Profit centers! CNC VS MANUAL...High tech or OLD school?

Tough call on the title......
I had a few others:

Race to the Bottom VS Race to the bank?
Shiny New VS Scrap Yard Scrounge?
NC...it's not for everybody
I like chips and cutting oil IN MY FACE.......(thank you)


Question is, who is doing "OK" with manual machines in a FOR PROFIT situation?
Most likely, you don't want to share details (or customer lists) for sure, but
have you proved that there is a place for manual machines out there still in this
day and age?
Any larger shops strictly manual these days that are doing well?

PS I do have a couple old s-l-o-w cnc's in the shop, but the
old "junk" has been makin the green more than I ever imagined possible...*

* Well, the old junk, plus my infinite wisdom, unique mechanical ability, and all around cleverness.... **

** And I can be FOS at times as well!

My work is all done on a manual machine and if the parts warrants a CNC I can make a phone call, fax or e mail a print and have a price in no time.

There is plenty of work for everybody and do not have a problem farming out stuff to other shops.

Thank goodness for the other shops that do what I can't.

Oh boy, here we go.

I work in big biomedical research so don't count but I'll repeat a comment from Ed Beange, owner of Hanson Industries, possibly the biggest small run and prototyping shop in western Canada. He says when he buys a machine they've never had before (CNC, laser cutter, waterjet, he buys 'em all) he goes new because they don't know what they're doing. Once his people have an idea how it works and, I would add, how the machine behaves when it's working properly, they'll look at used machines for future purchases. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Ed, by the way has a whole shtick about growing up in a northern ontario town, building a big company with the right people and outliving all your ancestors by taking care of your health. I've seen this presentation a couple of times and he's getting better and better. It's inspiring if get a chance to see him. A short version here: Hansen Industries Ltd. - Corporate Profile

ps. I think Hansen make money and I think they mostly use CNC.

I make products and do a tiny bit of job work for friends shops that I have the perfect machines for. When I do job work I don't charge. We just barter back and forth.

I figure $100 an hour setup and spindle time for my three paid for with cash CNC's and $200 and hour for any manual work I do. I have a nice bridgeport type mill and a couple nice old lathes and if I'm going to stand in one place and crank handles it's going to be cash and well worth it. I don't do job work and don't advertise so when somebody wants me to make them something and I can't get them to go away it's got to be worth it.

I have made in excess of $500/hr with one of my manual lathes doing repair work though. and it was a big job. I've also made $100 in 10 minutes or less more times than I can count with both my manual and CNC mills. Just takes the right attitude I guess. "So what do you want to pay for this?"

I am an all manual shop. I cant justify CNC for my work, repairs, prototypes, short run production. So far this year, I am showing a 45% gross profit. If I took out the money spent to expand and diversify my business , I would be closer to 60%. I could do it with CNC, but to replace my most profitable machine with a new CNC would be $500K. I sure as hell won't make that payment.

I have also had jobs taken out of CNC shops that I now do.

Josh

I am a cnc shop per say but have a few manuals because they are needed for what I do. I suppose you could classify me as a True Jobbing shop that tries not to run into quantities of more than 200 maybe 500 if push comes to shove but prefers the 10 of this, 5 of that or 1off prototype stuff.

I was busy with a mould on the machining centre yesterday that needed a plate made to fit into a pocket. Think a rectangle 60mmx40mmx20mm thick with outer corner rads, 2 counter bored holes and a half radius machined across the face ball nose cutter style. I gave it to our manual mill guy with a decent drawing and carried on my side without worrying about it. Before I could finish setting up and programming, drilling, tapping and mill where the plate needed to fit the guy was standing next to me with the male part in his hand. All sides surface ground, this guy really takes pride in his work, and everything to spec with all rads neatly done. Now I’m pretty darn quick, in my opinion, on the vmc because of the quick this and that type of stuff that I do but I would not have been able to make the same part in the same amount of time as he did purely using a cnc.

