My story. Started my shop with a tormach mill that I bought to teach my self CNC mill as I already was running cnc lathe. After having it for a year I was like well if the guys I'm working for can do this then I guess there's no reason I couldn't. So I bough a haas tl2, stuck it in my garage and with the help of an old boss that was feeding me some work I started my own shop evenings and weekends. Side note don't burn bridges! some of my biggest and most profitable customers are former employers, they know I know how to do the work and I know what they expect so quoting almost handles itself, win win. My plan was to keep my job till it I couldn't afford to any more, that lasted about 3 weeks, then I started to run out of time in the day. So I quit my job but I stayed and finished the project that I was working on (about half a day more). Then I co-leased a space with a friend that needed some warehouse space to store the atv's and dirt bikes that he was importing. I took 1/3 of 4000sf of a bay and away I went. I have concentrated on emergency service type work (we needed it yesterday not police or fire) so that I could insulate myself from the production shops. that was 9 years ago and I'm still a one man shop but that is by choice, I don't want the stress of employees and with the rush nature of my work it would cause a lot of extra stress. Pros, I have a shop that has zero debt and low over head. I know were everything is and in what condition everything is in (very important for being able to quote something right now, not in five minutes.). And I have complete control over what happens and when. For me this equals very low stress. Also I have basically no competition, no one else wants to do some of the silly stuff I do Friday night of a long weekend. Cons, I have to do everything... that is about it. That means I work a lot of hours and a lot of that time is not making money as their is about 1 hour of support work for every hour of production work. Someone has to clean the toilet right. My advice to anyone is if you are motivated and not scared to work then find something that actually has money in it not just your passion to start, that can come later. Don't burn any bridges. Don't over extend the money, borrow when it makes sense. Know the difference be need and want, and then make sure you take care of some of those wants because that will keep you sane.
Absolutely fantastic advice, thank you very much for weighing in - I absolutely love these stories, and I'm stoked to hear you're making it work. My neighbour here in our industrial park is very much like you - he's a one man show who's been around since the early 90's. He probably could have expanded and competed with us / other shops many, many times over the years, but much like you said - he likes his space, he likes his work, and for better or worse it's all on his shoulders. He does a lot of stuff other, bigger shops won't touch, and that has given him a market of his own that has earned him a very comfortable life over the years. He takes vacation multiple times per year, works weekends and evenings when he wants and has the jobs that need it, and seems to really enjoy himself! Thanks again - I guarantee this kind of story / advice will help out some of the new guys who only see the big factories and want to know how it could work for them as an individual!
I left my employer with a ton of work that shops were doing locally. ( ** why not to burn bridges ) I just cared about the parts since I had 22 years invested in 99% of them. From R&D to production of them,. 16 years later still making parts for them. But I had to build up my shop and hire people. I do miss being by myself working 10-12hr days . I still clean the bathrooms every morning since I'm the first one in 95% of the time. I do work Saturdays & some Sundays. Lathes with bar pullers on them. Every 35-45 minutes time to put a new bar in.
Well I was moving back home looking for a shop for my equipment and found a engine machine shop yes its all older equipment but really affordable for me then add all my machines I believe its a win-win for me. I know it's going to be tough to start-up a new business but I'm willing to do this. The information in these videos are wonderful.
Thanks for watching, and best of luck to you with the venture! Old equipment is still good equipment my man - I've got a '95 VF3 and a '96 VF4 still cranking out accurate parts - not to mention the 1963 arbor drill out in the back unit for when we need it!
lights out for longer runs was good but used to go in some mornings and find the every machine had produced scrap all night , or that robot loader we had had left swarf marks in all the parts , that was before laser probing , but even worked at one place with a pallet loader left running all night and every tool went through the laser one night a tap split in half length was good o/d was good but just split down the middle , all the holes had a perfect 10mm bored hole instead of a m10 tapped hole , i had never seen that before or since lol
I worked at tool & die shop mid 80's first job. First EDM put 10 tool makers out. 8 of them retired , two weren't that good. Then 2nd and 3rd EDM came. Went from 20 to 5 toolmakers in a heart beat. I moved to a sister company across the road. I seen what EDM did so I pushed for them to get a CNC mill. They got a single tool cnc mill. Like you said you have evolve with the times. Now I have my shop. 4 cnc mills, side mount tool changers, 2 cnc lathes with bar pullers. No room for a bar feeder. You have to keep up with technology or go broke.
