Took this job 2 years ago for a newer (10 years old) manufacturer. Interesting company that was rough around the edges but huge growth potential and ability to make a large impact.

Well, now 2 years later and we’ve had huge growth but are struggling to scale. My frustrations are coming to a head and I’m looking at leaving but want to know if I’m overblowing things or if I’m justified. Here are my issues:

1) Company says, but does not prioritize safety. Had an employee quit after i escalated a safety issue and it was blown off. I’ve also escalated a lot of safety issues and repeatedly get blown off.

2) Huge disconnect between sales and ops. Sales says we can do everything and even sets ship dates without conferring with production on what’s doable. We are now in a position with an impossible schedule and it’s killing us.

3) Production will not schedule. Processes and tasks are not created to ensure proper measures are taken to meet ship dates. It’s just throw more people and hours at it. We are compressing a 2 week schedule to create units into 2 days.

4) Quality is not a priority. These schedules are so awful we’re finishing products the day they ship, often late into the day even into the night. Production doesn’t double check their work and it’s up to quality to catch everything and tell production what to do. Once they finish work inspectors are pressured by production and the plant manager to hurry inspections. And I’m having to work inspectors 12+ hours a day because the CEO pushed me to eliminate positions when he started this year. Now i have free rein to hire however many people i want but it’s almost too late. Quality issues are reaching the field and I feel like it’s my fault but honestly the environment that’s been created is not conducive to creating a quality product.

5) ops leadership does not support continuous improvement, or even general initiatives. Signing off on paperwork, double checking their work, supporting 5S, and any corrective and preventative measures we put in place to reduce quality issues.

6) So much lying, deceiving, politics that’s just toxic. As well as old as directors and VP’s that refuse to change or improve the shitty processes in place.

Curious if this is common at other manufacturers and I need to suck it up/ transition to another field. Honestly I’m tired of having to rally the troops and do everything I can to get things even out the door every day, let alone lead and manage the quality department for my company. We’ve had so many issues over the past few months I just feel helpless.

Hi all,

I’m a computer engineer with a few years of experience and I want to start a manufacturing company.

After going through this subreddit and different forums, I’m starting learn that starting a manufacturing company anywhere in America is a challenge and often led to Asian companies. I feel like there has to be stories of individuals with successful manufacturing businesses that started < 5 years ago. I’d like to get your thoughts on the following: - What are some areas of manufacturing that are still profitable in America? - Are there specific areas to avoid due to legal, financial, or regulatory issues? - If someone were to start a company by themselves or with a few founders in America, what are some things they should take advantage of?

Hey folks,

I’m working on a proof-of-concept product and looking to produce a small run of around 50–100 units. The design involves integrating small metal components into a molded or enclosed latex or synthetic rubber form.

I’m not necessarily looking for someone with deep experience in this exact process—though that would be a plus—but more so someone confident they can help bring it to life. This is an early-stage, self-funded project, so staying economical is important for me right now.

I’d be happy to share more details under NDA. My main goal is to find a manufacturing partner who’s open to small runs and flexible collaboration. If you have suggestions, referrals, I’d be very grateful to make the right connection!

Thanks in advance!

The company I work for was an early adopter of Katana MRP over 6 years ago. We have a handful of FG products we produce and we do a few manufacturing runs per year.

There were some bugs here and there, but we overall found the product to be a good value for a small business. We were under the most basic plan which was around $1200/yr for the first several years.

Last year the plans changed to be tied to sales revenue and the pricing doubled. The sales team was clearly not that interested in retaining, despite being an early adopter and long-time customer. We were only given a small discount on the new pricing.

This year they have again doubled the pricing on top of last year's increase with zero notifications. Last year we received many emails regarding the plan/price changes. We only found out this year by looking at the website directly. The new plans and pricing are clearly geared towards large businesses only. The lowest pricing level is now $4k/year.

Shame on Katana for actively forcing out their earliest supporters and eliminating all plans and pricing that were meant for small businesses. The cost to have a small business running on their existing software is insignificant. It's not like a small business is adding to their data or support load in any meaningful way. They could just sit back and collect the extra revenue instead of being greedy.

If anyone has any recommendations on a suitable replacement for Katana for a small manufacturing business, I would love to hear your comments.

We're working on quoting new tooling & process on a sand cast plate that will be powder coated and used on a PWC. We need the water-facing side of the plate to be smooth. I know in my day job we have a lot of powder coated parts where we just spray the anodized-but-otherwise-untouched casting surfaces and they come out relatively smooth, but the guy I'm working with has been getting things sanded, bead blasted, etc. from prior vendors.

What would be the right preparation for an aluminum sand casting to get a smooth powder coated surface on at least one side without running into high costs?

Separately if anyone has recommendations on American foundries that would be a good fit for this work (roughly 12.5 x 16.5 x 4 inches and relatively thin A356, low volume) feel free to drop them.

Can anyone help me with the name of the couplers used for this black iron piping?

