You often hear about entrepreneurs who stumble upon a great product or service that nobody else is taking advantage of and go on to become wildly successful. It doesn’t happen to everybody, but it does happen. What you don’t hear about is all of the work it takes on the back end to make that kind of thing happen, especially if your product is more than just your homemade pies.
Manufacturing entrepreneurs have a much tougher problem on their hands. They have the initial prototype of a part that has been mish-mashed together to create the ideal piece, but when it comes to mass production of it, the pieces may require using several different materials of different shapes and sizes. For manufacturers, this can be extremely expensive because you may need different machinery for each material or each part size. Startups just don?t have this kind of money.
Fortunately, technological advancement has created a boon for manufacturing entrepreneurs. Prior to the digital age of computers and CAD technology, manufacturers would have to make a lot of manual settings to molds and drills and saws, which would take a long amount of time. With CNC machines, manufacturing systems can take precise specifications from computer programs, files, and settings in order to create exact replicas of parts for mass distribution. They no longer have to worry about the natural wear of the processes throwing things out of alignment. The benefit of CNC machining is that parts and pieces are created with greater accuracy and much faster than they otherwise would be. Entrepreneurs don’t have to wait around for inventory. The speed of the process also means that entrepreneurs can better respond to last-minute orders from their customers.
Many CNC machines employ complex cutting technology, able to slice, bore, and mold a variety of materials. One of the most effective types of cutting technology is waterjet cutting. Waterjet cutting shoots a jet of water along with an abrasive material to be able to cut through material that would otherwise be difficult to work with using typical high-temperature cutting methods. This, in many ways, is a big improvement over typical heat cutting methods, because heat often acts to damage the structural integrity of the material while it cuts, thus leaving the finished product more unstable.
For entrepreneurs looking to create pieces in large quantity, there are no better options than contracting for a CNC machine that employs waterjet cutting. While these machines aren’t usually affordable for the typical manufacturer, CNC machine shops can be contracted to use these technologies at a reasonable cost. This saves a lot of time and money for the entrepreneurial manufacturer.
Jordan Mcpelt is a professional author who specializes in waterjet cutting and CNC machining.