Growing pains? Make sure your metal fabrication supplier can grow with you.

In the business world, the quest for innovation never stops. Whether it’s groundbreaking new products, disruptive technologies, value-added services or simply a matter of supporting increased production volumes, most companies need to stay on the leading edge of innovation to support growth initiatives. Nowhere is this truer than in the manufacturing sector. Here, tier one manufacturers must continuously adapt their production capabilities to meet market demands.

But doing so often requires changes throughout the supply chain, especially in the selection of a metal fabrication supplier. Maintaining a culture of continuous growth and innovation requires partnering with the right supplier. This means one that can adapt and scale to your evolving production and/or business requirements.

At STAUB Manufacturing Solutions, we understand the importance of aligning with our customers’ growth mindsets. We’re constantly adapting our production technologies, capabilities and bandwidth to meet the needs of our manufacturing partners. Although no two metal fabrication suppliers are alike, you’ll find a few characteristics that are telltale signs of their willingness to support your growth initiatives.

Investing in new tools and capabilities

As production requirements change — such as introducing more complex assemblies or requiring shorter turn times — manufacturers need metal fabrication partners that can evolve with them. To support a new customer project, STAUB recently added a dual-station, two-robot weld cell with servo positioning and fully automated clamping.

This complex, six-foot weldment involves numerous individual flat laser-cut parts, a laser-cut tube and several machined components. The sheet metal parts are formed, weld nuts are added, and then the entire assembly is robotically welded. Then, threaded inserts are installed, sent to e-coat, loaded into custom packaging and shipped to the customer for final assembly.

Expanding infrastructure

Keeping up with a manufacturer’s growth initiatives often requires making room for increased production volumes. At STAUB, we’ve embraced this challenge as an opportunity. We recently installed an interior material and parts racking system to better support our customers’ production increases. We’ve also purchased an adjacent building to gain the additional floorspace needed to ensure future expansion in storage and/or production capabilities.

Providing engineering support

Sometimes dealing with growth can stretch the limits of a manufacturer’s current capabilities, which requires them to seek engineering expertise from their fabrication suppliers. That’s why access to engineering assistance can be a differentiating factor when partnering with a new supplier. STAUB offers a full suite of engineering services to support our manufacturing customers, including:

  • Product design and feasibility assistance for quality assurance
  • Forming simulation to ensure manufacturability
  • Costing guidance for accurate budgeting and forecasting

Select a partner built for growth

Growing pains are an inevitable outcome of running a successful manufacturing business. But your ability to effectively adapt, scale and deal with these challenges starts by partnering with a metal fabrication supplier that’s built to support your growth — both today and in the future.

At STAUB Manufacturing, we’ve assembled the fabrication capabilities, physical infrastructure and engineering services to support your growth journey. If you’re seeking a supplier that has a long-term growth mindset, then STAUB would welcome the opportunity to explore partnership opportunities.

To learn more about our turn-key capabilities and tour our expanding facilities, please contact a member of our sales team.

Consider these important factors to ensure your next metal fabrication supplier can make the cut

The demand for aluminum in metal fabrication is on the rise. Specified for its favorable properties — light weight, strength, corrosion resistance, non-sparking and non-magnetic — aluminum has become a popular alternative to stainless steel in a variety of applications, such as electrical, truck components, appliances, agricultural equipment and automotive. Aluminum is also being specified as an alternative to steel products that require a secondary process to prevent rusting, such as painting or plating.

As a metal fabrication supplier to tier one manufacturers, STAUB Manufacturing has fully integrated aluminum into our solution portfolio. In fact, we’re currently working on more aluminum projects than steel or stainless steel.

But from a fabrication standpoint, aluminum presents a unique set of challenges. Not all suppliers have the capabilities, tooling, processes and skills needed to produce quality aluminum parts. Although many shops claim to be setup to handle aluminum, few can back it up and see a project through to its completion.

Before you select a supplier for your next aluminum manufacturing project, first be sure they have what it takes to deal with aluminum’s unique manufacturing challenges. Consider the following factors to ensure your next metal fabrication supplier can make the cut.

Welding and/or forming is not for the inexperienced

If a fab shop is used to working only with steel or stainless steel, they’ll soon discover that aluminum is a whole different animal. First, aluminum is a softer metal than steel and is more prone to damage during the welding process. Since aluminum has a high thermal conductivity, it’s more susceptible to hydrogen absorption, which can result in bubbles and joint porosity — aka an imperfect metal formation.