We have a Robot in our shop, that hasn't really worked out after the job we bought it for went away. It is on a UMC-750, and did awesome for the job it was purchased for. Now that the job has left it mostly sits as we use our UMC-750 for more job shop type 5th axis work. 10, 25, 50pcs at a few hundred dollars a piece. For jobs like that we could complete half the order before the robot was setup if we ran it by hand/ Saying that, when we bought the robot the technician was very clear that a robot is not intended to replace a person, but will require a person to have a different (higher) skillset to remain relevant at a company. The operator now needs to become a quality inspector, robot technician, or programmer/setup man which would pay a higher wage. Whether its fixturing, bar feeders, pallet changers, cobots, or robot cells I really do believe that the future of US Manufacturing is going to be "micro-factories" with 10-25 employees that are highly automated, Lean, with highly skilled employees and not just "button pushers".
It's an old problem. You standing in front of a cnc and when those replaced manual machines there was the same debate. It happens whenever new technology comes around. The ones who adapt to it and accept new technology early almost always grow and succeed and become big companies that creat jobs. People just need to realize they are different jobs than they used to be. Same when machine started to get their own motors on them and there was no longer a need for the people to take care of line shafts and lace flat belts. People don't like to be replaced by technology but it's a fact of life jobs change and some become obsolete while at the same time new ones that never existed before are created.
You are absolutely correct. As a guy mentioned in the thread I read for this video, there are no more switchboard operators, elevator operators, or horse-drawn carriage manufacturers - in a lot of ways, it's adapt or die.
@@iansandusky417 All true, but today the cost of self training is prohibitive. EVERYBODY is going to need the kind of help that only apprenticeship programs can provide - they can earn enough to be able to eat while they're learning. America MUST support apprenticeship programs now!
This is why the Amish will specifically keep jobs that can be automated, they want to employ their kids, extended family, and friends. As you said the "genie is out of the bottle" and so we need to look at it like the Amish or choose to embrace it to some degree. However the Amish economy can only function within its ecosystem so as long as you engage in the world economy you will need automation to meet demand and get work orders. Hopefully there will be a movement to buy quality crafted domestic and local (like the Amish) products.
I was thinking the same, specialized stuff will never be economical to automate. But that's not enough of a work load to supply jobs for everyone, but it's still a good specialty to be in. Go big or go niche
@@daveb3910 You got it. I'm always surprised when guys share that they're working in 100% manual shops with 10+ guys working there - there will always be a need for unautomated work in some capacity!
Gosh where to start. I run a home op and am looking at least to dip into automation-I am FULL manual. I design, hand draw/draft, pattern and machine an expensive Harley part from the foundry in house. I took out a 10k loan to start and bought some old crap, tools and a bike to flip but the first product was a flop and the equipment sat for five years. Then I fell into pattern making/traditional casting. 1st year big profit, 2nd year small loss (tooling/prototype components). My competitors make the same product out of bar stock/CNC; despite this my customers prefer manual "feel" of hand patterned/cast parts. I plan on dipping into automation by making nesting jigs and setting up the part for CNC machine by setting my wife up with Fusion 360 (she has some graphic design experience and no digital footprint). Thanks for the reminder that I need to stay at home, my only worry is someone finding out that I’m running a commercial operation in a residence w/in the city limits and sinking me. I have managed to stay in my daytime job despite the pain it causes lol.
I want to start my own machine shop. I want to be the programmer, Machinist, QA, CEO, everything. Automation is the key for my success, I'll be able to one day set up, program, a Okuma Robotic Cell, have that run for a good 70 hours. There are times I could definitely do a walkthrough to avoid some problems. Plus, Haas for example has things to connect to your phone now, sure Okuma has the same deal. If I had to hire people, the business would not blow up as quickly and one of the biggest things that puts any business out of business it's pay roll.
