Tips to simplify designs
Converting your engineering drawings, models, and designs into tangible parts isn’t as complicated as you might think. With the right custom parts manufacturing company in your corner, you can quickly and affordably meet your production demands. These partners will do all of the fabrication, finishing, and sourcing required to deliver high-quality parts to your building. But, how are you supposed to pick the right custom parts manufacturing company? We will explain some tips, what to look for, potential challenges that could slow you down, and a quick way to find the best suppliers across the planet. Let’s get started.
What Is a Custom Parts Manufacturing Company?
A custom parts manufacturing company will take your unique engineering designs and turn them into functional parts. These fabrication companies have different machines that they can use to create parts to your specifications — anything from CNC milling machines to 3D printers or sheet metal brakes, and everything in between.
Difference Between In-House and Outsourced Manufacturing
In-house manufacturing requires your company to have a fully functional machine shop onsite. In-house fab shops will create parts just for your company, so you’ll typically only see them at manufacturing facilities, or on the sites of large companies.
If you don’t have a machine shop on payroll, your only option is outsourced manufacturing. Outsourced manufacturing involves reaching out to a third-party machine shop that can handle your fabrication needs. Since these shops aren’t working for the same company as you, you’ll have to pay them and work around their schedule — however, you will likely get better results by shopping around to different outsourced manufacturing facilities, rather than settling for the capabilities of your in-house team.
Challenges and Benefits of Finding the Right Custom Parts Manufacturing Company
It’s really hard to understand the true quality and capabilities of a shop before you start working together, or without a list of reviews from previous customers. This is what makes it so challenging to find the right custom parts manufacturing company.
There are a lot of challenges that you might encounter when you work with a modern machine shop that hasn’t gone through a screening process:
- A lack of communication. This might be the biggest problem that you’ll encounter. A lot of shops will either ignore your RFQ, dodge your emails, or screen your calls just to avoid you. If you can’t communicate with a shop, how are you supposed to get status updates or make changes to your design? Even worse, what if the machinist has a problem or a question about your design? They won’t be able to get in touch with you to discuss these specifics before making your part.
- Sorting through the misinformation. Plenty of shops will swear that they can meet your tight tolerances and aggressive timeline just to get your signature on their contract. Once they start getting paid, the pace will slow down and you’ll realize that they don’t even have the capabilities to make your custom turned part. The issue? You’ve already wasted so much time and money on a shop that can’t help you.
- Dealing with low-quality workmanship. Whether it’s through a lack of local talent, labor budgets that are too tight, or a priority of speed over quality, plenty of shops struggle and produce low-quality work that you won’t be happy with.
- Equipment that can’t meet your tolerances. To oversimplify the machining process, the ability to hit tight tolerances largely depends on the machinery and materials used. If the equipment isn’t good enough, a shop will never be able to meet your specifications. The result is out-of-spec parts that either don’t fit or don’t pass your internal inspections.
- Machine shops that distance themselves from their customers. Some machine shops think that they’re too good for their customers, so they won’t give you any guidance, feedback to improve the manufacturability of your design, or suggestions for parts that are easier to fabricate in the future. With shops like this, you get what you get and you lose out on all the valuable learning that should come from a strong manufacturing partner.
- Shady business ethics. A personal pet peeve of ours is a machine shop that takes on more work than they can handle, just to make more money at the expense of their customers. Plenty of shops will exceed their capacity and allow their long-time customers to cut in the queue, further delaying your project. With these shady business ethics, you’ll pay the price of much longer lead times and the potential for part prices to increase if you complain about things.
However, finding the right shop makes your job as an engineer or designer exponentially easier. You can reach out to them with any fabrication needs, ask them for input when it comes to the manufacturability of parts, and have ease of mind while they’re making your parts. Having the right fabrication partner is the best way to get custom parts fabricated quickly, affordably, and to your specifications.
For most companies, an outsourced custom parts manufacturing company is the only way to turn 2D manufacturing drawings into functional prototypes, production-quality parts, and customer-ready assemblies.
Asaf H
Head of Production Site
"Excellent experience, best platform for manufacturing"
Jiga is the best way to get the parts you need, when you need them.
How To Pick the Right Custom Parts Manufacturing Company
So, how hard can it be to find the right custom metal parts fabricator? It’s a lot easier with the right tools. Let’s discuss some tips for finding the perfect fabrication company.
Look at Their Capabilities
The capabilities of a shop will show you what type of manufacturing they can do. If you need custom plastic parts, then you’ll need to find a shop that offers urethane casting, injection molding, 3D printing, or CNC machining. If a shop doesn’t specialize in plastic work, then they won’t know the pitfalls of working with this material. It’s the same story if you try to get custom sheet metal parts from a shop that only works with stock metal.
Make sure you only choose a custom machine shop that has previous experience working with the type of materials, tolerances, and applications that your project involves.
Larger shops will be able to tackle more projects each month, and they typically have larger equipment as well. If you’re designing especially big parts, make sure your shop of choice has the physical space to handle the fabrication.
Finally, consider the certifications of the fab shop you’re looking at. For instance, an ITAR-registered shop is essential for any government or federal projects, and AS9100 certification is helpful for a machine shop that wants to handle aerospace work.
