makeintheUSA

@photoncmndr Not a problem in Florida. The tradeoff is iguanas.

The number of times I have switched between heat and AC this year is insane.

@kegrocket A skillsaw

Tell us about the craziest thing you ever dialed in on the 4-jaw

@CalebChamberla6 @mikeman2022 @heskelbalas @jimbelosic @KennethCassel @fabworks_guy @zanehengsperger Laser-cut tube is the best solution if it is easy to access. Caleb is doing exactly that.

@mikeman2022 @heskelbalas @jimbelosic @KennethCassel @fabworks_guy @zanehengsperger That's actually my biggest complaint about t-slot. Everything is slop, requiring adjustment. Sometimes it's nice to design-in fixed constraints, and add adjustment only where needed.

Aluminium extrusions like this are goated for custom setups. Would be so great if you could order to custom lengths @jimbelosic @KennethCassel @CalebChamberla6 @fabworks_guy @zanehengsperger

@photoncmndr I always removed office space in order to fit more machines. Office people can work from a rented trailer, machines need dedicated space.

New plan for Miltech Manufacturing: Tear out front office. Park a 16x40 container office beside shop. Add 5 more spindles. Automate more metal!

@zanehengsperger The “build vs buy” equation is so much easier today than in the 1990s. There is much more information available today so you can build from scratch with lower risk.

Instead of buying a retiring machine shop. You can just start one. All you need is one machine, a garage, your laptop, and relentlessness.

@CalebChamberla6 I paid for my son’s house with “arcane” manufacturing. There is money to be made for those who look in the right places.

Convenience creates demand. Take an arcane manufacturing technology that's rarely used and make it fast and easy to buy. You'll create entirely new markets.

@CalebChamberla6 @nicolasrenold @Solenoidfan There’s a lot of business in that phrase. Perhaps millions.

@nicolasrenold @Solenoidfan Tube cutting and bending.

SendBendSend

Our job shop used to serve dozens of customers. Then came the “enterprise” customers who needed white glove service. Guess where our quoting team spent their time? Guess where our sales team spent their time? Guess who bought new equipment just to serve these “enterprise” customers? At first it looked good on paper, and then our customer concentration changed. A few customers now made up 40 percent of our revenue. Then guess what happened when they left for a lower bidder?

Manufacturing X, I have strategy question. OSH Cut started with one goal: make it easy to buy custom sheet metal and plate. We did that with custom self-serve software, providing instant prices and lead-times, instant manufacturability checks, and deeply integrated production systems. Our target customers - people like us - absolutely love it. Our Net Promoter Score is through the roof, in the mid-eighties. As we grow, we spend increasing time serving customers who value our systems less. Engineers and builders love us. Purchasing departments? Not so much. We have full-time people now whose only job is to service the endless stream of onboarding packets from customers. Custom NDAs, custom terms of service, net terms applications, quality flowdowns, audits, 25+ page onboarding forms, supplier portals, legal departments. I'm certain that this could unlock a lot of revenue from big enterprises. On the other hand, targeting big businesses erodes our core value proposition. Professional buyers don't care that they can upload parts and get instant prices, lead-times, and DFM feedback; they don't want to login to our system to get production status for their orders; they don't value our self-serve, instant model at all. The engineers at these companies adore us. But the professional buyers create a lot of friction. We can help overcome that by streamlining the onboarding process. We've been working on that. On the other hand, this creates a lot of overhead that enables revenue but that simultaneously dilutes our value proposition. Eg. we have a great enterprise business funnel, but to them, we are "just another shop." Quality is the table stakes, but after that, net terms and price often take precedence over speed and simplicity. Professional buying eliminates those kinds of quality of life factors by design. Even so, these enterprise requests are burying our team. So we face a choice - grow the enterprise support team, even though it's not a big revenue driver today, and even though it erodes our core value proposition; or start saying "no," understanding that this may have a huge long-term impact on revenue, and on the kind of business we are in the future. On its face, this seems a minor choice. Hiring another couple people is super easy and low risk. On the other hand, the kinds of customers we focus on can have a large impact on future OSH Cut. So this really boils down to strategy, not immediate cash flow and revenue growth. I bounce back and forth on this question all the time.

the goal is same or next day metals for all factories in america

im assembling a cracked team to make the world's most ridiculous rfp response and finally put ai funds to good use

Andrew gets it. This line, 10000%: "Meanwhile, domestic sourcing - as a national system - is really still in a 1940s pre-software era that demands friction up front: vendor onboarding, insurance, net terms, quality clauses, cert requirements, and a first-article process that is correct, but slow."

hate to report it but having a TV dashboard clearly visible to everyone with a number that needs to go up, makes it way more likely that the number goes up

@CalebChamberla6 @andrewkornuta In my experience the only people patient enough are the founders. Patient founders get to keep the whole pie and impatient ones are left with a tiny slice.

@andrewkornuta It's true. "Traditional" VC isn't OK with patient growth over decades. It's better for them to go for broke. Bet the farm. It's all about the homeruns, not the patient wins. Plenty of business models can healthily churn out cash long-term, but the VC strategy burns them down.

VC investment is borrowed money. It comes with the same types of strings and potentially even more brutal terms. It seems like many young business owners don’t quite grasp that concept.

@kejca @CalebChamberla6 Saying no to many allows you to say yes to the best

Warren Buffett: "Sol Price, who started the Price Club, the first big wholesale club, said that part of his success was due to figuring out the customer he didn't want." "You have to figure out what you're good at and who you really can offer something special to."

Make sure everything is under power before you write a check.

@CalebChamberla6 @maahirpanchal Trumpf has the best OEE and service, especially in the eastern half of the country. Everyone in Florida uses Trumpf.

@maahirpanchal We like Trumpf machines, but they aren't cheap. Large format machines like this are super pricey.

I'm in the market for a 6KW 2500x6500 CNC Laser Cutting Machine Folks, guide me on the best choice I can make.

@CalebChamberla6 @connorkapoor I’ve yet to see a manufacturing “moat” that a customer can’t step over. No one wants to hear this, but the best way to succeed in manufacturing is to be patient, cautious, and fiscally responsible. Boring, maybe. But you’ll have a company forever.

There are very few moats in manufacturing. Scale can definitely be one, but it depends significantly on the structure of a supply chain. In OSH Cut's space, supply chain vertical integration is probably the biggest possible moat, but even there, there is a long tail of work that can't be vertically integrated in that way. There are always options.

I spend a LOT of time thinking about this. Leverage does AMAZING things for growth in a capex-heavy manufacturing business. Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) goes through the roof if your capex is financed by debt instead of equity. The cost is risk.

Hiring manufacturing and mechanical engineers to help take the US from $60b of imports to net export of knitwear. Well funded. Los Angeles. DM.

As a new OSH customer, this makes a ton of sense to me. I have used a similar company, but they seem to be more focused on growth and marketing versus long term stability. Thank you for understanding it’s a tradeoff. I prefer to do business with a company that will be around in 5 years.

At OSH Cut, our financing and growth strategy is simple: grow as fast as possible and use debt, but constrained by conservative financial ratios. Maintain a fortress balance sheet. Limit debt/equity ratio to 1.0 or lower. Keep FCCR, DSCR, and DIR high.