If you get stuck on "you eliminate jobs", you miss that there's now people available to open more shops and produce more stuff. The current picture of the world is looking like a large chunk of the supply chain will be moving back to north America over the next several years, but we need to build out the production capacity. At the same time, we have a very tight labor market. Making the shops more productive is necessary. There's also the fact that, unless you have one product and just run it constantly, updating automation between production runs does take some labor. Past that, the lights out nature means you finish the batch faster so need to do the turn over of programs more often, etc.
Automation is grate for production but if your in the job shop world unless they make an extremely user friendly robot it will never take the job shop work away. If you are a programmer and a good one at that automation will never affect you.
As Machine Sales and Service Tech it does bother me knowing im eliminating jobs with Robot Loaders and full automation. However like you said CNC’s did the same thing to the manual machine. Is all i can say is stay up with the times and you will light years ahead. People dont fully adapt and except a change for about 10-15 years. After that it starts to become mainstream. Take the IPhone, Social media and CNC’s for easy examples. Being a service tech this day in age is becoming increasingly more and more needed. The machines still dont fix themselves and they are only getting more complex. Learn how to fix machines and you will always have a job.
So here's my take. When CNC machines came out, so did the CNC Operator position, a relatively low skilled position that focus more on loading parts than tool and material knowledge. With lights out shops, you're not gonna just load 12 long runners on 1 or 2 machines as an operator. You'll be doing that on as many machines as it takes to keep you uptime over 60%. There will be a new position that will just focus on material prep and supporting any automation system, and they will be pure monotony. On the flip side, the skill ceiling for a machinist will rise again, and that's exciting and those who achieve that skill will be rewarded handsomely. We have a set of Okuma horizontals that are heavily automated with pallet pools and loads of 5-6 parts per side of a tombstone. One guy runs 6 machines. He's miserable. A bright guy, learning software development, but miserable and stressed and hating his life for 17 an hour. Imagine that guy on 12 machines. When you lower the barrier to entry, you'll find someone willing to do that. The real future of machining incorporates heavy automation, yes, but as a machinist, you should look for lean running shops and try, as hard as you can, to get into a job shop. It's tricky to find one in certain areas due to the prevalence of production shops, but this trade, while unkillable, will consolidate in size. There will always be a need for machinists. The silver lining is that an old Haas with damaged ways will probably be even less than 5 grand (not counting for inflation), and for that price, you can have the experience of working in a defunct shop. You can't do much with it, but you can fight it for repairs and prototyping.
My argument to the idea that automation that eliminates entry level jobs, there are no people who want entry level jobs. Try hiring a machinist or a apprentice, they are near impossible to find. Automation is the only answer when people dont want to work.
You can compare the evolution of manufacturing (Machine Shops with Farming) Going back 120 years. A small farmer could eke out a living on a small plot of land. As the better equipment evolved scale became more and more important, smaller farms had to specialize to stay profitable. Greatly reducing the number of small farms. Larger operations rely on larger and larger scale. With less and less human labor. Machine shops are on the same track and have been for 100 years. Those that manufacture large volumes of the same product profit the most from automation. There is also larger return for those develop their own products, if they have the means/orders to max out the automation. Small lot machining relies more on machinist skills (IE repeated setups and programing) Skills that will remain in short supply. (a discussion for another time) As implied the cost of start up will continue to steeply rise. Machinery? Robots? Skilled Labor? How much Money does it take? Automation/ Machinist skills are linked. Think multiples 5 AXIS lathes and mills!
I feel this is a bit of the 60's Ice-maker, that "over night" got out of job, because people started to "invest" into fridge and other modern home aparatus....People on the "end of working career" will have issues finding new jobs...but if you actually give a damn about your own future... start think about what YOU can do...what you add to a given work space... you see the writing on the wall.. why not at least try apply to work positions that is the result of the writing on the wall, not just... "oh poor me, because I don't want to do anything different"
My story. Started my shop with a tormach mill that I bought to teach my self CNC mill as I already was running cnc lathe. After having it for a year I was like well if the guys I'm working for can do this then I guess there's no reason I couldn't. So I bough a haas tl2, stuck it in my garage and with the help of an old boss that was feeding me some work I started my own shop evenings and weekends. Side note don't burn bridges! some of my biggest and most profitable customers are former employers, they know I know how to do the work and I know what they expect so quoting almost handles itself, win win. My plan was to keep my job till it I couldn't afford to any more, that lasted about 3 weeks, then I started to run out of time in the day. So I quit my job but I stayed and finished the project that I was working on (about half a day more). Then I co-leased a space with a friend that needed some warehouse space to store the atv's and dirt bikes that he was importing. I took 1/3 of 4000sf of a bay and away I went. I have concentrated on emergency service type work (we needed it yesterday not police or fire) so that I could insulate myself from the production shops. that was 9 years ago and I'm still a one man shop but that is by choice, I don't want the stress of employees and with the rush nature of my work it would cause a lot of extra stress.