Welders must understand these challenges and have developed the skillset needed to achieve a high-quality aluminum weld. A fab shop must also have the capabilities to properly grind down welds to achieve a finished and/or polished product. Unfortunately, it’s all too common for manufacturers to suffer production setbacks from receiving poorly welded or unfinished products.

Aluminum laser cutting — caveats and considerations

With jobs that require precision metal fabrication techniques, laser cutting is typically the best option. However, laser cutting of aluminum requires a higher attention to detail. Although laser cutting ensures greater degrees of accuracy and consistency in a final product, aluminum takes longer to cut than steel and has lower limits of material thickness.

Once laser cutting is complete, fabricators will find that aluminum requires extra effort to clean up and remove burrs. Without the proper grinding and deburring tools, many fab shops simply can’t properly finish off aluminum parts.

Integrating finishing into the larger manufacturing process is the best way to handle these challenges. This way, as aluminum parts come off a laser cutter, they’re automatically sent through a purpose-built deburring and finishing process.

At the end of the day, if you’re working with a fabricator who’s inexperienced with laser cutting of aluminum, you could end up with parts that 1) have a heavy burr, 2) are out of tolerance, or 3) leave you with an extensive amount of hand work to make them function correctly.

We’re built for aluminum fabrication

At STAUB Manufacturing, we’ve built the welding skills, laser cutting and finishing capabilities into our aluminum fabrication portfolio. Our expert welders are equipped with the tools and training to ensure the highest quality aluminum weld formations. In addition, our laser cutting machines and finishing processes are optimized for the rigors and challenges of aluminum fabrication.

Through the years, as we’ve continued to accept the difficult aluminum jobs that other metal fabricators have turned down, we’ve continued to hone our aluminum capabilities. Today, more than half of our contracts deal with the production of aluminum parts.

To lean more about our aluminum fabrication capabilities — or take an onsite tour of our facilities — please contact a member of our sales team. We’re ready to take on the difficult projects that other suppliers have passed over.

How reliable is your metal fabrication supplier? Check these four key metrics

Sourcing a reliable metal fabrication supplier for your next product launch is a high stakes proposition. At first glance or quick web search, many suppliers appear to have what it takes to get the job done. Unfortunately, you won’t discover their quality issues until it’s crunch time, and they produce something that’s out of spec — or miss your deadline altogether.

But, how can you know if a supplier is going to be a reliable partner? From our experience, there are few key metrics that are telling indicators of a supplier’s reliability. A supplier that cares about earning your business should make this information readily available on request. If not, then that’s your first sign that they may have something to hide.

To guide your supplier evaluation process, consider the following four key metrics of reliability.

1. Annual ISO audit

Maintaining an ISO 9001:2015 certification requires an annual audit that validates adherence to its high-quality standards. Many suppliers use this audit to uncover areas of improvement and hone their internal quality processes. But it can also reveal existing non-conformance issues that might impact their overall reliability. Only by checking their ISO audit will you know their current state of operations — and discover any potential red flags.

2. Production quality rating

A supplier’s external quality yield is a strong predictor of reliability. First, it means they’ve established the internal processes needed to deliver optimal results for their customers. Second, by having a quality tracking program in place, they’ve demonstrated their commitment to continual process improvement. That’s why reliable metal fabrication suppliers are more than willing to publicly share and promote their quality metrics with customers and prospects.

3. Employee turnover rates

Retaining a consistent, high-functioning crew of metal fabrication professionals is an essential contributing factor to a supplier’s overall reliability. But this is easier said than done in the manufacturing industry. According to recent estimates from the Bureau of Labor statistics, manufacturers are grappling with a 39 percent turnover rate — creating a turbulent environment that has direct impacts on quality and reliability. It’s worth asking a potential supplier if they are above or below industry averages, and how they’re mitigating the associated risks to their internal production standards.

4. On-time delivery data

Production quality is only one part of the on-time delivery equation. To make sure materials arrive at your manufacturing plant as planned, suppliers must follow robust shipping and logistics methodologies. By adopting ISO 9001:2015 shipping practices, suppliers can integrate repeatably reliable delivery into their production process — backed by quality-driven tracking technologies and data analytics. Make sure your prospective supplier has a proven track record of meeting their delivery promises.

