> I had always had in my mind that with CNC machines you just stick the metal in the vise, load the program, hit start, and you're good to go, but there's manual calibration, facing off and the like that needs to be done before every run.
Much of it depends on the volume.
If you're building a million of something, the up-front cost to automate every step of the way makes sense.
If you're only building 10 of something once every few months, paying someone to do the manual operations 10 times makes more sense than investing in all of the fixturing, programming, and other tasks.
Really though, a lot of smaller machine shops have older CNC machines that are paid for and otherwise sitting idle. Hiring someone for $60/hr to do all the manual steps can keep that machine profitable.
Much of it depends on the volume.
If you're building a million of something, the up-front cost to automate every step of the way makes sense.
If you're only building 10 of something once every few months, paying someone to do the manual operations 10 times makes more sense than investing in all of the fixturing, programming, and other tasks.
Really though, a lot of smaller machine shops have older CNC machines that are paid for and otherwise sitting idle. Hiring someone for $60/hr to do all the manual steps can keep that machine profitable.