CNC Work Slowing Down Everywhere?

[Bruce Caulley]

On this side of the world same thing. I am crazy busy at the moment. I only went home two nights last weeks and am in all weekend as well. By all weekend, I mean, 24/7.

 

Other shops here are slow, but anyone doing medical, mining, or aerospace work is busy. At the moment 80% of my order book is medical and mining, so I guess I won't be back to a 40hr week for a while. I actually haven't chased up some aerospace leads because I couldn't possibly fit them in at the moment.

 

Bruce

[Surface]

My shop is dependant on semiconductor work which is dead. I get more phone calls which were mis-dialed than acual business calls.

[JAMMAN]

We are growing at the place I work in Columbus Ohio, but we are a one purpose specialty type shop. Columbus is about the slowest place I have ever been for CNC shops... the place I work only started buying CNC's after I hired in a little over 5 years ago.

 

Generally though Columbus is slow from the input I get.

[GoetzInd]

We are pretty busy. ALmost all millturn stuff.

 

Mike

[RobertELee]

I'm in Wisconsin and worked 6am to 9pm every day this week going in tomorrow also. And the forcast looks good out to January. Most of the work is medical, military and some automotve plastic and zinc molds.

 

The job I just left we built aluminum die casting molds. Over the summer I put in quite a few 80 hour weeks, it was starting to show signs of slow before I left though.

[Thee Dragracer1951]

We are dead slow here. Moved back to the old shop because of it.

Going to let my haas lathe go away.

Any of you busy shops want to off load anything let me know.

[MotorCityMinion]

10 ads in todays skilled trades column, 2 of which stated CNC. Terrible indeed.

[Guest]

Just perusing through the local "Help Wanted" section.

 

Number of CNC and/or Machinist jobs: 0

[NeilJ]

Good machinist / CADCAM programming jobs aren't listed in the newspaper in San Diego, CA.

 

We're very busy and will stay very busy.

[nofalloff]

We are in Long Island too but are the factory for a company that retails it's own merchandise through it's six showrooms. Our sales have been down significantly, but we are still quite busy. We have a general hiring freeze but that is mainly due to being overstaffed in other departments thanks to a record year and huge backlog for 2007. Though there is a hiring freeze we are still looking for skilled machinists (CNC) and lead machinist. So for the right persons we are hiring. Not buying any new equipment till at least next spring though.

[SLJ]

The Boeing strike slowed shipping, but we've been doing a LOT of short lead/short quantity stuff for some of the Spirit design/build projects. Added over 350 new 3 and 4 axis jobs so far this year and most of that was with only 1 programmer. Now I have an apprentice so the load is lessening somewhat.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

---

...Good machinist / CADCAM programming jobs aren't listed in the newspaper.

---

Fissed.

 

The GOOD jobs are word of mouth. Rare is the good job in the newspaper. They go to the Newspaper after all other means have been exhausted. Also, Craigslist, Monster and other online advertisements are taking over especially in tech related positions. Companies was techsavy employees.

[Hitachi]

Ths semiconductor industry out here in is dead slow, we have went from 800 down to 600 people in the last 6 months. Not looking good for next year either. Hopefully the new prez will make things better.

 

 

Elco1971

 

Mastercam X3 Mill Level 3 Lathe Level 1 FiveAxis

SolidWorks 2007 SP3.1

AutoCad 2004

Dell Xeon 2.8GHz 2GB Ram

Nvidia Quadro FX 4500

[mig]

Don't think going to be better .

No one going to protect jobs from exporting over sea .

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Degmc, what's your depth and width of cut in that?

[gcode]

quote:

---

their quality process consists of inspecting parts, after they are finished

---

or thier customer calls and

says the parts don't fit

[sharles]

quote:

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The reason I bring it up in this post is that many job shops that I visit have poor processes: they are disorganized, don't have a closed loop feedback system for process improvement, don't have a system for maintaining tools and equipment, aren't willing to invest in training for their people, and their quality process consists of inspecting parts, after they are finished, instead of building quality control into the plan. Many setup people are really good problem solvers, and they solve all of the same problems, every time the job repeats.

---

That's my shop. We're getting busy again now, but the owners are entirely closed to improving things. The guys that care have stopped caring about trying to improve the overall shop. We just do our job and hope that's enough.

[Jayson Kramer]

Matt, Degmc did not program that part in the video. that is running in the shop I am at. axle is about .15 and radial about .2.

[Kevangel]

quote:

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That's my shop. We're getting busy again now, but the owners are entirely closed to improving things. The guys that care have stopped caring about trying to improve the overall shop. We just do our job and hope that's enough.

 

---

Wow Charles, I went to your website and you guys look cutting edge to most of us...Good to see you are getting busy.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

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The Machine is a Matsura MAM 72 5 axis vertical machining center with

250

240

tools and

30

32

pallets.

---

There, that's better.

 

[ 11-19-2008, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: CNC Apps Guy 1 ]

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Don't worry man, it's all good.

 

Matsuura Über alles

[Toby-Axis]

Where did this Thread go????

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Were all a bunch of ADD folks... we just took it all over the place.

 

What are you seeing out there???

[mig]

Ok Degmc,

We are probably best molding shop in our area .

In business over 25 years.

Our equipment - high end .

Our problems and why we losing the game :

1 . That we (sometimes) can’t cannot buy material and supplies for money that Chinese offer for mold .

2 We have different tax and environmental restrictions and rules

3 We using all legal software

4 We not using slavery here and our cost of living different

5 Our quality is perfect no matter what

Etc……etc

But our biggest problems that some people don’t understand that After all they going to be next .

GM as good example .

[JohnW@Kauffman]

quote:

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That's my shop. We're getting busy again now, but the owners are entirely closed to improving things. The guys that care have stopped caring about trying to improve the overall shop. We just do our job and hope that's enough.

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We're very slow, but the rest of your comment describes the company where I work very well, except maybe for the few of us that really care, haven't stopped caring, we're just very frustrated at the company's unwillingness to make improvements. The job situation in our area isn't very good, so getting a better job would likely involve relocation, which has not been an option for me, but now with the kids all grown and out of the house, I'm giving serious thought to the possibility.