

1. Inferior, or uncalibrated CNC machines.
2. Inferior, defective or improper tooling, or
3. Lack of training or machining experience. None of these are good. At the end of the day, higher defect rates mean higher material costs, longer production cycles, and increased costs for your machining project.

Next, do they have the capabilities for your specific project?

CAPABILITIES

“What type of work do you do? One offs? production machining? Both?” “Do you provide parts finishing services?” 

Can the machine shop handle your project? Are you needing a machine shop that can provide CNC turning services, CNC milling services, or both? Do you need one machined part, a single prototype, or a large production run of machined parts? Some machine shops specialize in small runs of machined parts (job shops).

SHORT RUNS? PRODUCTION RUNS?

Other shops only do high volume production machining. And yet some others are equipped to handle both short runs and long run production machining.

This is something you’d want to ask any prospective machine shop as it relates to your project.

HOW MANY SHIFTS DO YOU RUN?

One word about production machining or high volume machining: If you have high volumes of parts you’re needing machined, it’s worth asking how many shifts the machine shop runs.

Given the same/similar number of CNC machines, machine shops that run multiple shifts have the ability to turn over machining projects more quickly than those that don’t. 

EXPERIENCE

“Have you done this type of work before?” “How long have you been in business?”

Experience is crucial when selecting a machine shop. Are they experienced with the type of machining work you’re needing done? If you’re looking to have aerospace machining work done, medical device machining, or machining for the oil and gas industry, for example, it’s valid to ask your local machine shop if they have experience in that area.

Without getting into the weeds too much, experienced machinists can make recommendations that often improve the outcome. This can range from material selection to design considerations.

NEED PARTS FINISHING OR ASSEMBLY?

Do you have any parts finishing, secondary machining or light assembly needs? If so, you’d want to know if the machine shop can provide those services as well.

Examples might include painting, plating, anodizing, heat treating, powder coating, surface grinding, etc. If not, you’ll have to receive your raw machined parts, and make arrangements with another company to finish your parts per your requirements.

Once again, you’ll typically have a much better experience (and outcome) by working with a reliable machining partner who can handle everything with a single order.

DESIGN / PROTOTYPING SERVICES

Are you needing design assistance, or prototyping services, or do you already have your CAD drawings ready to go?

If you’re looking for input on design improvements, or prototyping services, you’d have a better experience by working with a machine shop who also specializes in parts design and prototyping services.

Manufacturing experience plays a big part here, as machine shops experienced with both part design and manufacturing can make recommendations based on improving the “manufacturability” of your part. Called “design for manufacturability”, or DFM, the end goal is to deliver a part design that is optimized for a reliable production run. A machine shop that can make recommendations based on experience can save you time, money, and future headaches.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT / PARTS WAREHOUSING

This may or may not apply to your needs, but for companies who regularly seek out machining services, this is a big deal. If you would benefit from, or rely on consistent parts flows, warehousing capabilities can remove the uncertainty from one run of machined parts to the next.

Hey, even the most well-equipped, efficient machine shops get busy, and lead times will fluctuate as a result. With warehousing capabilities, you’d have machined parts ready to go when you need them. Predictable, reliable parts streams can help companies better manage their operations. If you would benefit from this,

SHIPPING

Gone are the days where you were limited to local machine shops for your machining projects. As an example, we’re a local machine shop in Dallas, and ship our machined parts across the United States.

With a wide variety of affordable transit options, you have the ability to seek out machine shops outside of your local area. Does the machine shop you’re considering ship their machined parts? With careful packaging or crating, working with machine shops outside of your local area is an option you might consider.