I get a lot of stick from people when they look at my shop and say "Why do you have that manual mill and lathe? Just buy more cnc's" and I reply "The only time that I will replace my manuals with a straight swop cnc is when the manuals stop making money for me and that day will never come"

I know many shops around me that make a decent living from running only manuals. Their trick is to take on all the crap jobs that no one else wants to do and provide a service that not every monkey with a wrench can do. This brings in new customers and thus brings in more work.

Pretty much everything has just been making shop rate and not much more the last 3-4yrs. Cnc is very competitive, manual is a bit better if you know what you're doing and do it well. Still kinda want a turning center but its hard to justify for little 1-20 batches. Lots of places giving away the programming time just to have parts to run, heck, some giving away the prototype just in hope to get the production batch later.

Either way, I'm busy enough, and its 95% manual. Only way cnc will pay off on its own for me is to have my own product line.

I have a customer who would like to buy my manual lathes for his electric motor repair shop. This would be on my way out to full retirement. However, when I think of how handy those lathes are to have around, even as just support equipment for the cnc department, I would be an idiot to break up my shop like that, so long as I still work in it.

A $100 job is still $100 job, no matter which department made it.

Now, manual mills I'm not particularly in love with. I hate all the cranking and the spray of hot chips coming off a manual mill, or the coolant slop all over the place. But I still see a high value on having them available if for no reason but to drill or mill one 'nuisance surface' that I'd otherwise have to disturb or set up a cnc to do. That would just be dumb. No wonder the cnc guys all want large quantities: they're not as efficient as they like to boast they are. I know I seem ploddingly slow to get the cnc all set up and programmed to do most anything. But I greatly prefer the vmc to contain the mess and deal with flood coolant, as well as the large table capacity, and the toolchanger. But high efficiency on one part? No way, unless there is no practical way to do it manually.

Of course, I'm old enough that I don't give a shit about running a marathon to see if I can pop some $500 job out of the cnc in a half an hour. When you do this work steadily every day, you just work at a steady, low stress pace. Let the young'uns do the racing.

I could give you part prints for stuff and most would have trouble making even on a CNC. I could also give you prints that most would run on a manual machine. IMO, it's not the machine that makes the part, it's the operator. It's very hard finding somebody to run those manual machines.
JR

Ah, there's a future for me still! My shop is all manual. I would like to have an NC machine though for arcs and helixes though.

You should only care about making material go away in the most efficient and cost effective way. Period. If that means CNC, use CNC. If that means manual, use manual. Machining is about making parts, not about using either CNC or manual.

No one cares how you made material go away, they just want the part.
No one cares how you made material go away, they just want the part.
No one cares how you made material go away, they just want the part.

I don't care if you are a god machinist that can make impossible parts on a manual. I just want the part. Yes, your skill is impressive, but I don't care, i just want the part. If some CNC guy could have done it faster/cheaper/better than I'd want him to do it.

In my opinion, it's a stupid way to go through life worrying about which technology you will or will not use. Don't make that your thing, it' stupid. You'll use the internet to write on a internet forum, but won't use CNC? Why don't use use a type writer and send letters to other machinists? Because it's retarded and nowhere near as good. BUT I'M A REALLY GOOD TYPIST ON OLD TYPEWRITERS AND I DON"T NEED NO STINKIN COMPUTER AND I FIX OLD TYPEWRITERS AND I MAKE YOUR OWN INK AND PAPER!! I"M SUPER PROUD I DON"T USE COMPUTERS!! THATS SO AWESOME THATS YOUR THING! WOW, NOT USING CERTAIN TECHNOLOGIES IS REALLY IMPRESSIVE!

We're a job shop.

Both.

Neither is the master answer - the order dictates the process.

Above all if you have the skills to make money on manual gear, cnc just makes it easier. If you arn't making money on manual equipment and try and buy more cnc gear to make money, IMHO its akin to donning a pair of concrete boots before going for a swim.

This game takes a lot of skill. Applied to cheap manual tools its easy to earn a living. Aplied to cnc you can do even better. But if you don't have the skills your sunk once the money runs out!