Expect nothing but full supplier transparency

If a prospective supplier is unwilling to share any of these key metrics, chances are they’re covering for an internal quality issue. At STAUB Manufacturing, we’re strong believers in full transparency. In fact, we welcome customers and prospects to visit our production facility, get to know our staff, evaluate our capabilities, and check out our quality metrics. You should expect nothing less from your suppliers.

In the spirit of full transparency, we recently published data on the above metrics. We’re proud to say all our reliability markers are trending in the right direction:

  • ISO audit: No non-conformance issues
  • External quality yield: 99.87%
  • Employee turnover rate: 3%

Before you select your next metal fabrication supplier, be sure you’ve done your homework on the metrics that matter most. To inquire more about our quality processes, capabilities and performance metrics, feel free to reach out to our sales team. We’d love to show you our commitment to your success.

If you’re in the planning phase of your next product launch or production run, sourcing a qualified metal fabrication supplier should be at the top of your checklist. The right partner can make the difference between on-time delivery and production delays, project success or failure, profit and loss.

As a partner to large OEMs and their tier one suppliers, we’ve seen first-hand how supplier issues can create a cascade of issues. And we vowed to never make the same mistakes. Whether you’re a buyer or an engineer, finding a reliable contract manufacturer with advanced metal fabrication capabilities requires careful consideration. Supplier selection may start with an evaluation of your specific project requirements, but it shouldn’t end there. 

To help guide you through this critical process, we recently created an e-book called Three Keys to Successful Metal Fabrication Sourcing. From our experience, earning “preferred partner” status boils down to the three “Cs” of supplier consistency: cost, capabilities and culture. Cost is the most obvious entry point for most supplier evaluations but should never be considered on its own. The breadth of supplier’s fabrication capabilities and the strength of their culture are equally important indicators of success. 

While we welcome you to download our free e-book, continue reading for a summary of the three Cs of choosing a partner that delivers on their promises.

1. Cost does not equal price. Many supplier searches start — and sometimes end — with cost. It’s often the first question we’re asked when contacted to bid on a job. But if minimizing expenses and maximizing profits are among your business priorities, you need to start by understanding the difference between cost and price. 

If your strategy is to accept the lowest bid, be prepared to deal with the potential consequences:

  • Project support issues, such as engineering, fabrication and finishing problems 
  • Lost production time due to missing and/or faulty parts
  • Quality management challenges — from shoddy inspection and incomplete documentation to non-conformance issues

2. Capabilities must be confirmed. If you’re sourcing a new product from a new metal fabrication supplier, what’s your process for verifying their capabilities? How do you know if they have the technical skills, process and quality controls, and specialized experience to produce your part? How can you be sure that their facilities are configured to meet your high quality standards?

It’s ok to start with a supplier website evaluation, but how do you really know if their operation runs as efficiently as it appears? Conducting an on-site visit to their facilities is truly the only way to confirm it. If a supplier cares about winning your business, they’ll welcome an opportunity to prove that they have the right capabilities, processes and staff needed to meet your specific fabrication requirements.

3. Culture is a stabilizing force. Some may be surprised to find the intangible quality of “culture” on this list, but we’ve discovered that culture is more important than ever. Only in a stable, healthy and thriving culture — where employees are aligned and motivated by a shared commitment to process rigor, consistency and quality standards — can repeatable, high-grade production be achieved. 

At its essence, culture is about the people overseeing and executing your fabrication projects — from sales and customer service to operations, production and shipping. In a healthy culture, each of these roles is equally committed to and responsible for your success. From this perspective, it’s extremely important that your supplier’s culture aligns with your business expectations. 

As we stated in our e-book: “Costs are negotiable. Capabilities are pre-requisites. But culture is a differentiator.” To learn more about successfully selecting your next metal fabrication supplier, please download our free guide. 

When working with a metal fabrication supplier, their commitment to quality can make the difference between a successful product launch and costly delays. Quality takes on a new meaning in the manufacturing world, where specific methodologies and certifications are an indication of process rigor. For example, when you see an ISO certification next to a supplier name, you know they’ve taken steps to prioritize quality.

Quality is a differentiator, especially in time-sensitive metal fabrication projects where issues can arise when you least expect it. It’s the reason manufacturers demand the highest quality standards from their partners. There’s simply too much at stake for a fabrication problem to spoil a launch.

