motion guru
Diamond
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2003
- Location
- Yacolt, WA
Today we received 2 weeks notice from my second place machinist. He is going two doors down to a neighboring company and is the second machinist in my company to do so in the last 18 months. I am on good terms with the owner of that company and his company is big enough that he doesn't even know that at this point his two latest machinist hires have come from our company. His company is benefiting from the reshoring of a lot of manufacturing in the US and his company sells low cost electronic components to a huge variety of industries around the world.
They have mostly Tsugami Swiss turning centers and a few small format CNC milling machines and both wire and plunger EDMs to make tooling for their injection molding machines. They machine components for in house production that go into products they sell and generally they run parts 1000's at a time and you can often hold between 10 to 100 parts in your hand at a time. They work four 10's with 3 day weekends for all employees and both machinists that left said they were getting about a $300 - $500/month raise and they get to run their own machine and specialize on a family of parts.
In our shop we have a Planer mill w/840D CNC, Haas VF3, Tree J425, a few manual mills (Lagun & JET), and Mori-Seki and Hollbrook Lathes, surface grinder, bandsaw, and that is about it. We produce retrofit kits for the paper and glass industries as well as a lot of custom machinery. The parts we machine can vary from small turned adapter shafts to weldments up to 10,000 lbs. For the machinists that left, pay range was $23 - $26 / hour plus profit sharing, 401k match, and 75% health, dental, and vision care.
My first place machinist is wanting to retire in the next year or two and this will leave me with a couple of capable techs and one machinist that also does a lot of design work.
I could just shut the machine shop down and outsource everything - but part of what drives innovation at our company is the ability to prototype things quickly in our own shop and modify / test / refine on our own machines. The fact that we can then produce the machines after getting all the kinks worked out is a bonus and I would like to retain this ability if we can . . . but not absolutely necessary.
If I am to recruit a machinist that is capable of taking a print, running it through Feature CAM, selecting appropriate tooling, and making the part with some degree of confidence . . . I am thinking I need someone with at least 10 years experience. Our #1 machinist who is looking toward retirement makes north of $30 / hour + bonus and benefits . . . is this in the ball park when we go to replace him or hire his equivalent? The two guys who left were not as capable as he is, but they could take direction and knew when to ask questions.
As we look for a new machinist, I would prefer someone who wouldn't be satisfied standing in front of the same machine 10 hours / day and I need a sense of whether or not we are paying at an appropriate scale. Let me know your thoughts on compensation for what is really a machinist position in a Prototype shop where it is odd if we ever make the same part more than 3 or 4 times a year.
We are just launching a new website if you want to see a bit more of what we do . . . Applied Motion Systems (still a bit in beta format and working out the kinks)
They have mostly Tsugami Swiss turning centers and a few small format CNC milling machines and both wire and plunger EDMs to make tooling for their injection molding machines. They machine components for in house production that go into products they sell and generally they run parts 1000's at a time and you can often hold between 10 to 100 parts in your hand at a time. They work four 10's with 3 day weekends for all employees and both machinists that left said they were getting about a $300 - $500/month raise and they get to run their own machine and specialize on a family of parts.
In our shop we have a Planer mill w/840D CNC, Haas VF3, Tree J425, a few manual mills (Lagun & JET), and Mori-Seki and Hollbrook Lathes, surface grinder, bandsaw, and that is about it. We produce retrofit kits for the paper and glass industries as well as a lot of custom machinery. The parts we machine can vary from small turned adapter shafts to weldments up to 10,000 lbs. For the machinists that left, pay range was $23 - $26 / hour plus profit sharing, 401k match, and 75% health, dental, and vision care.
My first place machinist is wanting to retire in the next year or two and this will leave me with a couple of capable techs and one machinist that also does a lot of design work.
I could just shut the machine shop down and outsource everything - but part of what drives innovation at our company is the ability to prototype things quickly in our own shop and modify / test / refine on our own machines. The fact that we can then produce the machines after getting all the kinks worked out is a bonus and I would like to retain this ability if we can . . . but not absolutely necessary.
If I am to recruit a machinist that is capable of taking a print, running it through Feature CAM, selecting appropriate tooling, and making the part with some degree of confidence . . . I am thinking I need someone with at least 10 years experience. Our #1 machinist who is looking toward retirement makes north of $30 / hour + bonus and benefits . . . is this in the ball park when we go to replace him or hire his equivalent? The two guys who left were not as capable as he is, but they could take direction and knew when to ask questions.
As we look for a new machinist, I would prefer someone who wouldn't be satisfied standing in front of the same machine 10 hours / day and I need a sense of whether or not we are paying at an appropriate scale. Let me know your thoughts on compensation for what is really a machinist position in a Prototype shop where it is odd if we ever make the same part more than 3 or 4 times a year.
We are just launching a new website if you want to see a bit more of what we do . . . Applied Motion Systems (still a bit in beta format and working out the kinks)