Building the dream shop, need some ideas...

[Bob W.]

One of these days in the near future (~ next 12 months) I will be building a new shop for my business. Currently I am crammed into a 1200 square foot building that has been adapted to meet my needs, sort of. It is a compromise at best and we have outgrown it. I have never built a shop before and I am curious what sort of features you would consider a necessity (inspection room, etc...) and what things aren't necessary but would be really nice to have. This is out in the countryside next to my house and I plan to have lift up garage doors all around so on nice days we could open them all up and have a great view plus nice breeze blowing through as long as the temperature was right, still need to hold tolerance :-) I'd love to hear ideas, this shop will be a little unconventional to say the least. I want to make it a place where I enjoy working and not just strictly business.

[civiceg]

Three phase available? Also is zoning going to be an issue?

[Fred @ Slate Industries]

#1) $ DON'T BUILD IT IN DUPAGE or CROOK COUNTY ILLINOIS !! $

 

 

(Lol Bob)

[crazy^millman]

My Perfect shop has so much not even sure where to start. It will never be big enough and have enough room if done right. Plan ahead and think ahead. How would you add on and how would get what you need in and out of it if you do add on? Had a customer turn down a 10 year $30 million job recently because he did not have the building or the room to put in the needed equipment to support it. You are thinking about a pallet pool system correct? Plan around that and supporting that system. Inspection room is a luxury today I think most places could do without. With the PCMM getting to the tolerances they are almost can get away with 95% of your inspection using one of them. Power run correctly and planned enough ahead. Years ago start a place and the owner got the building before consulting me and did not have enough power or correct foundations. It was a great size, but running 800 amps of service was almost an act of congress. Then we could not even think about correcting foundation problems since we were leasing the building. I know of a place right now running their Mori HMC as 25% rapids and 50% feedrates, because of a bad foundation. Painted floors that can be mopped #1 on my list. Conference room and Office Space very important. Great to be in the fray, but having a machine humming in your ear all day while programming is counter productive. Sky Lights and Solar Power if can be done or is free when building a new building in your area. Sound proofing unless you are 5 miles from anyone. Last thing you need it people moving in and the having noise ordinance passed kicking you out of your own place. Yes it happens. Understand the idea about the roll up door I would give that one some strong consideration. Last thing you need to do is make for up lost insulating because of a bunch of doors. Think 5 or 10 years down the road where you want to be as a company and a shop and plan to that, not to today or next week. Plenty of room for work benches and computer stations at each machine. Network cables and such run to where you can add or do anything would want at each machine. Think on it, Think on it, and think on it. Make up 5 different layouts and put them aside for a month. Give them numbers and then make a list of your top choice come back to it each month putting your vote aside. Then at the end of 3 or 6 months see which one got the most votes.

 

I always thought I would love to have a Mill/Turn and 5 axis Trunnion Machine in a Garage to go play on. Both give me the basic machine ability to do the basics, but then allow me to have fun when I want to go all out. Good luck and research and get suggestions and plan your move. I laid out a 20 week plan at one place where 20 machines were going to leave when a 2 machine 40 pallet came in. Hard to think that far ahead and can never see everything, but plan and think about the move the down time and how you can split your time between the new place and the old place till the new place is up and running. Christmas or the summer seems to be the best times. In your area I would think the summer would be your best bet. Think about rain, think about all the people you have to have in place and what you do if a machine gets damaged in the move. Yes seen machines dropped and out of commission even with the best planning in place.

 

Scratched 1% of what I think you will need.

[Bob W.]

Three phase available? Also is zoning going to be an issue?

 

Yep this will be next to my current shop, we have 3 phase and all permits to operate here.

[GoetzInd]

Windows. I like windows. Also, 16in floor throughout so you have flexibility. Dock and ground level.

 

Mike

[The_kid]

overhead crane like crazy said plan ahead, this will mean service will need to be done to your machines.. cranes are very very nice to have when say pulling the spindle out of your A51. I would think about good ventilation mist collectors drains in the floor if you can. room for forklift and pallet rack. have you saw and grinding in a room separate from your machining area seems to create a ton of mess. The volume you have going through your shop consider plumping as well you will need access to a hose inside to top off coolant. smooth painted floors are really nice they clean up easy.

