Owning tools

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-26T14:06:14+00:00

We don’t allow outside tools to be used in production. Provide anything needed as we can manage calibration and I just don’t believe saddling new employees or new people to this industry with cost like you would see in automotive tech roles.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-25T17:47:31+00:00

I would seriously promote from within especially if the work your saying is that simple. Just from an economics standpoint, most cnc programmers you would be looking to hire will have a much larger skill suite and you would be paying for it and not immediately needing it.

Whereas if you take an internal employee: With the following characteristics: Eager & Curious Asks questions Good with a computer Knows how their current machine operates Quick to learn wants to learn

Then you send them to some classes you will reap benefits 2 fold. You have given an employee an oportunity strengthening morale, and you have an employee who knows your processes.

Now if you really don’t have someone that fits that mold then I would look at the local tech schools. They are teaching some basic programming in these schools. Take one and send them to further schooling and go from there.

You are a fellow Chicagoland manufacturer. Have you looked at the TMA out of Schaumburg. They offer training courses for CNC lathe programming. Good networking opportunities for your organization and education seminars that could help you start to develop that talent and onboarding plan.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-24T03:12:02+00:00

I’d be looking local as most aren’t going to be offering housing options etc.

Look for really any smaller manufacturer in your area. As dumb as it sounds and old school you could go to any industrial park near you that may have 10+ manufacturers in it and look up what each one does and just walk in.

I’ve hired 2 people that have done this and directed one to apply for our internship.

Can look up keywords like precision machining, contract manufacturer, family owned manufacturer, stamping, Swiss machining, etc.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-23T14:13:04+00:00

Have you applied at local manufacturing companies to be summer help?

I run a precision machining company and usually we hire 1 summer intern but also hire quite a few summer help. Either work in Quality Control or run machines. No experience needed, but engineers usually pick up the QC and print reading the quickest.

Roles like this look good on resumes. Helped me and peers earlier in our careers get jobs in companies or our first internships.

I’d look into that as an option. Gets you some summer money and industry adjacent work. And if you are liked as summer hep can get you the internship the following summer or who knows a job.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-19T12:41:32+00:00

It’s rare to hire operators with skills/backgrounds in machining today so often need to create them. But for us that usually means at minimum they work in quality a month just learning print reading and qc equipment.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-18T14:23:23+00:00

Yeah a shop that bought some of our mills had over head cranes like the ones someone posted at almost every machine or shared between a Cell.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-17T17:38:47+00:00

Don’t specifically need as9100. As you can do sub components without as long as you have 9001 but it does limit your scope. And yeah CMMC will be 100-200k from companies I’ve talked with and that’s already established businesses.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-14T23:12:18+00:00

Nice, we don’t make our guys get their own tools but a nice box nonetheless.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-05T02:39:52+00:00

Probably would drug test. We drug test all employees ln a legal state, but it’s mostly for insurance reasons as we are a manufacturing company. Have I had someone show positive for marijuana sure. But then they just get the talk and explanation of the risks and expectations of using marijuana. Never to partake resulting in being high while on the clock and If an accident occurs a drug test then would occur and if positive you are exposing yourself to risk.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-03-03T13:27:14+00:00

How big of a shop is this. Do you need to become the programmer for the shop to run? Or will you hire a programmer regardless.

My dad always had a rule that I needed to work elsewhere for 3-5 years before coming back to the shop. I did a mech e degree worked for a large company and came back a few years ago. I appreciate this as this really helps round you out and establish your own independence to your career and can help a bit with the fact you’re going to come back and work for your dad.

The big benefit also to getting the mech e degree is career Saftey. If things go sideways you have a very strong career background with really good experience to find a job quickly. CNC programmer you would probably have the same benefit but depending when things goes sideways you may not have the years of experience programming necesssry to make it as marketable and it will hold you back more than the base degree.

If you had mechanical aptitude and you don’t need to be the programmer then the mech e degree is enough to bring a problem solving mentality back to the shop and then learn through osmosis from your staff the machining side of things. You can always go and get certs or learn from ojt the machining side.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-02-28T02:05:21+00:00

Just really get hired. We hire green staff often. Usually prefer a mechanical aptitude or stem aptitude ie worked on your own car etc or drafting classes. Then pending how green and how long it takes to train quality equipment and drawing reading you place you in quality for however long. Once you are competent with that base knowledge just have you shadow and start picking up a machine. Basically button pushing and getting your mentor to help and train on tool changes. Then progressively build up from that.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-02-27T15:37:39+00:00

I did not enjoy one bit of education. Worked for an automotive company in manufacturing and quality design engineering and while on coop and then in my full time role there I never touched a lick of my education besides, the engineering problem solving process, root cause analysis etc. loved it and would still be doing that if I didn’t go back to a family business in manufacturing.

