How to Reduce Back and Forth with Your Precision Machine Shop

At Armstrong Machining, we’re committed to manufacturing high-quality parts at our quick turn machine shop. 

We’ll always conduct our due diligence to catch any issues or discrepancies in a customer’s design before precision machining begins. And we’re happy to have a conversation with you to understand your intentions and determine the best path forward. 

But in the interest of speed, we want to help you reduce unnecessary back and forth whenever possible. 

3 Machining Issues to Avoid—and What to Do Instead 

If you want to streamline the manufacturing process and get your parts lightning-fast, avoid these common issues when submitting your quote request. 

Issue #1: Solid models and drawings don’t match

Precision machine shops typically use solid models to program machines and 2D drawings to verify the accuracy of dimensions and tolerances during part inspection. 

If these documents aren’t aligned, it can be challenging to determine if the part was made to spec. We try to catch this issue early on, but sometimes we end up reaching out to the customer during inspection to explain the discrepancy and have them confirm that we machined the part correctly. 

Depending on how many people on the customer’s end are involved in this process, the back and forth can add anywhere from 1-2 days to 1-2 weeks to a project’s lead time. 

Our recommendation: If you have different people working on part models and drawings, review both to ensure they match before requesting a quote. Make sure all revisions are up to date and in alignment.

Issue #2: Non-critical features are overly complex

Machining Issues to avoid

Overengineering a part can make it difficult or even impossible to machine within certain budgetary and timeline constraints, prompting back and forth between precision machine shops and customers. 

In some cases, machining complex features requires custom tooling that can be difficult to procure, increasing costs and lead times. In other cases, we may need to operate the machines at lower speeds, which leads to the same outcome. 

Our recommendation: If your part can maintain functionality without a complex feature, find a way to simplify the design. We recommend avoiding internal square corners (radius each corner instead!) and tight tolerances in deep features, to name a couple of examples. If you have any specific questions about designing non-critical features for manufacturability, you can always contact us before submitting your quote.

Issue #3: Missing dimensions and requirements

Sometimes customers request a quote but don’t provide all the necessary dimensions and other requirements we need to get the job done right. 

We’ve seen drawings and models that omit critical measurements or hole locations and quote requests that leave out important packaging and shipping requirements. 

We are precision machining experts, but we can’t read your mind! So we ask that you include all this information up front. 

Our recommendation: Double-check that your drawings, models, and quote request clearly and accurately convey all of your part’s requirements—even things that may seem obvious to you.

When you’re ready for your next precision machining project, our quick turn machine shop is here to support you. Request a quote today! 

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