Secondly, it is price. Your price needs to be as low as you possibly can go, without losing money on any job. Because small machine shops are easy to set up, if your price becomes unreasonable, your customer may simply move his business to the one down the street. Hence price needs to be the second important factor in succeeding with a small machine shop.

Thirdly, quality of workmanship is very important when operating a small machine shop. This means all of the blueprint characteristics have to be met all of the time. This includes maintaining proper tolerance levels, surface finish requirements, chamfer and radius data and so on. Quality is a given in today’s world of manufacturing and regardless of how quick you can deliver or how low a price you can sell your services at, your quality cannot suffer.

Thus keeping close tabs on the three issues of price, quality and delivery all of the time can ensure success for your small machine shop operation.  Winn E.