[Redfire427]

I think putting a shop close to your house is a bad idea that will come back to haunt you when it comes time to sell your property. I cannot imagine a situation that would be legal to have an industrial business in operation close to housing. Truck traffic, heavy equipment moving, power requirements, potentially hazardous materials, etc.

 

In my opinion, you would be far better off to lease a pre-existing commercial unit and build from there. From a taxation perspective, this may also be a better situation. Your home owners insurance may also be affected by having your shop on a residence.

 

Anyways, that doesn't answer your question.

 

Foundations with perimeter isolation is a must.

Epoxy floor with painted walls and ceiling. This makes a huge difference in regards to the amount of lighting required to illuminate the shop.

Mount airlines and electrical outlets along outside walls and to columns.

Overhead crane

separate compressor room ( for noise and heat generation )

Drive in and loading dock

 

The list goes on and on and on.

 

Good luck with your future expansion.

 

Carmen

[cincy k]

Look at the overall height of a MMC if that's what you are planning for in the future. Make sure you have enough height at the eaves UNDER the beams internally. Seems like these things are pretty freakin tall. Add a overhead crane on top of that and you're up there in height for sure.

 

Look at a product like bus duct for machine configuration flexibilty with the electric. I know it's pricey so a good alternative is to run strut channel vertical along your walls for ease of changing out conduit. Using a product like smart pipe from Kaeser for your compressed air lines will add flexibility also.

[tozmaster]

All of the above plus a motocross track out back to blow off steam

[Newbeeee™]

All of the above plus a motocross track out back to blow off steam

Bob's getting older - it may have to be a trials course

[Bob W.]

All of the above plus a motocross track out back to blow off steam

 

We have a fire pit for that, no joke :-)

[Bob W.]

I think putting a shop close to your house is a bad idea that will come back to haunt you when it comes time to sell your property. I cannot imagine a situation that would be legal to have an industrial business in operation close to housing. Truck traffic, heavy equipment moving, power requirements, potentially hazardous materials, etc.

 

Our county is fantastic and very relaxed. We are currently operating next to my house with a separate 400 amp 3-phase service and all necessary permits to be 100% legal. I am on 3 acres and my smallest neighbor is on 7 acres so there is tons of room between houses and noise is never an issue. Heavy equipment and trucks is also rare because on average I only have rigging out here one every 18 months or so and the neighbors are pretty easy going about it. I don't think the shop would add any value to the property but it wouldn't detract either. Someone could use it as a horse barn or something if we ever moved.

 

The way I look at it I could either:

 

1. buy a commercial building ready to go ($700k+) and have a $4k mortgage payment every month

2. Lease a facility in the industrial part of town and pay a $4k lease every month

3. Build a shop next to my house ($200k) and buy a pallet system for my A51 with the savings getting another 6-8 hours a day in productivity.

 

I also really enjoy having the shop next to my house because I'm always around. I can load parts, step outside and throw the football with my kids for a few minutes, or head to the house and watch TV for a while before changing out parts again. If I was at a different location I would ALWAYS be gone because I'm a workaholic and my family life would suffer greatly. Having the shop next to my house keeps me married :-)

[Zoffen]

Bob you pretty much have my dream life! super jelly!

Congrats!

[Bob W.]

Bob you pretty much have my dream life! super jelly!

Congrats!

 

Thanks, I enjoy it but there are days that I hate it and would much rather work for someone else. I can't ever get away from it with the shop next to my house and when I'm sick or not feeling well parts still need to get made. I can't complain though, I keep busy and enjoy what I do. It isn't t a cake walk by any stretch however.

[Redfire427]

 

3. Build a shop next to my house ($200k) and buy a pallet system for my A51 with the savings getting another 6-8 hours a day in productivity.

 

 

I think once you do your due diligence, you will find that this number will grow exponentially. When I built my 16000 square foot shop, the contractor costs were staggering. Just an overhead crane can easily eclipse $100K with proper engineering, footings, inspections, etc.

Electrical work can get downright nuts.

 

If you do go forward with your shop, you mentioned a couple of things that I would give you a little advice on, based purely on experience. Do not put in skylights. As romantic as they sound, they are nothing but a pain in the xxxx. Leaky roof, computer screen glare like crazy, but the most damning effect is when the sun shines on one of your CNC machines. Accuracy will take a hit for sure. We ended up painting the underside of our skylights for all the reasons listed above.

