by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
Most shops treat maintenance contracts as an afterthought — a quick line item on an existing quote or a handshake deal that lives in someone’s inbox. That approach leaves money on the table and creates scheduling chaos when the work actually shows up.Done right,...
by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
Most sheet metal shops know how to quote a single part. But when a customer sends an RFQ for 50 different brackets that all nest on the same laser bed, the math gets messy fast. You’re not just quoting 50 parts — you’re quoting one sheet, one setup, and...
by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
Customer-supplied material sounds like a win: no material procurement, no inventory carrying cost, and a faster path to production. But when that material arrives as consignment inventory — where you hold and process stock the customer still owns — the quoting...
by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
Bridge production runs — typically 50 to 5,000 units — sit in the awkward zone between prototyping and full-scale manufacturing. They’re too large for prototype pricing but too small for traditional volume discounts. Quoting them requires a different cost model...
by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
Additive manufacturing shops know powder isn’t a single-use consumable. In powder bed fusion — whether DMLS, SLM, or MJF — unused powder gets sieved, refreshed with virgin material, and loaded back into the machine. But every reuse cycle changes the...
by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
You nailed the part geometry, picked the right material, and calculated cycle time down to the second. Then the customer asks, “Does this include the fixture?” If your answer is a guess, you’re leaving money on the table.Custom workholding — soft...
by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
Reverse engineering requests land in your inbox with a physical part and a simple ask: “Can you make this?” What follows is rarely simple. Between 3D scanning cleanup, CAD reconstruction decisions, and iterative inspection loops, these jobs consume more...
by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
Most quoting workflows handle bread-and-butter parts well — brackets, housings, prototypes that fit a standard build envelope. But large format parts? They expose every weakness in a quote process built for average work. Whether you run a large-bed SLS machine, a...
by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
Finishing is where quotes go wrong. A shop nails the machining or printing estimate, then tacks on a flat $75 for “powder coat” or “anodize” and ships the PO. Two weeks later the finisher sends an invoice for $220 because the parts needed...
by Chris Anjel | Aug 26, 2026 | Uncategorized
Small batch runs — typically 1 to 50 parts — are the bread and butter of many digital manufacturing shops. They’re also where quoting goes wrong. Price them like production runs and you’ll lose money on setup. Price them like prototypes and you’ll...