To lower your risk, you should select a supplier that has both the internal quality standards and customer-focused validation services to identify issues before they can impact production. It’s a holistic approach to quality that’s often referred to as “safe launch” protocols.

But how do you know your metal fabrication supplier has what it takes to ensure the success of your next launch? You can start by looking for some of the quality standards and certifications that STAUB Manufacturing Solutions utilizes in our operations.

ISO, PPAP & APQP: What are they and why are they so important?

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ISO 9001 2015 certification is literally the industry standard for quality management — a mandatory requirement on most all manufacturer’s supplier checklist. ISO accreditation demonstrates an underlying commitment to quality that ensures your fabrication supplier has followed the requirements needed to “establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve a quality management system (QMS).”

Staub achieved its ISO certification in 2006. As we implemented ISO 9001 requirements, we embarked on a journey to create a quality-first organization that could consistently deliver flawless products by following robust and repeatable quality processes.

To meet this goal and support our customers, we realized that we needed pre-production guardrails to ensure a safe launch. So, we began utilizing the production part approval process (PPAP) developed by the automotive and aerospace industry and built a team around supporting this initiative. PPAP gives our customers the assurance that proper processes and controls are in place and products are fully inspected prior to moving to full production.

At a minimum, we follow a first article inspection (FAI) validation measure to verify that all new or modified production processes will produce parts that conform to the manufacturing specification. Many of our customers require additional levels of PPAP assurance, including product samples, data verification and other means of pre-production validation. Once we meet their defined PPAP requirements, we can move to final production.

But our quality journey didn’t stop there. For our internal processes, we added an advanced product quality planning (APQP) framework to our daily operations. This is common methodology used in automotive and manufacturing industries to ensure product quality and reliability throughout every phase of the production process.

From material selection and production specifications to finishing and packaging requirements, APQP enables us to plan, execute and validate our quality initiatives. Cross-functional teams attend regular APQP meetings to address any issues that could impact quality and focus on exceeding our customers’ expectations.

In 2023, STAUB achieved a 99.80 percent external quality rating — a testament to our commitment to quality via the certifications, processes and methodologies we’ve put in place. But not all metal fabrication suppliers share the same commitment. Be sure you’re aware of your supplier’s capabilities before you entrust them with your next production run. Their quality issues could result in your failure to launch.

When outsourcing the production of metal components, tier one manufacturers have two primary options: metal fabrication or stamping. Traditionally, higher volumes of repeat production runs have utilized stamping, while much smaller quantity projects could be handled by metal fabrication. Despite recent technological advancements that challenge these assumptions, they’re still considered standard practices throughout the industry.

Today, the factors influencing the fabrication versus stamping decision are changing. Although stamping is still preferred high-volume scenarios, the pivot point where fabrication is both viable and more cost-effective is moving. In fact, the cost/volume scales have tilted to reveal a new sweet spot for metal fabrication — which includes larger production quantities than were previously thought to be possible.

In this installment of our Smart Fabrication Sourcing blog series, we’ll provide some insights to guide the process of selecting one production method over the other. It starts by understanding what’s behind this changing decision calculus and reviewing the pros and cons of each method.

The costs and benefits of stamping out high volumes

Among metal forming technologies, stamping is synonymous with high production volumes. Once custom tooling has been built to support project requirements, stamping can crank out quantities from tens to hundreds of thousands of units per year. Production runs can be coordinated with manufacturing schedules, ramping up and down as needed.

But stamping comes with a notoriously high overhead and some notable limitations. Tooling costs alone are typically tens of thousands of dollars, which raises the stakes when making outsourcing decisions. Stamping is also inherently inflexible and doesn’t lend itself to making design iterations to support ongoing product improvements. Once the die is set, design changes cannot be made without tooling revisions and their associated costs.

Although long-run stamping dies are considered “permanent,” their maximum useful life is typically three years. Over time, deformations can create excess material waste and non-conformance issues. Manufacturers typically accept these common stamping challenges as costs of doing business.

For stamping to make smart business sense, mass production volumes and project-specific requirements must justify the expense of tooling.

New Laser systems offer a high-precision, high-volume production alternative

Over the past few decades, automated laser systems as well as advanced press brakes have revolutionized the metal fabrication industry. Offering superior precision and intricate design capabilities, laser cutting is ideal for everything from rapid prototyping to everyday fabrication. Still, many manufacturers overlook its potential for mass production as an economical and reliable alternative to traditional stamping — without the costs and limitations of tooling.

