¿Cuáles son los factores clave a tener en cuenta a la hora de elegir los servicios de mecanizado CNC para su proyecto?

Gauging a company's experience level in CNC machining is not hard. Most companies have websites with photos; this is the first step in appraising their capabilities. Another important step could be non-anonymous reviews - really helpful since we can contact the reviewer and have a deeper conversation about their experience with the potential provider. But all this can be bypassed if we already have our connections and some collaboration history behind us.

Good equipment, materials, engineers. A good CNC equipment can solve many problems. Tools and cutting fluid are also important. The programming of engineers is also very important.

I would consider options of companies to get a feel for the quality of the work being done. I would consider the equipment that the company would use to manufacture the parts and assess the state of all machinery. It wouldn’t help timewise if the company’s machine broke down as this would lead to unnecessary delays. You could ask the company to manufacture a sample so you can see what the result would be.

Make sure your supplier has the resources available to deliver what they are promising. Do they the equipment, qualified people, processes and procedures to ensure sustainability? Does your supplier have the means to recover from a set back - machine failure, people not showing up for work and capacity? How will your supplier communicate progress and set-back to you?

A día de hoy la maquinaria CNC y los programas de diseño etc.... facilitan la realización de los trabajos enormemente, para mi lo mas importante es el equipo humano que tenga detrás , el compromiso y dedicación que veas al contactar y que sean comunicativos para desarrollar tu proyecto

The providers' technology and machinery are not important from the customer's point of view. The customer provides the file(s) in whatever format is needed (.dxf,.igs,.dwg,.stl,.gcode), and the supplier can make the part(s) or not. It is not the customers' business how the parts are made! The important factor is the tolerance! Any 2 or 3D software can output (save as) a multitude of file formats, so that is again not the customers' problem.

Always look for a company that can automate production. Investing in automation will ensure the consistent quality of your products. Look at the factory’s production structure and workflow to determine if it would suit your product. Please make sure that the design team understands your vision of the product and is capable of using modern design software for creation.

There is more to material mastery than machinery and tooling. What happens with those materials in between processes is equally as important, if not more. Knowing that your prospective or current suppliers have systems in place to protect materials in process is extremely important. Are there humidity controls? Where are in process parts stored? Do you use methods to protect critical parts such as VCI? When you are dealing with critical components, having confidence that the structural integrity of the parts through every step is top of mind is extremely important.

Material mastery and special attention are only needed in 15-20% of cases when we need to work with Inconel, Hastelloy, Waspaloy, Ti-alloys, Stellite, Rene, and Maraging Steel. The remaining 80% is made of average hardness materials, and usually, all CNC machining companies are able to work with these without problems.

Usually, we can't check the quality ourselves, which is not a problem. Companies like SGS offer all kinds of testing we can think of; it costs money, but it is worth it. Besides, it is the first step in building trust with some of our providers in case we are looking for and trying to build long-term collaborations.

In my experience in Global Manufacturing Supply chain, machining services outsourcing is not about finding suitable vendor by Google Search. If any company is regularly outsourcing CNC machining services, it is always a good tool to develop Supplier capability Matrix. It is like developing a machining eco system to support your need. It may appear easy to develop the machine capability matrix as most machine tool specs are easy to obtain, it would augur well to classify a group of vendors on scale of 10 for the following Adequate availability of Mfg Engineers / Programmers. Vendors’ access to toolings and functional gauges as required. In sourced CMM / Metrology equipment etc. or access to these services