Not Enough Work for My Shop… How Do I Deal With It? | Machine Shop Talk Ep. 78
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.พ. 2023
- No matter how well-managed or streamlined your shop is - there are going to be slow periods, and it’s easy to find your shop light on work. If you find yourself in such a scenario, what are the key things you should do to bust the slump?
On this episode of MACHINE SHOP TALK, Ian Sandusky from Lakewood Machine & Tool dives into strategies and tools to mitigate the worst of a slow work period. Whether it’s a short drop-off in work due to your best customers ordering less, or trying your best to survive something like a global recession - there are some tried and true methods of keeping your shop afloat and ready to take on new work when it comes.
What are YOUR best strategies to keep your shop productive when work dries up? Let us know in the comments below!
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#machineshop #machining #metalworking - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Man I love these videos! This is like small machining business owner therapy to listen to these.
Thank you very much sir!
Or you do what the company I have worked for the last 7 years....layoff 20% of the workforce....I knew it was coming since last year as up until then we had been on mandatory o.t. for 2 years and it was cut off like a faucet....and then they started posting efficiency scores in the open to try and "motivate" harder work..my numbers were always good...but I told the plant manager it was going to backfire.....viola...scrap rates went through the roof as people were more worried of making or beating the allotted time....as I told him....I can make scrap as fast as you want...but it is cheaper to do the part right the first time...even if it takes a hair longer.....and we are talking some of these jobs are very tight tolerances with true position callouts...I took a voluntary lay off as I moving to another state in 2 months anyway....first time machinists were ever laid off there....but we were bought out by a corporation 2 years ago....oh yeah....they called us rock stars etc while we were making money hand over fist...then as it slowed down they started saying we weren't working hard enough.....oh well done with them...
Since you asked, I'd suggest using the war chest to produce some of the repeatable (verify) parts for your stock and then sell them when tides change and demand outruns your capacity.
This is a great idea! We've done it frequently as well - helps get you ahead too!
The other thing that drives people away are the low wages for a high skill job. Most shops around the Seattle sound area pay less than what you would make flipping burgers.
Couldn’t agree more - high skill deserves high pay, no two ways around it
Hoe is that even possible. I mean yeah if you just push buttons I get that you won’t get paid top noth but you should at least get payed better than flipping burgers. Is this also the case for people who set up machines and programm? It really sounds crazy that someone who is responsible that a 200K machine is not crashing gets payed McDonalds wage
@@owievisie I went to a cnc machining tech school and have 5 years experience in setup, programming and machining. The last shop I interviewed at only offered me $16/hr but Amazon drivers off the street are making $21+ with no experience. What a joke.
@@makun16 Yo what the hell that is insane. Maybe it is worth to move to a different place. I mean I live in The Netherlands and after 8 years I pretty much maxxed out my salary and I make the same as my girlfriend who works in a lab developping pcr tests for plants (eventually she will make more than me)
makun16 - Agreed, and pretty soon even flipping burgers will be completely automated! So, you're even more screwed!
You do maintenance!!
Maintenance and improvements... we have a list too. We took the idea from farmers when out of seasson or rainy seasson which is almost the same in machinning
I was a machinist (set-up, program, manual operations, etc) for the better part of almost 30 years, and made great money until my boss got with some young guns, and all the work went to China after that... What remained was temp jobs @ burger flipping wages... Since I was never married with no children, I was able to sell my house, lighten my financial load, and got out of the trade... I sold or scrapped my tools, and threw away my apron... I haven't been a part of that trade for almost 15 years, and I'm slowly heading to retirement age anyway, so I don't worry about missing out on anything whatsoever! Besides, what IS there besides low pay and getting your job offshored?
it must be hard being a small company owner, my boss has been in a panic the last few weeks as we couldn't get material and if we could at a stupid price , he was on about reducing the shop hourly rate to cover some of the cost of the stupid price material, the material price was £800 for 1 meter of s130, 2months ago £75. price has gone down now as suppliers have a delivery date for more stock and he is glad he didn't but only as me and his x who does the books said you can't , when the price came down we had 100k of work come in in 1 day . the thing that gets me now is when he says he can't afford a decent pay rise yet can cover some of the material cost for customers to get the work. or will say will drop the machine hourly rate , I earn a good rate my lads/ his lads don't , they are the ones covering the cost reduction when it happens, to me that is wrong .
I always appreciate your insight, Ian.
Thank you very much sir!
Great advice. Always look forward to these videos
Thank you very much!
G’day Ian. A very good topic to discuss mate. Helpful hints too. Cheers 🍻 Aaron
Thank you very much sir!
good video
Thank you very much!
Do you think cold calling ,
Knocking on doors,
Or cold emailing is the best way to drum up new customer's ?
Personally when it comes to ROI, for me it's cold emailing. Have a generic (but well crafted) intro letter listing what you do, who you are, where you are, and everything pertinent - then close with a question - aka "Do you have any upcoming requirements we could take a look at to see if we're a good fit?"
You want to give them something to respond to - but you also have to realize when cold-emailing that you're probably going to only even get a response that turns into an RFQ on 1/100 if you're really lucky.
I've never found door-knocking and pounding pavement to be worth it in my experience. I've done plenty of it - but usually people are just distracted because you're interrupting their day. Cold-calling - same - and I can present the information in a much less intrusive way via email.
5:40 thats savage
Our company has been manufacturing and building equipment since 1957 for companies that manufacture insulation ,,owens corning ..knauf fiberglass and so on ...we have built equipment for this all over such as Russia ..Ukraine and several other countries ...we have a precision machine and have a maching shop that we also provide replacement parts to...however are machine shop runs from 4 am till 5 pm..i would like to run our machine shop to run and make parts 24 hours a day since we have the lathes and mills...how and what can i do t make this happen.... just wanted your advice a little more watched your video but just wanted a little more mindset from u...
i would like to see our mills n lathes running 24 hours a day...
Really appreciate your insight here Ian, some great action plans 🎉
Thank you very much sir!
Make wood gas generators they sre in demand and are needed for off grid power
That’s definitely worth looking into!
Offer them minimum wage and help them get a second job and have them work days/nights/weekends till things pick back up, give them bonuses till the economy is actually stablish again and that way you pay them less and keep them employed and they immediately earn more money per day. 🙂 if shops are this bad stop the stigma of the guy working two jobs. 😉