The sheer speed at which advanced laser systems can operate has increased significantly in recent years. Modern machines offer all the advantages of laser cutting with the potential to deliver tens of thousands of units per year. The decision for fabrication versus stamping boils down to two key questions: What production volumes are possible? At which point should stamping be used?

The answers to those questions depend on the capabilities of the metal fabrication supplier. At Staub Manufacturing Solutions, our customers are often surprised to learn that we can support production volumes around 30k and even up to 50k annual units per year in some cases — volumes that traditionally were reserved only for stamping. As always, we would only recommend such an approach if it delivered the greatest benefit to our customers. At higher quantities, the cost/benefit analysis of stamping may still win out.

Our production laser system enables us to easily support our customers through iterative engineering improvements and/or design changes. Unlike the costly limitations of tooling, we can simply make a program change in the machine to accommodate new features or design upgrades. Which means you don’t have to wait another three years to update your tooling and make product improvements.

So, the next time you’re considering stamping for a high-volume production run, don’t overlook the potential for laser cutting. STAUB’s metal fabrication experts are happy to evaluate your project requirements and advise you on the most viable option for your business.

As a supplier, STAUB Manufacturing Solutions has seen its share of product designs that don’t always yield the most economical results.  However, this can be avoided. Often times when a new product is being sourced, the fabrication supplier is typically only brought into the process after the engineering and designs are already finalized. What may have seemed like a trivial choice in the development stage, may unintentionally add significant cost and time to the fabrication process. In this installment of our Smart Fabrication Sourcing series, we’ll show why it’s a better practice to collaborate with your supplier during the product development phase.

While there are certainly more, here are five areas that can see benefits from collaboration.

  1. Use off-the-shelf tooling. Tooling is far more important than people realize. Often Engineers / designers will specify a bend radius or geometry that can only be made using custom tooling. Sometimes a slight change in the design can result in utilizing off the shelf tooling instead of having tooling custom made. Using custom tooling often results in extra costs and production delays.
  2. Avoid specialized fabrication materials. Steering clear of specialized or rarely used materials is another way to keep costs down. We’re not suggesting that you sacrifice production quality by choosing a lower-quality alternative. Rather, we’re recommending that you select an option that has similar properties and is more readily available. (e.g., choosing 304 stainless steel over 409 stainless steel). Of course, there are always exceptions to this rule, but using an uncommon material will certainly drive the price higher and often results in waiting months just for material to show up.
  3. Stay open to lower-cost assembly options. Designers often assume that there’s only one assembly method that will suffice for their product. Often times a qualified supplier will have other ideas that can help take cost out of the product. For example, rather than selecting a welded assembly, sometimes mechanical fastening such as riveting could achieve the same end goal at a much lower cost, especially on light-gauge materials.
  4. Don’t be finicky about fasteners. Fasteners, inserts and hardware are among the small design details that can have huge impacts on costs and production timelines. We currently manufacture a product using custom made fasteners. Besides being expensive, it takes anywhere from 3 to 6 months just for the fasteners to arrive. Most suppliers point their customers to the PEM catalog to select from readily available fastener inventories — avoiding potential complications, costs and delays.
  5. Finishing strong, lowering costs. Finishing may be one of the last steps in the process, but it should be an early design consideration for managing costs. Common finishing methods — such as powder coating, e-coating and zinc plating — are typically among the best options. Less common finishes like chromate plating, nickel and custom blend powder coats are typically more expensive. Unless a premium finish is required, consider a more common options to keep project costs to a minimum.

We recently did a project for an electronic systems manufacturer where they included us in the design process. We were able to eliminate a lot of cost by reducing the amount of weld (which is very labor intensive) as well as reducing the complexity of the components which made things much easier to manufacture and cheaper to produce.

When launching a new product, make an effort to collaborate with the fabrication supplier that you trust. Involve them in the process and, when you’re ready for production, you’ll find that your costs are lower, manufacturing goes smoother, and there are fewer quality issues.

In our next Smart Fabrication Sourcing post we’ll look at the differences between Fabrication and Stamping and what the best production volumes are for each service.