Pros, I have a shop that has zero debt and low over head. I know were everything is and in what condition everything is in (very important for being able to quote something right now, not in five minutes.). And I have complete control over what happens and when. For me this equals very low stress. Also I have basically no competition, no one else wants to do some of the silly stuff I do Friday night of a long weekend.
Cons, I have to do everything... that is about it. That means I work a lot of hours and a lot of that time is not making money as their is about 1 hour of support work for every hour of production work. Someone has to clean the toilet right.
My advice to anyone is if you are motivated and not scared to work then find something that actually has money in it not just your passion to start, that can come later.
Don't burn any bridges.
Don't over extend the money, borrow when it makes sense.
Know the difference be need and want, and then make sure you take care of some of those wants because that will keep you sane.
Absolutely fantastic advice, thank you very much for weighing in - I absolutely love these stories, and I'm stoked to hear you're making it work.
My neighbour here in our industrial park is very much like you - he's a one man show who's been around since the early 90's. He probably could have expanded and competed with us / other shops many, many times over the years, but much like you said - he likes his space, he likes his work, and for better or worse it's all on his shoulders. He does a lot of stuff other, bigger shops won't touch, and that has given him a market of his own that has earned him a very comfortable life over the years. He takes vacation multiple times per year, works weekends and evenings when he wants and has the jobs that need it, and seems to really enjoy himself!
Thanks again - I guarantee this kind of story / advice will help out some of the new guys who only see the big factories and want to know how it could work for them as an individual!
I left my employer with a ton of work that shops were doing locally. ( ** why not to burn bridges ) I just cared about the parts since I had 22 years invested in 99% of them. From R&D to production of them,. 16 years later still making parts for them. But I had to build up my shop and hire people. I do miss being by myself working 10-12hr days . I still clean the bathrooms every morning since I'm the first one in 95% of the time. I do work Saturdays & some Sundays. Lathes with bar pullers on them. Every 35-45 minutes time to put a new bar in.
Well I was moving back home looking for a shop for my equipment and found a engine machine shop yes its all older equipment but really affordable for me then add all my machines I believe its a win-win for me. I know it's going to be tough to start-up a new business but I'm willing to do this. The information in these videos are wonderful.
Thanks for watching, and best of luck to you with the venture! Old equipment is still good equipment my man - I've got a '95 VF3 and a '96 VF4 still cranking out accurate parts - not to mention the 1963 arbor drill out in the back unit for when we need it!
lights out for longer runs was good but used to go in some mornings and find the every machine had produced scrap all night , or that robot loader we had had left swarf marks in all the parts , that was before laser probing , but even worked at one place with a pallet loader left running all night and every tool went through the laser one night a tap split in half length was good o/d was good but just split down the middle , all the holes had a perfect 10mm bored hole instead of a m10 tapped hole , i had never seen that before or since lol
I worked at tool & die shop mid 80's first job. First EDM put 10 tool makers out. 8 of them retired , two weren't that good. Then 2nd and 3rd EDM came. Went from 20 to 5 toolmakers in a heart beat. I moved to a sister company across the road. I seen what EDM did so I pushed for them to get a CNC mill. They got a single tool cnc mill. Like you said you have evolve with the times. Now I have my shop. 4 cnc mills, side mount tool changers, 2 cnc lathes with bar pullers. No room for a bar feeder. You have to keep up with technology or go broke.
