Challenges Faced by Machine Shops

Machine shops are an integral part of the supply chain infrastructure that underpins the industrial sector. It is a place where machining is performed. Machining is a subtractive process where tools and implements are used to bring parts to their final form. These parts are usually made of metal or plastic (but can also be wooden or made from glass in a few instances). Even on a good day, the operations that take place at a machine shop can be pretty tough to accomplish, and there are challenges that keep on coming up all the time - be it mechanical constraints, time and budget issues. In this article, we look at some of the issues and challenges that are faced by Machine shops and how they deal with them.

Machines can go bust: In a machine shop, they rely on the machines in order to get the work done. The machines used in a machine shop like lathes, cutters, CNC machines and so forth, work at high revolutions per minute (RPM), take the brunt of high impact and shear loading due to which they operate at high temperatures (requiring generous amounts of coolant to work properly). Under such stressful operating conditions, there is bound to be a breakdown or two - which will have a detrimental impact to the machine shop’s operation. To ensure that such breakdowns are prevented from happening, or even if they do happen, the operational aspect of the machine shop is not disturbed while this is being fixed. Certain best practices need to be followed by the machine shop which includes periodic maintainer, and judicious use of the equipment to the rated design conditions only.

Unreliable Vendors: Machine shops are heavily reliant on third-party firms for materials as well as essential supplies to keep everything up and running. When the requirement arises, it ideally should be fulfilled by the supplier - but in the real world, this doesn’t always happen, and this break in the supply chain causes the machine shop to come to a standstill, and can be the cause for the machine shop missing client deadlines and losing business in the long run. Proper supply chain management must be implemented by the machine shop, and must be done in such a way where there is proper redundancy implemented to keep everything running like clockwork.

Quality challenges and rework costs: Because of the costs associated with hiring and retaining quality talent to handle the machinery at the machine shop, it might be not always be possible to assign work to high-quality talent at the shop, and this can result in quality issues popping up, which would be bad for the business because they imply that the client would get a bad impression of the capabilities of the shop as well as the high costs and time challenges associated with rework would mean that the shop is no longer profitable. Solving this would require proper training to be given to all of the workers at the shop and quality inspections to be done regularly to lift up the quality standards of the shop.