About CNC machining

What is CNC machining ?

CNC machining is a critical and cost-effective manufacturing technology for both prototyping and volume manufacturing. It is important to industries such as aerospace, automotive, medical and consumer goods. CNC machining has roots from fully manual work to now making possible to create very high-precision, high-accuracy parts with fast and volume output.

However, CNC machining expenses can quickly skyrocket if parts are not being designed and manufactured efficiently.

There are various ways to make CNC machining more efficient:

1.     Design for manufacture: Design as much as possible according to standard features, rather than adding complexity.

2.     Machine: Each machine’s limitations must be kept in mind (whether certain areas are easy to reach, and selected tools are appropriate for the task).

3.     Material: it should be taken into consideration, favoring materials that are flexible and commonly available.

4.     Tolerances should not be specified if they don’t serve a purpose, don’t have tight tolerances for nothing.

Beyond these ways, reducing cost in CNC machining is also to shorten the cycle time by optimizing the machining work path, so that the part is made as quickly as possible. So once design, make sure with your contractors about the CNC machine work path.

Another issue is to do as much as possible on an one time machining processing, which involves strategy to complete a part in a single setup. Rather than implementing numerous operations that can be time-consuming such as machine and part set up, it can be most cost-effective to use advanced CNC machines with multiple capabilities. This means it becomes imperative to outsource to the right subcontractor who the right CNC machines to make these parts.

Moreover, the most efficient way to make a part varies on that company’s technical capability and past experiences. For example, if you are making car engine parts, a company with extensive experience in making car engine parts is likely the best company to make that part for you as they know the expectations and requirements for engine parts.

Another important factor is volume to manufacture. It will be important to qualify a variety of CNC machining subcontractors for different volume needs. For example, a prototype supplier may not have the resources (machines and human) to fulfil your volume needs after the 1^st prototype done. You will have spent huge amount of time to review the prototype machining but you need to re-do the job with a mass volume subcontractor.