[machinechick]

Seems the rates have been the same ($60-$80 per hour) for the past 10 15 years (midwest). The wages for the people that do the actual machining haven't improved much either, and they sure didn't anywhere keep up with inflation.
Frankly, I don't see how people can stay in business. Out of about 6 shops I worked in only two are still in business and they are very small outfits; the big places that had heavy duty contracts or made their own products are LONG gone! The excuses for the low pay/rates first was the Japanese and Koreans, then Mexico, now it's ALL in China. Kinda funny how the Communists (who protect their economy) turned out to be the only large scale manufacturers left.
Oh well, c'est la vie, guess I should have been a CEO or something. Never really could figure out what those people that live in those 'burb mansions did for money, (not machining/manufacturing) there sure seems to be an awful lot of them though!

[diyengineer]

There will always be a niche industry that needs a product. Innovation and filling a need will always put money in the bank. Instead of doing "jobs" or random work, one could always start a online business and fill a "need" as well. Let the monster tycoons produce what they like where they like. Start thinking about yourself, your machines and what you can produce for the world (even if you have 1 knee mill and a single car garage). Just look what it did for William Boeing or Henry Ford. Times have changed evolve, or go extinct.

[Dualkit]

There will always be a niche industry that needs a product. Innovation and filling a need will always put money in the bank. Instead of doing "jobs" or random work, one could always start a online business and fill a "need" as well. Let the monster tycoons produce what they like where they like. Start thinking about yourself, your machines and what you can produce for the world (even if you have 1 knee mill and a single car garage). Just look what it did for William Boeing or Henry Ford. Times have changed evolve, or go extinct.

That worked good for me for a short time, the niche industry I served "Limousine Manufacturers" managed to almost evaporate overnight once I grabbed market share and refined the manufacturing of the products to create $100-$200 an hour profits. I went from 23 steady customers in 2006 to 1 in 2010, most of them went out of business, now I am just doing random job shop work I found through open bidding, at least the customers are coming back direct with out going through the open bidding process. I does take a long time to build a customer base this way. I have excellent quality
and pricing by being able to cycle parts faster than most, but I am horrible as a salesman.

[Runner4404spd]

the real problem is alot of shops are used to doing gravy work for ridiculous prices. alot of shops did aluminum, brass, even mild steel parts. all these can be done cheaper and fast in china as their wages are low and they keep machines running 24/7. in reality, shops need to evolve away from gravy work and take on more challenging things. we had a bunch of shops jump in and try and bid on government work and were really low balling the heck out of it not understanding that they had a ton of requirements and piles of paperwork to justify it. luckily our government doesn't always choose the lowest bidders but its been touch and go even for those contracts. one day you got them and next they are gone or cut back or whatever. i agree that you need to find a product line and make something yourself. then you control your destiny as long as there is a need for your parts or until the copies come out.

also i don't know of any shops paying their employees $40/hr unless its the owners. and even that for an owners salary is very low once you count all the aggrevation that goes into owning a business.

[skullworks]

I run a dual tiered pricing structure that is available only if it is requested up front. ( First question I ask is: "Is job this time sensitive?" and if they say it is I usually won't offer the option.)

I have my normal shop rate and delivery schedule and the "standby" rate which is about 30% less. "Standby" jobs are put up between normal work when I am waiting on tooling or materials for normal work. If business is slow I will do all scheduled maintenance and in house jobs before running "standby" work.

At the initial quote time you can request it quoted both ways. Generally speaking once the price has been given I won't go back and quote it for "standby".

To get "standby" rates you have 10 days to accept the quote and pay ALL material costs up front. The only way this works is if we have everything on hand ready to go should a schedule opening occur. If the job consists of a package of different parts we will deliver and invoice each group of parts as they are completed. If the job becomes time critical and needs to be moved to the active schedule then normal shop rates will be used.