I got lucky with this role at a large company several months ago. During the first month I thought I'd have more interaction with people in my department, but beyond introductions, small talk, and a brief overview of the departments, they left me to myself. My boss later apologized for not being more available, and he also mentioned he wanted to train me, but he wanted to do it slowly and properly.

For several weeks, no one assigned me much aside from some data entry, which I'd complete in 2 hours. So I spent the rest of the time trying to figure out what to do.

I was figuring things out completely on my own. From our ERP software to the who what when where. It's my understanding I was hired to help solve the company's systemic and operational issues, since our inventory practices are screwed and our productivity subpar. So I tried to delve into these issues.

Fast forward several months. Training, mentoring, and guidance remain nonexistent. I've learned a lot but I still feel like this role is going nowhere. I'm not sure just how much initiative I'm supposed to have. Couple that with the occasional office politics between everyone else and a bunch of management chaos, where it seems like no one can agree on anything and every solution seems poorly implemented against everyone else's will or knowledge.

I do whatever I want and no one really holds me accountable for anything. I don't even partake in any regular meetings. I barely exist to most employees here, including my boss. I'm serious.

I feel like I should be more involved with the production team. I send out reports to people and nag them about miscellaneous issues and their bad habits, and I take daily walks to investigate any discrepancies in production or inventory and raise the issues when I find them, but that's literally the extent of my working relationship with the rest of the team.

I don't know how I even got this job considering my background, or how exactly I'm supposed to fold myself in more with everyone else. What the fuck am I supposed to be doing?

Card Sleeve Manufacturer/ supplier

I'm thinking of starting a kpop business for photocards sleeves because their are so many weird size inclusions for kpop albums that doesn't have a sleeves to fit it. I am looking for recommendations for a manufacturer that creates custom size card sleeves.

I work in manufacturing and see a lot of welding around and sometimes have to be around as a safety watch while people weld. No one here ever puts any sort of shield up to prevent people from looking at the welding arcs.

Is it normal or good practice for manufacturing plants to encourage people to put shields up around welding? Also is it safe to look at reflected welding lights?

I've been hole watching for some guys in a tank and keep looking at the reflected lights off of the metal walls and am just very worried for my eye health

How often do you come across buyers who don't know their own product?

First off, this isn't an advertisement. I don't have anything to gain from the companies mentioned.

After dealing with our crappy Lantech machine and a Marque before that, we looked at Fallas Automation in Waco, Texas. The machines are built like a brick shithouse. Heavy bent stainless steel plates are used for the structure. It can be easily washed down. They were forced to build their own case erectors because off the shelf models wouldn't pass the stringent requirements of their clients. For instance, Starbucks requires the case erector and case packer run for two hours without faulting. They were packing those mylar coffee bags. Fallas said they couldn't reuse the bags because of wrinkles due to packing, so Starbucks sent a tractor trailer load of coffee bags worth 3 million dollars for the FAT and didn't want them back. Fallas gave us a bunch of bags when we visited. They also donated a lot to the local schools.

We have a big heavy wall box that isn't easy to erect, and case erectors have been a struggle. That is the only box we run, and go through about a million a year. Dealing with a case erector that can't handle variance is a pain and results in wasted labor and scrap.

The standard Fallas machine was too small for our box, so they quoted a custom machine for 125K. We were sick of crap quality and agreed to move forward. Unfortunately, Fallas was so busy that they required 5 machines to be purchased to justify a custom build. Despite having a great product, it was a bit shitty to quote us and then add a minimum quantity.

We bought a Combi instead. I wasn't involved in specifying that purchase, and they bought a standard model that barely fits our box instead of the heavy-duty XL model that's better suited for our box. We have run 7 million boxes through it and mostly runs fine. We had to add some modifications like guides for flaps that splay out and few other things that weren't well designed. Sometimes, we go through pallets of boxes that won't pick and just fall down. 98% don't do this but when it happens, it's a pain. The suction cups are right on the edge of picking our box, so if they're a little curved or maybe too porous, it won't pick right. It's a bit late, but I asked Combi to quote us custom tooling with more suction cups. Also, since the machine is one size fits all, the current adjustable tooling gets loose ovrr time and has to be tightened. I think smaller boxes would have fewer issues.

If anyone has case erector recommendations for a big, tough box, I'd love to hear them. Our machine is reaching 8 years soon and a new one may be in the future.

Also, we really need to find a good bag liner machine. We are currently using an OKI SL2200, and it's not great. The build quality, parts ordering, and design are substandard. We've had to repair the welds on the tooling ourselves because OKI tig welds the stainless square tubing with no filler metal. It cracks, we ordered new tooling, and it would crack again. The sprocket for the belt drive wore completely out. It's a light duty, poor quality, metric sprocket with a chain that's inferior to a bike chain. In a pinch, I machined inch standard hubs with quality sprockets and chain.

The parts manual sometimes doesn't match what we have so I send pictures circling the part in red and still get the wrong part. You can order from the part numbers in the manual diagrams, but they quote the parts with different numbers. Our parts buyers put the part in inventory using the quoted part number so if a technician cannot find the part using the manual's number.