Doing business in a challenging economy and competitive marketplace can be a tricky proposition. Faced with shrinking profit margins, it’s understandable why many tier one manufacturers are trying to trim expenses within their supply chains. As a result, the search for a fabrication supplier is often driven first by cost concerns. But if your goals are to minimize expenses and maximize profits, it is important to understand the potential negative impact of accepting the lowest bid.

At STAUB Manufacturing Solutions, we have worked with many manufacturers who have made the mistake of accepting the lowest bid and then turned to us to help fix their issues. In this installment of our Smart Fabrication Sourcing series, we will explore the risks, consequences, and true costs of chasing the lowest-price fabrication bid.

Consider the hypothetical scenario below for an illustration of what is at stake.

A fabrication buyer requests multiple bids for 500 steel brackets per month for 12 months (6,000 units per year). Supplier quotes range from $3.50 to $4.35 per bracket ($21,000–$26,100 annual). The buyer selects the lowest price, expecting to save $5,100 per year compared to the highest bid.

But, during the 12-month contract, that low-priced supplier had significant production and quality issues that impacted the manufacturer’s project timeline. The supplier missed the monthly delivery target six times and delivered out-of-tolerance and/or unusable parts four times.

The production impact to the manufacturer from these supplier missteps was considerable:

  • 35 hours of lost production time from waiting on parts
  • 25 hours of product management staff working through all the issues
  • 20 hours of quality assurance time inspecting product defects

When you do the math, it turns out that the actual cost of selecting a low-price supplier was even higher than the highest bid:

  • Purchased cost = $21,000
  • Lost time expense (80 hours at $85) = $6,800
  • True cost = $27,800 (6.5% more than the highest bid)

Unfortunately, the repercussions of selecting a low-price supplier can go well beyond short-term profit losses. Production delays can damage your reputation and hurt relationships with long-time, loyal customers. At the end of the day, the opportunity costs from the hassle, frustration and potential loss of future business are incalculable.

If you’re ready to work with a team that’s committed to getting it right the first time, reach out to the fabrication experts at STAUB. We will help you protect profits and your reputation by developing a true-cost, high-quality bid.

In our next Smart Fabrication Sourcing post we’ll review the five mistakes to avoid when designing fabricated sheet metal parts.

As a busy professional buyer, you don’t have any time to waste. When you reach out to a fabricator for a parts quote, you want a quick, accurate response and not a lot of hassle. The last thing you need is an inbox full of questions or a quote that is incomplete. But too often that’s what happens.

In this installment of our Smart Fabrication Sourcing series, we share the six essential items to include in your RFQs to expedite the quoting process, improve quote accuracy, and save you valuable time.

Before you submit your next request for quote (RFQ) from a metal fabrication supplier, we recommend taking some extra time to prepare a complete description of key project requirements. From our experience, nothing slows down the quotation process more than having to stop and ask questions. And nothing is worse for a buyer (and the supplier) than running into production surprises from having missed a key requirement in the quoting process.

Your goal should be to provide enough documentation and production details to eliminate the need for any follow-up clarifications. Trust us. The upfront time you spend will be well worth the backend results! The following tips should help you to check every box on your quote preparation checklist.

  1. Complete design data. Providing a supplier with up-to-date part drawings and 3D CAD models is essential to the fabrication quoting process. These two items contain most all of the important information that will need to be considered. Drawings identify product tolerancing and key characteristics and 3D CAD models (e.g. STEP, or SolidWorks files) are used to develop laser cutting and forming simulations, which ensure the accuracy of the pricing and keep costs low.
  2. Material (metal) specifications. Include the material type, nominal thickness, grade (if applicable), and any special sourcing requirements (e.g. DFARS, domestic only). A common issue we see is a material specification that is not readily available in the sheet metal marketplace, such as a hard-metric nominal thickness or an obscure alloy. Alro.com is a good quick online resource you can use to verify general sheet metal availability. The other issue we see is specified materials that are not good for fabrication. For example, 6061 aluminum is great for machining and alright for welding but not good for forming (it cracks). 5052 aluminum is a much better all-around alloy for fabrication.
  3. Finishing details. Plating and powder coating are the most common finishing options that our customers request. It’s likely not possible to be too specific on these requirements. What slows the quoting process down is if the request is too vague, such as saying that the parts need powder coated “white.” Believe it or not there are many different shades of white as well as a variety of powder types (for various uses) and powder manufacturers. Providing your fabricator with a specific powder manufacturer (eg. Sherwin Williams) and the powder product number takes out all the guesswork. At a minimum, you’ll want to include an RAL number which aids in color matching.
  4. Final packaging. You want your fabricated product to arrive at its destination in good shape and in a form that’s good for the next step in the process. Identifying how the fabricator should package the product is an important part of that. The packaging might be as simple as stretch wrapped to a pallet or bulk packed in a gaylord box, or you might need custom boxing, especially if the parts have an odd shape or require special protection.
  5. Quality approval and inspection. Do your products require first article inspection (FAI) or production part approval process (PPAP) quality validation? If so, first make sure your supplier has these robust quality capabilities, and then specify the process validation and inspection requirements for all applicable parts.
  6. Production volume and timeline expectations. Finally, it’s important to provide your estimated production volume and anticipated deadline. This will aid your supplier in evaluating their workload and capacity to determine if they’ll be able to meet your project requirements or if they’ll need to propose a modified timeline.

