It can be a frustrating experience to source a good, high
quality, reliable, and “cost effective” CNC Machine Shop. While there are many shops that may be
qualified in your geographical area, how do you eliminate the ones that aren’t
going to meet your requirements?.
I have thought about some of the things I have learned
during 30 years in the machining world acting as a machine shop buyer and as a
vendor. The following are some ideas
that I hope will be helpful.
The first and most important thing you need to do is to
establish your own benchmarks:
By this I mean you have to know exactly what you want in a
finished product. If you are unsure
about this step, many machine shops will gladly help you with establishing
desirable characteristics in the finished product.
Also, there are accepted industry standards such as ASME,
SAE, and ANSI (I am not going to go deeply into these standards since this
information is easily available to anyone who has an internet connection). Wikipedia says “A Standard can be
defined as a set of technical definitions and guidelines that function as
instructions for designers, manufacturers, operators, or users of equipment”.
By applying standards you are saying what you expect in a
finished part or assembly.
What is your idea of quality?
How do you define quality for your organization? Is tolerance and adherence to size
important? Is finish and appearance
critical? Is material type vital? Maybe these items have more or less
importance on different part numbers in your organization. Maybe there are combinations of determining
factors
How do you ensure that the machine shop you pick is going to
be on the same page as you when it comes to all these variables?
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