440-237-1800
1. Cost & Space Savings:
Most machining projects come with a long list of specific requirements and related operational challenges. Many times, machined parts appear simple & inexpensive to manufacture. In reality they may require a significant investment in infrastructure and special processes to get the job done right.
Standard machining processes require:
- Design, engineering and tooling personnel
- Operators and equipment specialists to manage production
- Maintenance routines and personnel for maintaining machining equipment & tools
- Production-support, Quality Assurance, QC Inspection & assembly personnel
- Dedicated commercial space for equipment, raw material and finished good storage
By trusting your custom parts to outsourcing partners, your team can take full advantage of the listed resources, without the additional in-house overhead, labor costs, and risks. Contract machine shops have already made the necessary equipment, maintenance, and personnel investments, and provide access to these tools and services. Because of the massive volume of their production relative to in-house production, and the volume of raw materials required to machine for so many customer projects, contract machinist achieve better economies of scale. Their ability to buy more raw material and purchased items, and leverage better raw material availability and costs, can translate into big cost savings to the machinist’s customers.
2. Increased Efficiencies:
In some cases, a large OEM could buy lots of specialty equipment and allocate a large amount of resources to create and payroll this kind of team, but even then, the work can prove problematic and inefficient when handled in-house. Production and quality issues such as certified special processes, QC, part shrinkage or bending, color or hardness inconsistency, and tool issues may impact the bottom line. It’s critical to know the advantages and possible ROIs that exist when making the decision between “do-it-ourselves” or to outsource machining of metal & plastic parts.
3. Streamlined Inventory:
Having the right part quantities available at the right time can be a challenge for inventory and purchasing managers. Contract manufacturers can greatly simplify the process. For example, Krenz Precision Machining offers to keep stock for every customer to ensure parts are available during unusual situations and during known seasonality swings where predicting sales & shipping on the product is
difficult. In addition, many contract machine shops utilize an ERP or a material requirement planning (MRP) system to monitor jobs from start to finish. From the moment a job is initiated until final delivery, this tool tracks every element of scheduling: cycle times, part demand, and even downstream impacts. This technology supports your demand-driven planning capabilities with precision and efficiency, allowing for just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing & fulfillment. This approach also enables you to order parts as needed from a trusted vendor and not worry about warehousing costs and about what happens to parts that sit idly on a shelf, and the waste that can occur due to product obsolescence.
4. Improved Quality:
Perhaps one of the greatest advantages when outsourcing is contract manufacturers are experienced at resolving the quality issues and absorb the costs of rework, and poor quality on their books and within their processes. When they ship items to your door, you can be assured, that the parts are certifiably to your specifications and quality requirements. This ensures top-of-the-line quality at a premium value — every step of the way. When you do your own in-house machining, you pay all the costs and absorb any lost time, equipment maintenance, waste, rework and troubleshooting time related to quality.
Since maintaining consistent quality is critical to every project, full-service contract manufacturing facilities include dedicated state-of-the-art inspection tools. Contract machinists access to metrology labs and tools allow for the testing of tension, hardness, compression, dimensions, weight, color, and so much more. Even the shipping processes have quality control checks, as components are sorted, weighed, and sealed with custom stacking and packing procedures to ensure maximum protection and freight efficiency.
5. Access to Expert Help & Machinist’s Network:
Contract manufacturers are experts of their craft. Contract machining partners such as Krenz Precision Machining have specialized in machining and have worked with customers in nearly every type of industry to create top-of-the-line custom metal and plastic parts. Having a broad expertise in diverse part applications offer you the highest quality parts at the lowest possible costs. Even more, it allows the customer the chance to gain critical advice and support when contemplating or designing new products. The ability to access expert advice in metal and plastics and to work collaboratively with the machinist’s team of experts can make or break your project.
We hope this post provided you helpful information when it comes to the decision to build or buy. Krenz Precision Machining is a leading full service, turn-key machine shop offering design, prototyping, components manufacturing all the way through Assembly. To speak with one of our technical experts, please call 1-440-237-1800 or visit us one the web at www.kpm-inc.net. And thank you for reading our post.