We have a Robot in our shop, that hasn't really worked out after the job we bought it for went away. It is on a UMC-750, and did awesome for the job it was purchased for. Now that the job has left it mostly sits as we use our UMC-750 for more job shop type 5th axis work. 10, 25, 50pcs at a few hundred dollars a piece. For jobs like that we could complete half the order before the robot was setup if we ran it by hand/
Saying that, when we bought the robot the technician was very clear that a robot is not intended to replace a person, but will require a person to have a different (higher) skillset to remain relevant at a company. The operator now needs to become a quality inspector, robot technician, or programmer/setup man which would pay a higher wage.
Whether its fixturing, bar feeders, pallet changers, cobots, or robot cells I really do believe that the future of US Manufacturing is going to be "micro-factories" with 10-25 employees that are highly automated, Lean, with highly skilled employees and not just "button pushers".
It's an old problem. You standing in front of a cnc and when those replaced manual machines there was the same debate. It happens whenever new technology comes around. The ones who adapt to it and accept new technology early almost always grow and succeed and become big companies that creat jobs. People just need to realize they are different jobs than they used to be. Same when machine started to get their own motors on them and there was no longer a need for the people to take care of line shafts and lace flat belts. People don't like to be replaced by technology but it's a fact of life jobs change and some become obsolete while at the same time new ones that never existed before are created.
You are absolutely correct. As a guy mentioned in the thread I read for this video, there are no more switchboard operators, elevator operators, or horse-drawn carriage manufacturers - in a lot of ways, it's adapt or die.
@@iansandusky417 All true, but today the cost of self training is prohibitive.
EVERYBODY is going to need the kind of help that only apprenticeship programs can provide - they can earn enough to be able to eat while they're learning.
America MUST support apprenticeship programs now!
Great video Ian 👌
This is why the Amish will specifically keep jobs that can be automated, they want to employ their kids, extended family, and friends. As you said the "genie is out of the bottle" and so we need to look at it like the Amish or choose to embrace it to some degree. However the Amish economy can only function within its ecosystem so as long as you engage in the world economy you will need automation to meet demand and get work orders. Hopefully there will be a movement to buy quality crafted domestic and local (like the Amish) products.
In my work for a Mega world wide company it pretty amazing how many short run products can’t be automated
I was thinking the same, specialized stuff will never be economical to automate. But that's not enough of a work load to supply jobs for everyone, but it's still a good specialty to be in. Go big or go niche
@@daveb3910 You got it. I'm always surprised when guys share that they're working in 100% manual shops with 10+ guys working there - there will always be a need for unautomated work in some capacity!
@@iansandusky417 thankfully! :)
@@daveb3910 same page..... :)
Gosh where to start. I run a home op and am looking at least to dip into automation-I am FULL manual. I design, hand draw/draft, pattern and machine an expensive Harley part from the foundry in house. I took out a 10k loan to start and bought some old crap, tools and a bike to flip but the first product was a flop and the equipment sat for five years. Then I fell into pattern making/traditional casting. 1st year big profit, 2nd year small loss (tooling/prototype components). My competitors make the same product out of bar stock/CNC; despite this my customers prefer manual "feel" of hand patterned/cast parts. I plan on dipping into automation by making nesting jigs and setting up the part for CNC machine by setting my wife up with Fusion 360 (she has some graphic design experience and no digital footprint). Thanks for the reminder that I need to stay at home, my only worry is someone finding out that I’m running a commercial operation in a residence w/in the city limits and sinking me. I have managed to stay in my daytime job despite the pain it causes lol.
I want to start my own machine shop. I want to be the programmer, Machinist, QA, CEO, everything. Automation is the key for my success, I'll be able to one day set up, program, a Okuma Robotic Cell, have that run for a good 70 hours. There are times I could definitely do a walkthrough to avoid some problems. Plus, Haas for example has things to connect to your phone now, sure Okuma has the same deal.
If I had to hire people, the business would not blow up as quickly and one of the biggest things that puts any business out of business it's pay roll.
If you get stuck on "you eliminate jobs", you miss that there's now people available to open more shops and produce more stuff. The current picture of the world is looking like a large chunk of the supply chain will be moving back to north America over the next several years, but we need to build out the production capacity. At the same time, we have a very tight labor market. Making the shops more productive is necessary.