If you include these six items whenever you request a fabrication quote, you’ll notice that you get quotes back faster, they’ll be complete and accurate, and you won’t be pestered with nonstop questions.

We hope these tips will help you prepare for your next RFQ. If you have any questions about starting a new project, the team of fabrication experts here at STAUB are happy to speak with you. In our next post, we’ll discuss the high cost of selecting a low-price fabrication bid.

In the previous installment of our Smart Fabrication Sourcing series, we explained the importance of conducting an onsite visit to get a firsthand look at a supplier’s operation. How else can you truly know if they have the necessary capabilities and quality processes to produce consistently reliable results? It’s also an opportunity to get a feel for a supplier’s culture, which is an intangible variable that is too often overlooked. In this post, we’ll offer four key culture-related questions to help you uncover what makes a supplier’s organization, employees and processes tick.

If you look at your preferred supplier list, chances are they all have one thing in common: a heathy, thriving organizational culture that fosters high quality and successful processes. But how can you evaluate the culture of new suppliers? First, it’s important to conduct an onsite visit to get a feel for their day-to-day operation.

While you’re there — or at any other point in the evaluation process — don’t be afraid to ask pointed questions that will uncover their professional integrity. Sometimes it’s best to meet potential suppliers on neutral ground or an informal setting, such as over lunch or dinner. This provides an opportunity to speak candidly and to see their personality traits in real time.

Although company culture is a subjective, intangible metric, we believe it’s a key indicator of a successful partnership. In fact, we would recommend not making a final supplier decision until you’re sure that their core values align with yours.

For conversation starters, consider these four questions:

1. What are your values? Loyalty. Quality. Timeliness. Precision. Service. Adaptability. These are all characteristics that define an organization’s values. Don’t hesitate to ask them which values matter most to them, and then carefully consider their responses. Request additional clarifications as needed. Are they responding with hollow cliches or are they being honest and sincere? Your goal is to try to uncover how they would define the term “valued partner.”

2. What is your hiring process? Today’s labor market is tight, and qualified workers are hard to find. If a supplier is willing to cut corners in the hiring process, then they likely won’t be able to consistently deliver on their promises. Without the right staff, processes are more likely to break down — and you’ll be left to pick up the pieces. If a potential supplier is selective in their hiring processes — giving equal weight to attitude and skill level (which can be taught) — you’ll be more likely to experience high-quality, long-term results.

3. What is your employee turnover rate? Workforce stability is an essential metric in determining if a supplier can consistently deliver high-quality, on-time products. It’s completely within your right to ask a potential supplier what their employee turnover rate is, how long their current staff has been employed and how committed they are to fostering a thriving, healthy workplace environment. If they freely introduce their staff and employees to you, it’s a good indication that they have nothing to hide.

4. How do you handle unexpected problems? It’s inevitable that every supplier — regardless of their experience or capabilities — eventually will encounter problems. Equipment failures, supply chain issues, or any number of unforeseen issues will surely arise. What matters is how they will respond to these challenges. Try to uncover if they’re inclined to assume responsibility and take immediate steps to make things right. Or do they seem defensive, point fingers, make excuses and shift the blame? Ask them to describe their resolution process. Is it focused on protecting their reputation, or is it geared toward minimizing impacts to your operation?

At the end of the day, you should walk away with the confidence knowing that their culture and values align with yours.

In our next Smart Fabrication Sourcing post, we’ll share what you can do to get fast, accurate, and competitive quotes from your fabrication suppliers.