Are you a buyer trying to work with any of the number of machine shops in Edmonton, Calgary, Alberta or anywhere else for that matter? The following checklist should be top of mind when evaluating a machine shop to manage your risk before taking the plunge and spending money:

• Culture

• Communication

• Shop Tour

• Planning

• Quality

• Performance Metrics

• Reputation

• Technical Skills

• Human Resources

Culture

A machine shop’s culture often sets the stage for the rest of your experience with them as a vendor.  A company is defined by its most important resource, its people, how those people work together and how each of their personalities combine to form a whole. For example, Amco’s culture is defined as a likeminded, technically strong and creative group with a passion for manufacturing.  Brought together, we function as a team that wants to succeed and provide value for our customers. We enjoy coming to work and we want to exceed our own and our customers’ expectations. Our attitude is one of optimism and value creation in manufacturing. 

It’s important that culture be defined from the top down and filled out with people who can carry out the companies’ beliefs and values. Once the culture is defined, the company becomes cohesive since its high-level goals are understood amongst the group and everyone has the same target. People working toward the same end goal are more likely to trust one another and work very efficiently together.

Communication

Communication builds trust.  It’s human nature to be skeptical about the claims of others in the large world we live in and the first steps to build trust are taken with discussions.  When enough discussion occurs between a vendor and customer, they start to understand one another and create a small amount of trust, which can deepen should the discussions lead to expected actions and results.  Trust creates efficiencies when working together and is often the basis for which future business is based.  Although communication may sound obvious, relationships, business or otherwise, often break down when one party starts to become silent.

During onboarding, you will certainly have questions that will start the dialogue.  The ideal machine shop vendor will be transparent about their capabilities and internal procedures to aid the customer find what they’re searching for.  They should also have their own questions, which is a great sign.  The vendor who asks questions is seeking to understand and confirm what they’ve already read or heard. A new vendor may be looking at your parts and procedures for the first time and may lack a full understanding from the documentation alone. There may be some gaps in the customers instructions or tribal knowledge within your current vendor group that hasn’t been passed on.  A list of questions from a new vendor is an indicator you’re being heard and understood. It’s also a sign they have taken the time to understand your needs and they are able to comply.  Sometimes asking questions can be tedious and time consuming, but worth it when the deliverables are on time, to specification and documentation adhered to the first time around. Transparency and communication will set the tone early in the relationship when trust is low and skepticism high.

Shop Tour

Often a shop tour is a prerequisite of an onboarding process. The value of the shop tour to the customer is validation of equipment present, building condition, staff, capacity, and level of organization. Pictures or videos on a website are a great and quick way to present a machine shop’s abilities, but nothing really replaces an onsite tour. 

As a machine shop, making parts with machine tools is our business and it’s typically the first thing we present to the customer. During the tour you can ask why certain pieces of equipment were selected and confirm they’re suitable for the parts you want to make. Many shops have different methods to make the same parts and it can be enlightening to hear the strategies people think of.

It’s often typical to meet key staff that would interact with your organization in the future and getting a sense of what they’re like in person is important. As a customer, it’s always comforting to put a face to a name and understand a person’s responsibilities in the organization. You may ask specific questions about their position and get a feeling for their level of expertise or experience.  Your first impressions will also weigh on whether you want to work with the people you meet as people like to build relationships with others that are likeminded.

During the tour, pay attention to the cleanliness, organization, and tooling levels of the machine shop, all of which address the level of efficiency which is required to be competitive in job shop manufacturing. Waste is a killer to lean manufacturing and often occurs when people cannot find what they need in the least amount of time possible. A clean organized shop is a cost-efficient shop, which will provide value to you as a customer.

IP protection during a shop tour is often a sign that the vendor is trustworthy. If a machine shop takes the time to obscure the parts it makes for other customers, it’s a strong sign they will respect the time and money you’ve spent on your drawings or design. Not all customers care that someone else sees their parts, but many do and they’re trusting machine shops to keep the design of those parts out of competitors hands. At Amco, we respect the privilege of your business, so we schedule shop tours ahead of time to protect IP accordingly.  

Cybersecurity is an important part of IP protection, which is an ongoing challenge. Our machine shop in Edmonton, utilizes a system which is constantly backed up and monitored for threats. It locks down the second a threat is present and we’re able to restore a backup from moments earlier to prevent any loss of data, protecting Amco’s and our customer’s information. It’s a good idea to ask questions about how the increasing world of online threats are handled.

