3 Strategies to Purchase Custom Machined Castings at a Reasonable Price, with Great Quality, and get them Delivered On-time without Losing Your Mind!

by Michelle Reichlin and by Dr Lisa Lang
3 Strategies to Purchase
Custom Machine
Castings
at a Reasonable Price, with Great Quality,
and get them Delivered On-time without
losing your mind!
Download
the special
report!

All else being equal, the lowest
price gets the job because quality
and reliability are a given, right?
www.ContourPrecisionMilling.com

If you’re purchasing “off the shelf”
parts that are generally
considered to be the same,
you can be relatively safe choosing
a supplier based on price.

If multiple customers are buying
the same “off the shelf” parts,
then mostly likely multiple
suppliers have these parts on the
shelf. When this is the case, the
risk of purchasing the lowest price
part is minimized.

If you do run into a quality issue
1) the part is in stock, so your
current supplier can quickly
replace it with another part, or if
it’s a supplier issue you can
purchase from an alternative
supplier;

and 2) since the part is in stock,
the lead-time is small
(shipping time) reducing the
likelihood of missing your due
dates and jeopardizing your
customers.

The challenge, of course, is how to
choose a supplier when the job is --
custom, hard to hold, precision
machined castings -- and most
likely, not everything else is equal.

When you’re purchasing a
highly custom part that is
unique to you and falls into
the category of a precision
machined casting,
AND it’s difficult to hold for
the machining process – then
– it’s not just about price.

If the supplier of this highly
custom part falls short on quality
…

** there are no parts on the shelf
at your current supplier or with
any alternative suppliers to allow
quick replacement.

** replenishment time is long.
Replenishment time includes raw
material lead-time (castings can
take weeks or even months),
manufacturing lead-time, and
shipping lead-time.

** hard to hold castings
typically require custom fixtures
to allow the unique shape to be
machined. This means that the
custom fixture also needs to be
engineered and manufactured.

** Then, you are very likely to
miss due dates, increase your time
to market, reduce cash flow and
endanger your customers. You
have to consider the cost of not
having the part when you need it.

So, the risk of bad quality in the
case of highly custom parts is
much greater for you and your
customers.

But, how do you ensure you’re
choosing the supplier with the
quality you MUST have but at a
competitive price?

You typically don’t know the
quality is bad until it’s too late.
And EVERY supplier says that they
can do the work and that they
have great quality. But, how can
you be sure?

You can’t, but here’s what you can do
to minimize risk:
Choose a supplier that specializes in
the area of your unique demands.
How does this help?

If you needed a tumor removed
from your brain, you wouldn’t go
to the lowest cost provider or to a
general practitioner.

You would look for the
best brain surgeon in your area and
if it were a really delicate situation
you might look for the best in the
country or world.

Then amongst the best, you might
consider price and lead-time,
depending on how dire the
situation. Lead-time, in many
cases is no less important than
quality or price.

In the case of hard to hold
precision machined castings, here
are 3 strategies to consider when
looking for a supplier.

1) Look for a supplier
who is communicating
across all their collateral that
what you need (precision
machining of hard to hold
castings) IS there area of specialty.

If they are just claiming to be a
precision machine shop with tight
tolerances, they may not have
enough experience with hard to
hold castings that will reduce your
risk.

If they’re not proudly announcing
it, maybe they CAN do it, but you
don’t want to be their practice.

2) Look for a supplier that
engineers and machines the
custom fixtures needed to hold
the unique shape of your casting
IN HOUSE.

If they truly specialize in this, they’ll
be doing this in house to 1) to control
the quality of the fixture. Because a
bad fixture will cause a lot of
headaches and rework;
and 2) reduce their lead-times for
acquiring the fixture.

3) And, look for a supplier that
has due date performance over
95%.
A great shop can provide
a due date that they’ll hit 95% of
the time and when they do miss,
it’s by days, not weeks.

Many suppliers of custom
machined parts have very poor due
date performance despite their
promises.

A good supplier may not always be
able to give you the promise date
you want, but they should be able
to tell you what they can do and
then do it 95% or more of the
time.

A good potential partner for your
custom parts will have likely come
to the rescue more than once. Ask
questions to find out.

Case in point: Contour Precision
Milling had a prospect (let’s call them
ACME to protect the guilty) for whom
they quoted several parts several
times, but never got the business
because their price was a little higher
than another supplier’s.

A few years later ACME ran into a
problem with one of their
suppliers. The supplier was
faltering on quality and ACME was
in a bind despite pleas to the
supplier.

Contour’s engineers met with the
design engineer at ACME to learn
what was important and where the
problem areas were.

Together the GD&T was revised to
insure that the parts were both
functional and “manufacturable”.

To get ACME out of the bind,
Contour reworked the
parts from the previous
supplier back to specification.

To do this Contour engineered and
manufactured the right custom
fixtures in house, allowing ACME
to ship the parts in record time
and resume generating cash flow.

Contour’s engineering
ability and willingness to
rework another supplier’s
part saved a lot of time and
money.

In addition, because Contour could
engineer and build the custom
fixture in house, this shortened
the lead-time even further.

Without that, ACME would
have had to order (2 months lead-
time) and pay for new castings and
then wait and pay for another
manufacturing cycle.

Many precision machine shops
have stories of gallantly coming to
the rescue of a customer. But
make sure you check out, as Paul
Harvey used to say “the rest of the
story”.

Do they continue to be on-time at
least 95% of the time on first date
given? When they do miss, are
they missing by days or weeks or
worse? Are they delivering in
competitive lead-times?

And most importantly –
do they specialize in
YOUR needs or are you practice?
Ask This!

Today, Contour makes all of
ACME’s parts when and as
promised. This dependability
allows ACME to focus on other
things.

Isn’t that the way it’s
supposed to be?

Download this in Special Report
pdf format.
Click to download PDF

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Michelle Reichlin is the CEO of
Contour Precision Milling. Contour
specializes in precision machining
of small to medium quantities of
hard to hold castings.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Dr Lisa Lang is the President of Science
of Business, Inc and developer of the
Velocity Scheduling System Coaching
Program for custom job shops and
machine shops. VSS helps shops get on-
time and reduce lead-times.

3 Strategies to Purchase Custom Machined Castings at a Reasonable Price, with Great Quality, and get them Delivered On-time without Losing Your Mind!

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3 Strategies to Purchase Custom Machined Castings at a Reasonable Price, with Great Quality, and get them Delivered On-time without Losing Your Mind!