I like having both. The old cnc mill is like having a helper. Can have something running on the cnc while I run the manuals.

A clip from a post to an older thread.

I had an interesting discussion on this topic a few days ago. I was previewing an auction that was 99% manual tools and ran into a couple of Mennonites that had a machine shop. I commented on how it must be difficult for them to compete with CNC, and they responded that they just had to choose the proper jobs. Their example was a pin where they supplied the finished product for the same price per pound as the raw material cost for an automated machine.

They could make the pins on a 19 second cycle using a manual turret lathe of some sort, and could hold tolerance using hot rolled stock, where the automated machine needed cold rolled or better. (For example, xxx metals 1 1/2" ground and polished(+.000,-.001) $1.92/inch 1 1/2" cold rolled(+000,-.004) $1.90/inch, 1 1/2" hot rolled(+/-.015) $1.48 per inch).

John Welden said:

You should only care about making material go away in the most efficient and cost effective way. Period. If that means CNC, use CNC. If that means manual, use manual. Machining is about making parts, not about using either CNC or manual.

No one cares how you made material go away, they just want the part.
No one cares how you made material go away, they just want the part.
No one cares how you made material go away, they just want the part.

I don't care if you are a god machinist that can make impossible parts on a manual. I just want the part. Yes, your skill is impressive, but I don't care, i just want the part. If some CNC guy could have done it faster/cheaper/better than I'd want him to do it.

In my opinion, it's a stupid way to go through life worrying about which technology you will or will not use. Don't make that your thing, it' stupid. You'll use the internet to write on a internet forum, but won't use CNC? Why don't use use a type writer and send letters to other machinists? Because it's retarded and nowhere near as good. BUT I'M A REALLY GOOD TYPIST ON OLD TYPEWRITERS AND I DON"T NEED NO STINKIN COMPUTER AND I FIX OLD TYPEWRITERS AND I MAKE YOUR OWN INK AND PAPER!! I"M SUPER PROUD I DON"T USE COMPUTERS!! THATS SO AWESOME THATS YOUR THING! WOW, NOT USING CERTAIN TECHNOLOGIES IS REALLY IMPRESSIVE!

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I am often amused when someone posts on PM about their agonizing decision whether to go CNC or not... like it's some monumental life changing event they have to discuss for a year or two before jumping into the abyss.

Having said that your typewriter analogy isn't too great since computers are cheaper than typewriters these days and email or forum posting is cheaper than a postage stamp.

Don't be retarded and use both?

Milacron said:

Having said that your typewriter analogy isn't too great since computers are cheaper than typewriters these days and email or forum posting is cheaper than a postage stamp.

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Sorry about that. I can do better.

My whole shop is conventional. It is possible to make a living with manual machines but you will work your ass off. I have found that if the part is simple and it involves opening a vise a few times then the manual machine can be almost as fast. If the part is lathe turned forget it. I cant work fast enough nor do I want to. I farm out all lathe turned parts, I make the first 100 parts then if they sell I get it all made on cnc. I leave machines set up for one step and we run as many parts as we can stand then we switch to another part and do it all over again. I have 6 milling machines in a row, each machine is set up for one operation. I may get a cnc someday and it will definitly have a tool changer and an enclosure and probably be a new one. Cnc shops work so cheap right now it is not worth owning the machine, the stuff I make is not high value parts so to cover the cost of the machine would be hard.

wgnrr1 said:

I could do it with CNC, but to replace my most profitable machine with a new CNC would be $500K. I sure as hell won't make that payment.

I have also had jobs taken out of CNC shops that I now do.

Josh

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I don't understand why everyone makes this argument. Why would you have to replace your manual machine with a brand new CNC? Did you know they sell used CNC machines?

I see it here all the time. "I paid $4000 for my Bridgeport and Southbend, Haas wants $60k for a VF1 and SL10. I can't afford that". There are lots of cheap CNC machines on the used market that can still make you money.

As for work moving from CNC shop to manual shop, it happens. Usually it's because the volume went way down and the CNC guy doesn't want to mess with it.