June 3, 2024
Intro
Every high-quality machine shop should spend countless hours looking through their operational workflows and adding optimization wherever they can. For cutting-edge machine shops, like ours at Rapid Axis, this means utilizing brand-new sheet metal fabrication techniques that speed up our operations, reduce potential mistakes, and avoid common pitfalls that are customary for machine shops.
Today, we’ll discuss 5 sheet metal fabrication techniques that we utilize on a daily basis that allow us to deliver high-quality sheet metal parts to your doorstep quicker, more affordably, and with better precision than ever before.
Advances to Plasma Cutters
It wasn’t that long ago when plasma cutters were just a sci-fi idea. Today, we have access to a number of plasma cutters that are some of the most advanced options on the market.
Plasma cutters use focalized plasma to cut through pieces of sheet metal faster than traditional machining operations ever could. Plus, with better programming and setup abilities, our operators can lay out multiple parts on a single piece of sheet metal.
As a result, our team can offer much faster throughput and less wasted material on every sheet metal project. This means lower costs and faster turnarounds for your company.
IoT Integration (Smart Manufacturing)
Smart Manufacturing is the catch-all phrase that basically means using technology and automation to improve a manufacturing operation. At Rapid Axis, we use a number of CNC machinery and digital tracking to ensure every project is done as quickly as possible with as few mistakes as possible.
For sheet metal, this means using internet-empowered plasma cutters, waterjet cutters, and laser cutters. This allows us to send a program directly to the machine from any workstation. Just this small amount of IoT integration results in a much faster project completion time.
We’ve utilized this same technology across our processes, streamlining everything that we can.
In addition, we track a lot of digital data when it comes to the projects that we complete. This gives us insight into overall workflows, and it shows us where we can improve. With added Smart Manufacturing practices, we are making parts faster and more accurately for companies just like yours.
Advanced Control Systems for CNC Machinery
CNC machines seem to be getting better every year, and our team at Rapid Axis always uses the most cutting-edge advanced control systems that we can implement. A lot of these are software upgrades that can transform how we operate our CNC machinery.
With sheet metal, a lot of the work is automated through CNC machines like the plasma cutters and waterjet cutters that we keep mentioning. With better control systems, we can unlock a new level of reliability and precision with every part. What does that mean for you? Better quality in your parts, a better ability to hit your tight tolerances, and faster fabrication times.
It means that you can get your parts sooner and more affordably.
Better Logistics and an Improved Supply Chain
In addition to in-house upgrades to our machines to upgrade our sheet metal fabrication abilities, we’ve also put a lot of focus on our logistics and supply chain. Looking at how many moving parts and people are required to fabricate and deliver one part is a lot — but you need to multiply that effort by a thousand times if you want to see the full picture. We serve countless companies each month, and a year of operation can exceed a million parts fabricated.
How do we get parts out the door faster, delivered more reliably, and how can we source the raw material? This all goes into our logistics and supply chain efforts.
Our team at Rapid Axis has spent a lot of time (and trial and error) to come up with a robust supply chain that can reliably deliver high-quality sheet metal to us, and deliver parts to you with no wasted time.
This is thanks to huge technological advances in tracking material and parts, and finding sourcing partners. When you add this to our extensive list of physical sheet metal fabrication techniques, it results in great news for our customers: we can deliver parts faster with fewer hiccups along the way.
Added Automation
So many of our sheet metal fabrication techniques revolve around adding automation and precision whenever we can. In the old days, a machinist would have to physically pull levers and spin dials to machine a part. Today, we can use automation to do a vast majority of the work.
Each year, we find newer and better ways to add automation to our in-house manufacturing efforts. Any amount of automation results in fewer manhours spent on a project, which typically means that we can charge you less for every part that you order.
All of our added automation allows us to fabricate sheet metal parts quicker, and translates to a lower overall cost for you.
Conclusion
All of the sheet metal fabrication techniques that we use are just another way to deliver high-quality parts quicker, more affordably, and with fewer mistakes. Our customers appreciate the extra length we go throughout every sheet metal project, and we think you will, too.
Choose Rapid Axis for all of your sheet metal fabrication needs. We are a full-service machine shop that offers waterjet cutting, laser cutting, plasma cutting, and traditional CNC machining options. We also offer finishing and mass-production operations that can meet your strict requirements. To learn more or get started, reach out to us and get a free quote today.