A recent trend in aerospace machining is that parts are becoming so complex that traditional equipment and approaches are no longer sufficient. Aerospace buyers often need parts with exceptionally tight tolerance features on opposite or multiple sides, which can be difficult to achieve with a standard CNC mill. At Focused on Machining, we’ve found great success leveraging multi-axis machining with zero-point fixturing to take on the most challenging aerospace machining jobs.
If you find yourself placing repeat orders for the same parts multiple times in a year, consider establishing a long-term contract with your manufacturing partner. Not all shops provide contract manufacturing services, but those that do are almost always open to discussing this option with customers. That’s because long-term contracts benefit buyers and precision machine shops alike.
One of the most important truths in manufacturing is that you get what you pay for—from production machining services to secondary processes like plating. Just as machine shops' costs and lead times vary depending on capabilities, certifications, and quality, so is the case for plating vendors.
Many shops view source inspections as a necessary evil. Source inspections can indeed be cumbersome for shops whose processes are still mostly manual—there’s no denying that. Fortunately, at Focused on Machining, our robust ERP system allows us to facilitate source inspections easily. In fact, we’ve even come to really appreciate source inspections and the customers who require them.
Reducing the costs of machined parts can be as easy as having a conversation: always communicate with a shop about your purchasing intentions. If you plan to place a particular order on a recurring basis, the right contract manufacturing services partner can talk to you about opportunities to obtain the best costs over time with a long-term contract.
You get what you pay for in manufacturing. Unfortunately, many buyers learn this lesson the hard way—something we’ve seen firsthand at our AS9100 machine shop. We’re happy to work with buyers now to get them the parts they need. But imagine the time, money, and stress they could have saved by having us machine their parts in the first place.
We see it all the time: A customer wants an inexpensive prototype delivered as soon as possible, so they order one from an online marketplace. Everything seems okay at first, but eventually, they find out the hard way that when you choose the cheapest option, you get what you paid for.
Any manufacturer pursuing CMMC 2.0 compliance will tell you that the process is rigorous, to say the least. Focused on Machining is currently working to achieve Level 2 certification, which has a long list of 110 requirements aligned to NIST SP 800-171. We anticipate that our journey to CMMC certification will take us a total of 18 months when all is said and done.
As an aerospace machining shop committed to innovation and continuous improvement, it was only a matter of time before we progressed from standard CNC milling to multi-axis machining. Keep reading to learn how our multi-axis machining capabilities empower us to deliver unparalleled precision and efficiency, setting us apart from other shops offering contract manufacturing in Colorado.
Effective 2024, companies providing manufacturing services for the US Department of Defense (DoD) will be required to maintain a new certification called CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification), proving they meet rigorous cybersecurity standards.
While a tolerance of +/- 0.0005” was once considered tight, we now regularly see prints with microscopic tolerances down to +/- 0.0001”. For visual context, a +/- 0.0003” tolerance is like taking a piece of hair, which is about 0.003”, slicing it into ten pieces, and having one of those pieces represent the permitted variance.
Have you ever placed an order online and checked your email inbox for a confirmation email, only to find nothing there? It’s a stressful experience. Without that confirmation email, you have no way of knowing for certain whether your order actually went through.
Never one to shy away from an opportunity, our aerospace and medical machine shop is committed to being the small shop customers need in this challenging climate. Keep reading to learn how we’ve improved efficiency to meet even the tightest deadlines.
There’s no shortage of precision machine shops that will build a part to print without giving it a second thought. Don’t get us wrong; there’s something to be said for nailing all the specifications on a blueprint. But in many cases, simply adhering to a part’s specifications can lead to significant fit, form, and functionality problems. This is especially true when manufacturing parts destined for an assembly.
Focused on Machining has built a reputation as a top aerospace machine shop. We love the work we do for aerospace and space customers. But we want anyone reading this to know that our expertise extends into another major focus area: medical CNC machining.
When shops quote customers high costs and long lead times for anodized parts, often it’s because the masking requirements are exceedingly complex. In some cases, complex masking requirements can double the price of a part.
Keep reading for our AS9100 machine shop’s insights into complex masking and tips for getting your parts faster and more cost-effectively.
When we quote you a lead time at Focused on Machining, you can be confident that we’ll meet it.
That’s because, unlike many shops that base their quoted lead times on instinct alone, our aerospace machine shop takes a much more strategic approach. Specifically, we leverage our ERP system to build a detailed schedule that accounts for many factors—from material sourcing and outside processing to our shop’s internal capacity.
Much like the aerospace industry, the medical industry has strict standards for precision machined parts. And while the AS9100 certification we possess here at Focused on Machining is specific to the aerospace industry, the processes we developed to maintain our status as an AS9100 machine shop enable us to meet the demands of the medical industry, as well.
When you need an assembly, you have a couple of standard options:
Source the parts from multiple precision machine shops, and build your assembly in-house.
Source all the parts from one precision machining partner and have them build your assembly for you.
Known for its high ductility and excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, copper is a popular material for applications ranging from rocket parts to electrical components.
When requesting a quote for precision machining services, it’s in your best interest to include a 3D model in addition to a blueprint. Both documents combined tell the complete story about a part, ensuring that customers get exactly what they need quickly and cost-effectively.
We’ve made a name for ourselves here in Denver, Colorado, as a reliable prototype machine shop serving industries including aerospace, defense, and medical. However, what many of our customers don’t know is that we also do low and even high-volume production work.
Let’s go ahead and address the elephant in the machine shop: material sourcing in the post-COVID world is hard, and there’s no telling when things will return to “normal.” Want an example? We recently got an order on a Thursday, sent the PO to our material supplier on a Friday, and found out that the material they had quoted us just days ago was gone.
Are your finishing requirements adding unexpected time, cost, and hassle to your precision machining orders?
There are many ways to overengineer a part, and including unnecessarily complex finishing callouts is high on the list. Follow these finishing best practices when designing your next part.
In an attempt to save money, one of our OEM customers recently ordered 5 complex gear housings from an on-demand parts marketplace. They planned to have the parts shipped to Focused on Machining for assembly. There was just one problem: the housings we received from the budget marketplace arrived with serious quality and accuracy issues. The threaded holes hadn’t been deburred, and the press-fit holes were too small for the hardware.
We pride ourselves on being the precision machine shop customers can turn to for their most complex parts, consistently achieving tight tolerance requirements and mastering challenging features and materials that other shops don’t want anything to do with.
There’s a saying we have in the precision machining world when discussing tolerances: Every decimal place adds a zero to the price. Manufacturers know that nine times out of 10, tolerancing is what drives up the cost of a part. And yet, time and again, customers submit over-toleranced part designs that are exceptionally difficult to bring to life on the shop floor.
There are many things we love about precision machining, but one of the best parts of our job is getting the chance to work with—and master—new and exciting materials. Last year introduced us to Nitronic 60, an all-purpose stainless steel alloy commonly found in minisatellites. This year, the newest material to come through our precision machine shop is Monel. And as is often the case here at Focused on Machining, once we get a taste of something, we can’t get enough of it!
When customers need parts with ports in them, such as fuel manifolds or hydraulic fixturing, it’s not uncommon for them to request quotes from 50 shops and receive only 5-10 quotes in return. Ports are challenging to machine, which deters many precision machine shops from taking them on. But not us. At Focused on Machining, we specialize in challenging manufacturing projects and are always up for machining port parts.
When manufacturing customers need mechanical subassemblies, their standard process often involves outsourcing the components to a precision machine shop, sourcing and purchasing all the required hardware, and, eventually, having their own engineers put the assemblies together once the components and hardware have arrived.