 

Another thing you mentioned was doors that you could open for "fresh air". In short …… don't do it. In contrast, you want to insulate and seal your building as good as possible. Again, if you have high accuracy machines ( which I know you do ), and you have intentions of adding CMM capabilities, then temperature control is going to be your single biggest concern. Your heating and cooling costs will be significant. Again, speaking from experience. The shop I work in now is 26000 square feet, and we just finished our custom build, and we did it right, and are reaping the rewards for doing it right.

 

Carmen

[Bob W.]

Another thing you mentioned was doors that you could open for "fresh air". In short …… don't do it. In contrast, you want to insulate and seal your building as good as possible. Again, if you have high accuracy machines ( which I know you do ), and you have intentions of adding CMM capabilities, then temperature control is going to be your single biggest concern. Your heating and cooling costs will be significant. Again, speaking from experience. The shop I work in now is 26000 square feet, and we just finished our custom build, and we did it right, and are reaping the rewards for doing it right.

 

Damn! You're raining on my parade :-) All very valid points to consider. The shop I'm looking to build is ~5000 square feet and I'm not sure that is enough. I need to sit down and write up a list of everything I plan to cram in there over the next few years and see how it stacks up. We are currently in a 1200 SF building and we are flat bursting at the seams. It is hurting our productivity, but six years ago when it was just me and my Mini Mill I didn't know what to do with all the extra space. What I really want to find is a balance between what allows me to run the shop well and produce good parts, yet is also a nice place to work and not a dungeon like so many shops seem to be.

 

Most of the parts we make are production and we don't need to hold tighter than .0015" and the cycle times are 45 minutes per pallet. Some of the mold work we are getting into is a different story and we will be trying to hold tenths on those, hence my investigation into CMMs. I'm going have to put some serious thought into this. Thanks for the input and pointing out the potential issues. Much appreciated!

[Newbeeee™]

We had 1000 square feet with 7 cnc's in there and a mezzanine office with a cmm on it. Just under 2x years ago we grabbed the factory next door (another 1000) banged a hole in the wall spread a little and now have 11 cnc's in the joint facility. But no room for any others unless we pull out some and add a hori and vertical pallet pool.

But we kept small because it's rented. Ideally I'd love 5000 and to own it and to not worry about the 'massive space' in between machines or in the corner. But as it's rented, floor area costs money in my mind. And the point I'm round about making is that if you have more area, you'll fill it. So if you're thinking 5000 'may' be tight, you know it WILL be tight!

 

As Carmen said, the roof lights are a huge pita - we refurbed the factory swapping out the black old ones and now it can be an issue seeing one of the lathe controls.

Also, the one upstairs on the mezz in the office has turned it into an oven when the sun is out - we don't have to use the microwave - just leave dinner on the bench and give it 5 mins!

If you run a roof like the old factories - raised apex type, then put the roof lights in the side away from the sun. Natural light but not TOOOOO bright.

 

Large bore airline (2" pipe) all around the factory with enough tails running down the wall (up and then down so no water trap).

Bus bar trunking overhead if you can get it cheap is probabaly the easiest most flexible way to expand/move things if required.

Heating - air blower is better than a radiant overhead heater (we have one in each factory and the blower is head and shoulders above the radiant)

As mentioned plan - you'll need another hori etc no doubt for extra capacity and to cover breakdown etc

And probably a lathe or two...

I'm 100% in agreement with everything Ron said except the CMM. For kudos alone, Customers love to see them. They don't (necessarilly) know how it works or anything about them but know the letters C M M. This alone brought us 2x major contracts when we first got ours. Our cusomers were then in no doubt that not only could we make the parts, we could verify the parts.

I would tend to make the CMM room the inspection at one end and programming at the other - also if you had it big enough for a nice meeting type desk - customers can also be seen there.

Temp control the cmm room

Large size mist extractor in the building - the ones that are about 5 foot cabinet type not the motor on the pole per machine that are next to useless

Area for oils and waste (coolant and swarf)

And don't forget to post a diary with pics of how it's going!

[5th Axis]

I read over this and could only think more workholding would be needed.

[Newbeeee™]

^^^and plenty of room for special fixtures (as in ones to do specific jobs). Ohhh I hate these...

[Chris Rizzo]

omfg electrical work $$$$$$$. Back in 06' when we built our shop from the ground up, quotes on transformers were good for 24hrs. Metal price volatility.

 

Dam Obama.