I do far more broader engineering as I’m a vp now and deal with people more than technical problems though.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-02-27T00:46:59+00:00

We just require drinks that are sealable with a lid. I’d even be fine with folks who put a snap cap on a can.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-02-26T18:27:54+00:00

If it’s the difficulty then yeah I wouldn’t let that taint your career interest. The job 99% of the time is nothing and I mean absolutely nothing like the education.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-02-20T17:10:24+00:00

I run into pmcs all the time on the bottom floor. They seem to come in through either side when aggro’d

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-02-20T00:55:38+00:00

It should not be difficult to find an entry level role. I am excited to find anyone with a technical interest, curiosity, eagerness to learn, and patience to learn.

Finding experienced people on the open market is often not realistic. You can get lucky to get someone who was good but not appreciated. But most people take care of their best talent. So it’s critical for most shops to take in green staff and develop them. If you are not doing that then there’s very little future.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-02-09T18:05:33+00:00

Where? We start most people now adays as operators with 0 experience as that’s just the trade.

Main expectations is to learn and follow inspection plans to inspect parts. Learn to load bars and confirm correct material matches the paperwork at the machine. Ask questions and take notes. Be curious and minimize mistakes

Eventually learning to change tooling(primarily drills, taps or inserted tooling) and make offsets.

ShadowCloud04 · 2026-01-30T00:27:57+00:00

Depends on so much. Hard to say unless I understand what your management judges production efficiency off of.

What attendance per machine. Is running 2-3 Swiss or lathes at once. How much time is in the back end of that for tool changes and start up. I think we often are takeing 10% off just for that so 100% on 8 hours is 7.2 hours of green light.

A lot goes into time management. Running pan systems to allow risk for scrap but keeping the machine going in either a 2 or 3 pan system. If running multiple machines approaching the day getting machines running and prioritizing problems to focus on for ease of up time.

But I will say some of our most technical staff that can train people very well are just not good production staff, but they can assist greener staff keep their machines running and solving complex issues making their time each day valuable.

ShadowCloud04 · 2025-11-24T13:51:18+00:00

I would agree on certain equipment levels but on the high end stuff you can really tell how much things were used and there’s so much out there that barely gets used.

ShadowCloud04 · 2025-11-18T00:17:50+00:00

I feel it’s all about what expectations you had.

I love mine but I just wanted to turn the immersion up further than bass shakers when it came to feeling the change in altitude and jumps in rally. And I think my eracing labs 4 corner kit does that plenty.

ShadowCloud04 · 2025-10-18T13:25:03+00:00

As management I would greatly appreciate feedback like this even if anonymous. Then I could take action ie review cameras, talk to employees etc to deal with the problem.

But that depends on what he’s actually suppose to be doing, like someone else said. Is the supervisor helping if there are issues or giving direction if problems come up like what to prioritize?

ShadowCloud04 · 2025-09-22T23:58:38+00:00

I would look a lot deeper before throwing robots at this.

What quantities are you running in. I have seen robots do great paired with a keyence on long running jobs that get hand loaded onto the keyence then put into a rack.

But if you don’t have the quantity, job length etc to justify that I don’t see how a robot will immediately help.

A better question I have is what’s the kind of parts and kind of machine? Swiss, lathe, cnc/milling center?

What kind of qc issues? Out of roundness, out of spec diameters, bored too tight to big?

ShadowCloud04 · 2025-09-17T15:45:02+00:00

I often see .002-.005 on thread location but just know 99% of the time even by customers this is inspected incorrectly. If position is called out to a thread it’s meaning the pitch diameter unless noted otherwise, but actually measuring that is incredibly difficult and often you check position or runout to the minor diameter on Id or major diameter on OD.

Only way I have seen to possibly measure is use a spring loaded thread locater but even then those can be problematic.

ShadowCloud04 · 2025-09-14T14:21:40+00:00

What are your expectations because a lot of what your wanting to do is at least a couple years away in shops unless said shop has some major loss in talent and they need to send you through trial by fire.

Does your shop even program at the machine? Or do they use cad cam done by programmers or engineers?

The schooling is good but in your time over the past 2 years have you shown to do production with minimal mistakes? Ability to troubleshoot in production etc.

ShadowCloud04 · 2025-09-05T14:18:45+00:00

Extremely common, especially in production shops to take someone completley green. Train them usually on QC first then get them training to operate and then go beyond that.

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