At Jiga, you’ll see the exact capabilities of a shop before you make any big decisions. We will connect you with the top manufacturers across the planet, giving you the ability to pick a shop that has the equipment that will fit your needs
Overseas or Local Shops?
When looking for a custom parts manufacturing company, you have the option to look at overseas companies, regional shops, or local options. Overseas shops are a great option if you want to save money and can afford the added timeline impact.
Local shops are the best choice for quick, custom parts. If you need something made and delivered quickly, it’s easier if the shop is right down the street.
Through Jiga, you can find the top-performing manufacturers in your city, state, country, or across the globe. With our help, you can fine-tune your search and start working with communicative machine shops that pass all of our strict quality checks.
Consider Their Pricing
Pricing is going to be a huge differentiator between machine shops. If you upload a part for fabrication at Jiga, you’ll see how widely the prices can vary between shops. The same part could vary hundreds or thousands of dollars from one shop to the next, and there’s seemingly no rationale behind it.
Of course, every machine shop is allowed to pick its own pricing for parts. It ultimately boils down to:
- Quality of materials
- Quality of craftsmanship
- Precision required per the manufacturing drawings
- If specialty equipment/ tooling/ personnel is required
- Manufacturability of the design
- Added quality assurance or inspection steps
- Additional services added (such as finishing steps or assembly work)
- Profit added for the company’s sake
To keep costs low, focus on the manufacturability of your designs and keep everything as simple as possible, using standard sizing and materials across the board.
If your part requires precision and specialty tooling, you should expect higher quotes from each machine shop — in this case, you’ll want to avoid shops that bid too low, because that shows that they don’t understand your design or don’t have experience fabricating high-precision or complex parts.
Everyone appreciates a discount, but be hesitant when you get quotes that are much lower than you expect.
By using Jiga, you can look at quotes side-by-side, and communicate directly with your chosen machine shop to learn more about their capabilities and added services. They might even have suggestions that will reduce your per-unit fabrication costs.
Do They Offer Manufacturing with the Material You Need?
Machine shops can vary a ton. Certain shops love working with one specific material, and they’re craftsmen when it comes to any project that involves a certain material. Most shops offer a wide range of material options, with a handful of materials that most of their projects fall into.
For instance, most machine shops will work with aluminum, steel, and stainless steel alloys, but most projects involve 6061 aluminum, 304 stainless steel, and general carbon steel.
If your low-weight, optimized part requires Grade 5 titanium, then you’ll need to find a specialty shop that knows how to work with that material. Through Jiga, you’ll be able to separate quotes by material type, and only shop for the right manufacturer that offers the exact metal choice you’re looking for.
Dive Into Turnaround Times
Another major consideration is turnaround times — in other words, how long will it take the shop to accept the order, fabricate it, inspect it, and then send it to you? This is a category where you’ll also find a ton of differences between shops.
Fabricators who make custom injection molded parts need to deal with expensive and time-consuming molds, trial runs, and calibration before you can get the first functional part. With optimization and logistical streamlining, one shop might be able to save you weeks on the total turnaround time.
How important is the timing of your part? When you see quotes on Jiga, the turnaround time is a category that most users really focus on. In addition, our platform will track the time it takes between tasks every step of the way.
Ensure They Have Experience in Small, Medium, and/or Large-Batch Manufacturing
An order of custom plastic parts can be in the order of tens, hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands. A shop that makes a dozen parts at once is very different than one that specializes in large-batch manufacturing. Both shops have completely different machinery, expertise, and specializations.
As a result, you’ll need to look for a machine shop that has experience working with your desired volume of manufacturing. For instance, a custom parts manufacturer that focuses on large-batch manufacturing will almost exclusively use injection molding machines, while a small-batch manufacturer might lean heavily on CNC machining and 3D printing.
Some engineers are looking for fab shops that offer all three volumes of manufacturing. It’s not unheard of for a machine shop to create parts in any volume, but it requires a little more shopping around to find them.
Make sure you use Jiga to confirm that your selected machine shop has experience in the right volume of manufacturing that you’re looking for.
You Need Someone Responsive
Responsivity is another huge consideration when you’re shopping for the perfect custom parts manufacturing company. If you have to wait days or weeks to get a call or email back, you might go crazy. Wasting time in communication will eat into your project’s timeline, and you’ll have nothing to show for it.
Instead, you should test a company’s responsiveness. Send an email and see how long it takes to get answered, or give a call at a random time and see if someone picks up. The last thing you want is a machine shop that you’re paying a ton of money to who can’t even answer your questions.
At Jiga, you’ll be able to communicate directly with fabrication companies through our site. Streamlining communication will help you keep track of project-specific requests, and make sure you don’t lose track of tasks. Plus, we only promote machine shops that are highly communicative and quick to respond.
Find the Perfect Manufacturing Partner with Jiga
The best way to find the right custom parts manufacturing company is to try Jiga. Our platform allows you to upload part files, and get responses from high-quality fabricators who can turn your design into a physical part. Through Jiga, you can start exceeding your production needs while saving time and money.
Try Jiga for your next manufacturing project and see the difference for yourself. Check supplier ratings and certifications, compare costs and turnaround times between quotes, and communicate directly with the supplier through our platform. Get your first quote to get started.
Sam H