Planning

Does the shop you’re interviewing plan their resources and materials to ensure they are able to meet commitments? Amco schedules and maintains an ERP system for all limiting materials and resources, human and otherwise, which is critical to ensuring deliveries are met and are predictable. Our on-time delivery rate is industry leading. We calculate cycle times, plan out material requirements and schedule our resources all during the quoting stage.  We have a culture of commitment because we understand that parts arriving to specification and on time are what provides value to our customers.

Quality

A shop’s quality program is one of the key factors that defines it and a window into their future performance as a vendor.  A complete review of a quality program is outside the scope of this article, but a few key points come to mind:

• Management support – the management of the shop must support the shop’s quality program with the necessary resources.

• Risk assessment -identifying and managing risks taken throughout the entire product realization process. It’s important to realize there are some things a shop cannot control or measure so it must identify, mitigate and accept risks as part an ongoing part of business

• Requirement definition and action planning – understanding what’s required and utilizing a plan to execute

• Root cause analysis – understanding the real issues that have caused non-conformances. One strategy is 5 why’s: asking why until the true root cause is known.

• Continuous improvement – constantly strive to enhance the function of the company and its quality objectives thru audits, root cause analysis, reviews, and measurement

• Culture – already mentioned as important overall, the shop’s culture is highly important specifically with quality in mind. The employees of a company should want to produce a quality product that meets requirements. Quality needs to be part of the job and not an add-on or obligation that is ignored when inconvenient  

Performance Metrics

Does the shop evaluate their on-time delivery and quality metrics?  The two biggest risks to procurement are on time delivery and quality.  Cost is a huge factor when making a purchasing decision, but price is typically determined in advanced during the quoting stage. The real issues are will you get your parts on time and will they conform to your standards. If not, the delays of your machine shop will reflect poorly further up the supply chain.  Reviewing a machine shop’s performance metrics will help build trust and understanding of what has been typical in the past.  Vendor’s should scrutinize its metrics to continuously improve, challenge itself and provide transparency to others. 

Reputation

If a shop has a history of fulfilling its past commitments, then it likely will be able to continue in the future. Likewise, if a shop has a good reputation among its peers according to its previous customers and employees, it will likely serve you as well.  Online reviews can sometimes be a good source, although that can be mixed bag as there is no filter for the motivation of those reviews. The best thing a possible customer can do is ask others what their experience has been.

Technical Skills

Machining is a technical business and understanding the how and why of machining is critical to be competitive and provide value. A shop with all of the above qualities but a lack of technical knowledge isn’t much use. Problem solving in machining requires a long list of necessary skills, knowledge, and experience. A shop that can discuss the following partial list with aptitude, is likely to perform above the rest:

• cutting tools – knowledge of cutting tools available, the economics of cutting tools, how cutting tools work and fail, and what parameters affect tool life and chip breaking are critical

• machine tool design – understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the many design options available and how a particular part being machined fits into that design

• machine maintenance - often an overlooked and key aspect of reducing downtime

• CAD/CAM -computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing. A lot of mechanical design and CNC programming is done away from the machine tool because of its increased efficiency

• material machinability – cutting force, work hardening, tool wear, machining/forming induced stress, and mechanical properties are all factors

• measurement of features – being able to confirm your distance to target at the appropriate time

• part design intent – the part end use needs to align with the machining strategy applied

• work holding – the best way to hold the part being machined from available solutions

• fixture creation – when an off the shelf work holding solution isn’t appropriate, a custom solution is needed to be designed, manufactured, and tested.

• Machine tool programming languages and features – knowledge of what a machine can and cannot be programmed to do

• Parametric programming – similar to programming languages such as Python, machine tools also use parametric programming to easily reprogram toolpaths with just a few values changes

Human Resources

Every company needs talent to thrive, and it can either train or hire for it. One could argue that a shop with a superior training or hiring strategy will lead to the best employees and provide the highest value for its customers. The machine shop that can identify if a person is a good cultural fit, with the necessary energy, aptitude, and commitment, will be successful. A shop also needs to recognize how it can provide value to its employees, current and potential, by learning what a person’s goals are and how it can help reach them.  A strategy for on-boarding talent is particularly important these days, since there is a skilled trade shortage in machining.

Training and learning amongst a shop’s employees should always continue and could separate one shop from another.   The machine shop that immerses its people with skill development provides value to its staff. Likewise, the staff that have a high ability to learn provides value to their employer. Throughout time, these skills and learning lead to experience, and the richer the experience, the more valuable a shop will be to its customers.

 Amco Manufacturing wants to would love the opportunity to understand your needs further. Please contact us.