There's also the fact that, unless you have one product and just run it constantly, updating automation between production runs does take some labor. Past that, the lights out nature means you finish the batch faster so need to do the turn over of programs more often, etc.
hey man im in college and doing an essay on how automation will affect the industry and your video was very helpful so thanks
Modern Machine Magazine has a podcast covering many topics that may help you. I just binged it last week. Good luck.
@@dank9828Thanks for informing me, ill be sure to check it out.
Automation is grate for production but if your in the job shop world unless they make an extremely user friendly robot it will never take the job shop work away. If you are a programmer and a good one at that automation will never affect you.
As Machine Sales and Service Tech
it does bother me knowing im eliminating jobs with Robot Loaders and full automation. However like you said CNC’s did the same thing to the manual machine. Is all i can say is stay up with the times and you will light years ahead. People dont fully adapt and except a change for about 10-15 years. After that it starts to become mainstream. Take the IPhone, Social media and CNC’s for easy examples. Being a service tech this day in age is becoming increasingly more and more needed. The machines still dont fix themselves and they are only getting more complex. Learn how to fix machines and you will always have a job.
So here's my take. When CNC machines came out, so did the CNC Operator position, a relatively low skilled position that focus more on loading parts than tool and material knowledge. With lights out shops, you're not gonna just load 12 long runners on 1 or 2 machines as an operator. You'll be doing that on as many machines as it takes to keep you uptime over 60%. There will be a new position that will just focus on material prep and supporting any automation system, and they will be pure monotony. On the flip side, the skill ceiling for a machinist will rise again, and that's exciting and those who achieve that skill will be rewarded handsomely. We have a set of Okuma horizontals that are heavily automated with pallet pools and loads of 5-6 parts per side of a tombstone. One guy runs 6 machines. He's miserable. A bright guy, learning software development, but miserable and stressed and hating his life for 17 an hour. Imagine that guy on 12 machines. When you lower the barrier to entry, you'll find someone willing to do that.
The real future of machining incorporates heavy automation, yes, but as a machinist, you should look for lean running shops and try, as hard as you can, to get into a job shop. It's tricky to find one in certain areas due to the prevalence of production shops, but this trade, while unkillable, will consolidate in size. There will always be a need for machinists. The silver lining is that an old Haas with damaged ways will probably be even less than 5 grand (not counting for inflation), and for that price, you can have the experience of working in a defunct shop. You can't do much with it, but you can fight it for repairs and prototyping.
My argument to the idea that automation that eliminates entry level jobs, there are no people who want entry level jobs. Try hiring a machinist or a apprentice, they are near impossible to find. Automation is the only answer when people dont want to work.
You can compare the evolution of manufacturing (Machine Shops with Farming) Going back 120 years. A small farmer could eke out a living on a small plot of land. As the better equipment evolved scale became more and more important, smaller farms had to specialize to stay profitable. Greatly reducing the number of small farms. Larger operations rely on larger and larger scale. With less and less human labor. Machine shops are on the same track and have been for 100 years. Those that manufacture large volumes of the same product profit the most from automation. There is also larger return for those develop their own products, if they have the means/orders to max out the automation. Small lot machining relies more on machinist skills (IE repeated setups and programing) Skills that will remain in short supply. (a discussion for another time)
As implied the cost of start up will continue to steeply rise. Machinery? Robots? Skilled Labor? How much Money does it take? Automation/ Machinist skills are linked.
Think multiples 5 AXIS lathes and mills!
I feel this is a bit of the 60's Ice-maker, that "over night" got out of job, because people started to "invest" into fridge and other modern home aparatus....People on the "end of working career" will have issues finding new jobs...but if you actually give a damn about your own future... start think about what YOU can do...what you add to a given work space... you see the writing on the wall.. why not at least try apply to work positions that is the result of the writing on the wall, not just... "oh poor me, because I don't want to do anything different"
I hear you buy your worms by the kettle. Do you also buy your fish by the can? :)
Automation is just another tool in the toolbox to make the people more productive.
This is why government employees only do 1 hour of work per day.
I stopped using the forum because of the trolls. It was just not worth the aggravation