[metalmansteve]

Attached is a short description of what the NTMA considers a "class A" shop. It has motivated me to get my shop in order. If starting from scratch you have the luxury of doing it right from the beginning.

 

I don't have skylights but I have 3 roll-up doors in a 3,300 sqft space. One of the things I love about my shop is it's bright with a lot of fresh air blowing through. We're in the San Francisco Bay Area where the climate is mild so the doors are up 99% of the time. If we get a glare on our monitors in the afternoon we can roll the door down half way. I give two thumbs to at least 4 roll-ups doors. I couldn't stand working in a huge dungeonous shop with no fresh air. I don't do any crazy tolerance stuff so the temperature isn't an issue.

Shop_Image_A_.pdf

[MrFish]

I think once you do your due diligence, you will find that this number will grow exponentially. When I built my 16000 square foot shop, the contractor costs were staggering. Just an overhead crane can easily eclipse $100K with proper engineering, footings, inspections, etc.

Electrical work can get downright nuts.

 

If you do go forward with your shop, you mentioned a couple of things that I would give you a little advice on, based purely on experience. Do not put in skylights. As romantic as they sound, they are nothing but a pain in the xxxx. Leaky roof, computer screen glare like crazy, but the most damning effect is when the sun shines on one of your CNC machines. Accuracy will take a hit for sure. We ended up painting the underside of our skylights for all the reasons listed above.

 

Another thing you mentioned was doors that you could open for "fresh air". In short …… don't do it. In contrast, you want to insulate and seal your building as good as possible. Again, if you have high accuracy machines ( which I know you do ), and you have intentions of adding CMM capabilities, then temperature control is going to be your single biggest concern. Your heating and cooling costs will be significant. Again, speaking from experience. The shop I work in now is 26000 square feet, and we just finished our custom build, and we did it right, and are reaping the rewards for doing it right.

 

Carmen

 

+1000

 

Where I live we go from 35 deg c days in the summer to 3-5 deg (highs) during the winter and this fluctuation not to mention the fluctuation of a machine casting warming up over a few days constant machining plays havoc with machine accuracy. This is compounded on a 5 axis machine.

We recently temperature controlled the environment around our high accuracy machines and have seen a great improvement from it.

[Mick]

+1000

 

Where I live we go from 35 deg c days in the summer to 3-5 deg (highs) during the winter and this fluctuation not to mention the fluctuation of a machine casting warming up over a few days constant machining plays havoc with machine accuracy. This is compounded on a 5 axis machine.

We recently temperature controlled the environment around our high accuracy machines and have seen a great improvement from it.

 

You must live in a different city to me... LOL

 

35 deg highs in Summer? *Sigh* I remember them...

[Guest]

When you start need to hold tolerances to the 4th decimal place, climate control becomes a MUST.

 

I've been in a LOT of shops over the years, seen a few REALLY NICE ones and some that just get the job done. One shop in particular that really stands out for me was Eaton in Hastings, Nebraska. Climate Controlled obviously, but they had Centralized Coolant. ALL the machines had the coolant tanks removed, the floor was trenched with poly urethane and sloped with coolant going from the machines dumping out into the trench. It all came together in one huge pit where they had a conveyor that put all the chips into a puck system. Like I said, centralized coolant, each machine had it's own coolant supply and instead of pumps on the machines, there was just a solenoid that would open the valve when the coolant on command was given.

 

Well lit. Epoxy floors (though I think if I were building a shop from the ground floor I would eschew epoxy for white concrete and just have it polished. WAY easier to maintain, fewer issues, etc...

 

I would have a separate room for QC but that's just me.

 

If you're looking for a new toy, I'd look into a Wire EDM. I know it's voodoo science and all but I've got a couple customers that have one or two (as it is not their primary focus) and they are able to pick up the odd job that they had to no-bid previously. Plus you may find that some of your current parts could benefit from it. Anyway, Just a thought.

 

1,000 Watts per 1,000 ft². Surround Sound System for "those" days.

 

Shower and Lockers.

 

Foundations for ALL my machines. Over built so when you grow you can get something bigger if the need arises.

 

A 5-Axis machine. If you don't want to go all in on a multi-pallet system, there's a few nice single pallet machines out there that are reasonably priced.

 

Lista Cabinets (or the equivalent) for your workholding, tooling, cutting tools, etc...

 

Those are just a few things that would be in my dream shop.