[machinechick]

You know it really gets tiring hearing the same old Adam Smith bullroar about wages/productivity being the cause of lost work. Perhaps this was a valid concept back in the day when we were really competing against other companies that were trying to make a profit, and basically all things were equal. The growth in American productivity never stopped the bleeding of jobs. The degradation of our work conditions (eg. lack of so called gravy work, gee wouldn't want anything to ever be nice and easy; I'd rather run three machines with three differnet jobs at the same time and work extra hours for no overtime:tired didn't stop the hemorrhaging of jobs. Everytime I buy anything from China (don't have much choice anymore) I don't know who's the bigger fool, us for letting the stuff in the country or them for selling it at a loss just to try and destroy us (seems to be working huh?) You tell me with a straight face that the raw material in most anything you buy from China doesn't cost more than the item itself!! If not please let me know where you get your stock so I can get in on the deal! Are we all going to end up living in Party provided apartments and eat in communal dining halls the same meal three times a day? (thats who your wanting to "compete" with). Almost every other nation has an industrial policy to protect their national interests, ours was to give tax breaks if you outsourced to falsely bouy up the corporate balance sheets and give the muckity mucks "compensation bonuses", guess someone has to live nice and easy huh? Whats really going on?

[stuby]

the real problem is alot of shops are used to doing gravy work for ridiculous prices. alot of shops did aluminum, brass, even mild steel parts. all these can be done cheaper and fast in china as their wages are low and they keep machines running 24/7. in reality, shops need to evolve away from gravy work and take on more challenging things. .

Alot of the stuff we have been doing for the last year is all crazy stuff ,turning tungsten shafts in a lathe,grinding synthetic saphire,or milling 60 to 70 Rc parts th only thing keeping us alive lately is the cazy jobs no one else will take on.I think your exactly right about the gravy work,.. its all washed up and gone!!:rainfro:

[Runner4404spd]

Stuby,

we had to redifine ourselves and take on different work, but we are doing the crazy stuff no one wants as well, on the other hand we are busy and have a fair back log of jobs right now. our biggest hurdle right now is diversifying the work we do and bringing a product to the market.

[BobWarfield]

If you don't do something that nobody else does, you're going to be very hard pressed to make a profit. In desperate times, "gravy work" is the last thing you want to bet your business on because there's too many starving for any kind of work they can get. I love skullworks idea of the dual tiered approach. That's the way to take down gravy work in a can't lose sort of way rather than a "bet your business" way. But you still need a main line where you have the edge over others.

Instead of gravy, make a product that nobody else makes, or run a job shop that has some advantage the others in your area don't have. Maybe you've got a machine with a larger capacity than any shop nearby. Maybe you can turn around a job faster than it can be sent to China and the jobs change so often they never get sent. I know a guy doing both. He lives in a port city and gets a lot of business because he can do rush jobs on machines that are bigger than the competition. If you need 60" of travel to get something fixed before your ship has to sail, you're gonna talk to my friend.

There are basically 3 profitable business strategies:

- Your product is the best. Great. Peeps still buy Mori Seikis or Mitutoyo or name your favorite "best" product. There will always be a market for it.

- Your product is the cheapest. This is a tough spot against the Chinese, but not impossible. You better be super highly automated and able to do things they just can't do and do them a lot cheaper and faster too though. Think Japanese car factory. Robots out the wazoo. If you're here, you've probably got a special talent with fixturing and you just know things the other machinists don't about how to get it done faster.

- Your product serves a special niche better than the best or cheapest can. For example, that port city is located in Hawaii far from competitors. Or, you're building a product for a small market that just isn't worth the Chinese trouble to knock it off.

It can be done, Yankee ingenuity is alive and well. But it takes a lot more than being just another guy with a couple Haas CNC machines.

Best,

BW

[txtooldie]

Seems the rates have been the same ($60-$80 per hour) for the past 10 15 years (midwest). The wages for the people that do the actual machining haven't improved much either, and they sure didn't anywhere keep up with inflation.
Frankly, I don't see how people can stay in business. Out of about 6 shops I worked in only two are still in business and they are very small outfits; the big places that had heavy duty contracts or made their own products are LONG gone! The excuses for the low pay/rates first was the Japanese and Koreans, then Mexico, now it's ALL in China. Kinda funny how the Communists (who protect their economy) turned out to be the only large scale manufacturers left.
Oh well, c'est la vie, guess I should have been a CEO or something. Never really could figure out what those people that live in those 'burb mansions did for money, (not machining/manufacturing) there sure seems to be an awful lot of them though!

To answer the thread on this you are correct with the $60-$80 for production time. Prototype is typically dependent upon the quality of the machinist. We would charge $100-$125 depending on which machinist we put on the job.

And to your communist comment. If you prefer that way of life i'm sure that Puten or Jiabao would love another slave.