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Posted On: September 22, 2020
Metal machining is capital and labor-intensive business. It demands expenses on several resources like raw material, process equipment, tools, etc. Especially, if the metal machining is performed with the CNC machining technique & services, the capital cost of business increase as CNC machines are highly expensive. However, CNC metal machining is an efficient technique of production. Thus, despite being a capital intensive process, several manufacturers invest and rely on this process. Yet this cannot be denied that every business owner looks for cost-cutting tactics in order to grow profit margins and offer products at cost-efficient rates to the customers. This is why metal product manufacturers must be aware of some or more cost-cutting tactics. This post discusses a few tactics that can help manufacturers to cut metal machining cost without deteriorating the quality of production.
Tips for Cutting Costs of Metal Machining
The following tips will help you save on metal machining costs.
- State-Of-The-Art Equipment:
The investment in the right state-of-the-art equipment is a long term cost-cutting strategy. Generally, this equipment are designed for precision in a specific set of tasks. Due to precision, close tolerance manufacturing can be performed which ultimately reduces waste material. The less the material is required, the lesser is the expense of manufacturing. Also, this equipment help in rapid manufacturing, which saves time. As time consumption is reduced, the cost of power consumption drops as the machinery runs for less time.
- Design for Manufacturing (DFM):
The first step of metal manufacturing is product design. Each product is designed on specific requirements that are expected to be satisfied in the final product. Therefore, in order to avoid manufacturing errors or manufacturing difficulties, the design must be compatible with manufacturing resources. The design for manufacturing (DFM) helps in designing the product incompatibility with resources and reduced turn-around time.
- Avoid Curved Corners
- Avoid Deep Cuts and Grooves
- Set Achievable Tolerances
- Use Standard Drill Sizes
- Adopt Part by Part Manufacturing for Complex Products
- Bulk Material Purchase:
Bulk material purchase helps in cutting the costs of raw materials. If a small quality purchase is made, the manufacturer might have to pay per piece cost. On the other hand, if the bulk purchase is made, then the chances of cost reduction are high.
- Reduce Machining Time:
The machining time reduction is an effective way of cost-cutting of metal manufacturing. Especially, for CNC, the machining time can be reduced effectively by adopting seamless machining techniques. In the seamless CNC machining process, once the raw material or a workpiece is set in the chucks, it should come out as a finely manufactured product. However, this may not work for parts with complex geometries, this is where part manufacturing can be adopted. Each part must be manufactured seamlessly. This can be adopted by quick tool switching techniques, reducing halt time, pre-setting machine programs, etc. In seamless manufacturing, the CNC machine does not stop working which eventually reduces machining time and power, and operating cost.
- Bulk Manufacturing:
Bulk manufacturing is a way of cost-cutting. Since bulk manufacturing is a continuous manufacturing process, the halt time is saved in this. This means the time between switching from one product to another is negligible which saves machining time and operational cost.
These are a few cost-cutting tips for metal manufacturing. The tips are not only helpful to the manufacturers but also to the customers. Since most of these tips focus on time-saving, the customer can get the product in a lesser turnaround time. If you are working with experienced metal machining services then you can easily save on costs. BDE, Inc is one of the leading CNC metal machining services in the US. Over the years, the company has gained a reputation for its effective CNC machining services and strategic execution of efficient metal manufacturing to serve their clientele.
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