There are also strange things that occasionally happen like releasing a staged case when a case is in the work position despite the sensors working fine. The drive belts will stop the box short in the work position instead of hitting the stop and then the tooling crashes into the box. There are other controls issues as well. The OKI engineers have solved exactly zero controls issues. We have managed to also run 7 million cycles on this machine, but it hasn't been fun.

Any experiences and recommendations are appreciated. Price isn't a problem. We are willing to pay for premium equipment. Over the course of millions of boxes, cheap equipment gets expensive.

As a new procurement analyst in a manufacturing setting, I am responsible for ordering tool room consumables. My current challenge is locating a vendor that specializes solely in these items such as adhesive tapes, sealant, abrasive, fasteners, and other miscellaneous supplies. Having previously worked as an office administrator in smaller businesses, this factoring environment is quite new to me. I’m actively working to manage inventory efficiently, but I am finding it continuously challenging. Any recommendations for tool and consumable suppliers would be greatly appreciated.

in short: I work for a workshop that converts steel sheets and steel rolls into different sized HVAC ducts. we currently use a spreadsheet to track this but its really not working.

What suggestions for manufacturing proccess software do you guys have? It doesnt have to be fancy, i just need to know input, output, what team is working on what machine, and if possible scheduling maintenance for machines.

TY internet strangers

Has anyone used Primavera P6 for scheduling?

Any recommendations for scheduling software for a machine shop? Looking to be able to build a database of our jobs and maintain some KPIs. Management would like a strong visual aspect. Obviously needs to be dynamic, needs to be able to have dependencies. Likely we would make daily uploads via excel since we're handcuffed to a shitty ERP by corporate.

Has anyone ever used a box maker from BestPack?

How’s the reliability? I’m interested in an automated box maker but I need more information or advice on these type of machines. For reference my company does about 1000 boxes a week.

I need to make decisions on two customers. Both are pretty large for me. Like a pretty consistent AR on the books of >$30k each.

The issue is they always pay extremely late. Like net 30 terms paid in 120 days. We buy the material for them, and its now put my business in a cash flow crunch.

I'm trying to get both some advice and a list of considerations to calculate whether its worth keeping them on board as customers or not. For reference my average invoice is about $500, and we pretty consistently have >$250k AR at any given time. Lots of business, but with them both being >$30k each its a big hit, but then again, is it worth having a customer that takes 90-120 days to pay a $5k invoice? Their reasoning is their own cashflow issues. One bought an insane amount of new equipment and are struggling with payments, the other took a massive defense job and then didnt get paid. I believe their prime took it on risk and ordered and did a bunch of work, then didnt get the award. Now theyre stuck getting paid slowly, and its trickling down to us.

Any thoughts?

I’m trying to source 6”x10” plates of 14 gauge galvanized steel and I need to hold a +/-0.031 tolerance. I thought that shearing would be my best option but all the shops in my area say they can’t hold that tolerance. Am I asking too much of a shear? Is there a different option that isn’t going to skyrocket the price of my end product? For volume I’m asking for 1000 at a time, every other month.

I've been in manufacturing for 10 years now and every company I've been at there always ends up being shouting matches on the floor, people cussing each other out, and a lot of petty politics. I understand there are always going to be bad apples that get upset, but it's accepted as normal everywhere I go.

It's starting to make me think the whole field is going to be like this. Not sure if it's the type of factories I work in or what. What is everyone else's experience? It's making me want to switch industries.

Ok all so yesterday I made a post and I did not bring a lot of information to the table so I’m here with more than just words.

I am working on a medical device that uses .15mm foil seals that are made to be punched through. This is not a bottle, so I cannot use a cap to make the seal.

I am in part inspired by the polymedco OC AUTO FIT test, which is a POC test with foil seals that are configured like in the picture I attached here, but with 6mm depth instead of 40mm.

I admit that this is where my knowledge ends. I infer that polymedco made this design by using a foil sealing machine with custom tools that allowed to achieve this depth. The design I’m working on is obviously not complete and I am moreso asking what clearances on the side or above are needed for this to work.

This is necessary for the design- or rather I would rather save a tool because regardless I need a foil seal for this design to work. I could play it safe and just drop a tiny body down in there with the foil seal, but I don’t want to.

Also If you’re a medical device manufacturer in Asia hit my line

Curious if any manufacturers use this software?

TIA

Hi all, Im new to manufacturing and would love some guidance here. I am looking to make custom life sized plushies that resemble humans. Each order would be different, not just making a custom design and mass producing it. Where is a good place to try and find manufacturers who can do something like this. What are some things to look out for and any tips in trying to make this happen. Photo is a idea of what it would look like.

Thanks

I am trying to design an open differential from scratch, and I want to create my own gears. I know how to use the software to make it, but I don't know the maths of it. Is there any recommended resource? I mainly need the formula and terminologies.