Three tips to run a successful small machine shop business

Small machine shops are usually started and run by entrepreneurs who are passionate about machining as a trade and are naturally uplifted by the machining business. These entrepreneurs are not swayed by the thoughts of growing their small machine shop business into a multi million dollar enterprise, but are rather satisfied with having a small batch of repeat customers whom they service with their heart and soul. Nevertheless, these small machine shop owners do contribute a lot to the overall economy by providing quick and dependable service to larger shops who either do not want to be bothered by the small jobs or are looking for a quick source of machining a job that would interfere with their normal production schedule. Nevertheless, as small as these outfits may be, they are still a business venture and all of the headaches and pitfalls that plague larger companies also affect these mini machine shops.

In order to succeed in running a small machine shop, there are three tips that we will consider in this article. The first tip is that you need to provide a very quick delivery on the parts that you are being asked to machine. This is the biggest reason you are in business as the owner of a small machine shop and your customers count on the quick turn time. Even if it means putting in very long hours, evenings and weekends if need be, you have to deliver quick results. Hence delivery cycle is the first and foremost item of importance.

Secondly, it is price. Your price needs to be as low as you possibly can go, without losing money on any job. Because small machine shops are easy to set up, if your price becomes unreasonable, your customer may simply move his business to the one down the street. Hence price needs to be the second important factor in succeeding with a small machine shop.

Thirdly, quality of workmanship is very important when operating a small machine shop. This means all of the blueprint characteristics have to be met all of the time. This includes maintaining proper tolerance levels, surface finish requirements, chamfer and radius data and so on. Quality is a given in today’s world of manufacturing and regardless of how quick you can deliver or how low a price you can sell your services at, your quality cannot suffer.

Thus keeping close tabs on the three issues of price, quality and delivery all of the time can ensure success for your small machine shop operation.