Realistic Manufacturing Quantities

“I’d like a quote for 1, 5, 25, 50, 100, 1000.” I’m sure you’ve seen or heard people request quantities like this before. From a manufacturers’ point of view, this can cause an issue with quoting a price. Reason being, the difference of how a part is manufactured when making 1 as oppose to 1,000 are polar opposites because they will be made differently. You may be asking yourself, ‘why when it’s the same part,’ right? The answer to that solely depends on the actual part being made, but let’s do an example.

Say you’re fabricating a sheet metal enclosure where there are several bends, holes, welding, and hardware. When fabricating low quantities, here are the factors that need to be considered: Continue reading

Advantages and Disadvantages of Automation in Manufacturing

In the past 20 years, technology has changed the nature of manufacturing. In the old days, manufacturing and fabrication were all done by hand by people. Now that computers and technology have penetrated the industry, automation has become the competitive advantage in today’s manufacturing world. Automation has allowed for companies to mass produce products at outstanding speeds and with great repeatability and quality. Automation has become a determining factor in whether or not a company will remain competitive within the manufacturing industry. Although automation is constantly setting the standards for the industry and has many advantages, there are also some negative aspects about automation. Continue reading

Prototype vs. Production vs. Mass Production

In the fabrication industry, specifically metal fabrication, parts or products are generally in one of three phases: prototype, production, and mass production. All three are treated completely different when manufacturing.  This article will go into more detail of how the three stages differ from one another. Continue reading