In so many cases, steel forming and machining is over engineered, steel removal , milling, boring and turning is considerably more expensive than steel fabricating. As with all things in the industrial world , steel forming and machining is design dependent, material dependent and application dependent, Whenever our team is engaged to deal with the challenges associated with machining and steel forming,
Step one: Define the application, design constraints, tolerances and materials required.
Step two: Ask the seemingly obvious or simple questions: “Why this design’? What are the chances these tolerances are too tight ? What are some alternative ways to obtain the same shape or assembly?
Example: Our team questioned the tolerances around holes in a part leading to the discovery the hole could be punched Vs machining, a big cost saving. This simple question opened up many questions with the overall design. Our team was engaged to re-define the application, suggest design changes and have the parts fabricated rather than machined. This saved our customer money, allowed for better delivery, forming is faster than machining and allowed our fab. shop to be competitive with machine shops and gain a new customer.
Funny part, many of our competitors were convinced we invested in new high tolerance machinery to be competitive with this part. It’s this type of approach benefiting the customer in so many ways from product cost reduction, increasing profit margins and the really big benefit, sustaining ongoing business relationships as their customers are always shopping around.
