Category: Custom Metal Enclosures Guide

Choosing the right partner for fabricating your custom metal enclosures, selecting your metal fabricator, and understanding the full cost of your project are all covered in our blog, It’s everything you need to know for assuring your custom metal enclosures are manufactured exactly as you want them. At Highland Machine, our team creates custom metal enclosures for your product line, built to your exact specifications.

In addition to metal fabrication, we offer design engineering services, plus full or partial assembly, powder coating and custom finishing, plus we can manage your inventory. We’ll take your custom metal enclosures from start to finish and complete the entire process in house to reduce the time required for completion and to optimize your costs.

Read the blog posts below to understand Highland Machine’s capabilities and see how to get started with your custom metal enclosure project. Then reach out to our team to see exactly how we can help. If you have any questions about our process or capabilities, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Benefits of a Sheet Metal Fabrication Partner

Posted on December 21, 2020January 19, 2021 by Bill Sullivan

When it comes to sheet metal fabrication, there are two ways you can purchase your products. You can work with a fabricator that just fulfills orders and works for you, or you can invest in a sheet metal fabrication partner that has your best interest in mind.

While it may be tempting to select the first company to provide a reasonable quote to supply your product, it’s important to consider the long-terms benefits of identifying the right partner.

Cost-Savings Opportunities

One of the biggest benefits are the cost-savings opportunities they may be able to identify.

By working with a partner instead of a one-off supplier, you have a direct line of communication to your fabrication team. This peer-to-peer communication allows them to identify long-term savings, such as:

Price reductions on high-volume, recurring orders
Identifying design adjustments that can reduce costs
Determining additional services to value-add that can result in overarching savings, such as powder coating or assembly
Freight reductions for recurring orders through consolidated shipping

Over time, these savings add up and can result in huge long-term benefits.

Upfront Solutions

Having a partner that understands your company’s needs also allows them to identify potential problems before they happen and proactively provide solutions.

For example, a dedicated fabrication partner would know your typical order schedule. If they anticipate that their team will have a large order coming in from another customer, they can proactively adjust your order schedule. For instance, they may move up your order production to ensure your delivery schedule isn’t impacted.

A fabricator that isn’t invested in the partnership wouldn’t know of this need, which may result in a delayed shipment.

Advanced Technical Knowledge

It’s important to work with a team that speaks your language.

Having a sheet metal fabrication partner ensures that you have dedicated production managers and engineers that understand the technical intricacies and abbreviations in your drawings.

This mutual understanding ensures that your custom parts and components are fabricated to your exact needs the first time. Plus, it helps keep your product development on schedule by eliminating back and forth conversations to verify product specifications.

In addition to helping understand what’s on your drawings, the right fabrication partner will understand the technical requirements of your products beyond what’s written on the drawing. This allows them to identify the cost-savings opportunities and provide proactive solutions shared above.

Working With You, Not For You

Overall, the benefits of working with a partner ladder back up to one key benefit: having a partner that serves as an extension of your team.

By trusting in a partner that works with you, not for you, you gain access to a team of fabrication specialists that have your company’s best interest top-of-mind. This means that they put your interests first, finding cost-saving, timeline-reducing solutions that help improve your bottom line. Plus, the right partner will have a commitment to delivering a quality product, which typically includes an ISO 9001:2015 certification.

Find the Right Sheet Metal Fabrication Partner for Your Company

Once you’ve been working with a sheet metal fabricator for a while, it’s important to make sure that they’re serving as a reliable partner to your team.

If you are looking for a dedicated fabrication partner, we know a team that would be happy to help.

Vetting Local Sheet Metal Fabricators

Posted on December 4, 2020November 1, 2023 by Bill Sullivan

When working with a sheet metal fabricator, you’re not just hiring a company – you should be choosing a collaborative partner. To ensure a successful product, it’s important to continually evaluate the relationship over time and determine if your sheet metal fabricator’s capabilities meet the needs of your product.

There are a few key things to consider when vetting your sheet metal fabricator. We’re breaking down six considerations to help you evaluate your partnership.

Work History

One of the main things to consider when evaluating your current sheet metal fabricator is looking at your overall work history.

Some questions you may ask yourself are:

Have they continued to deliver products on time?
Have they created a consistently high-quality product?
Have they anticipated your needs and been a proactive partner?

When doing this, take the entirety of the partnership into account and any improvements (or regressions) over time. For example, if you’ve worked with a fabrication partner for five years and in the last two years they haven’t maintained their quality, it may be a sign it’s time to find a new partner.

Capabilities

Often, professional sheet metal fabricators will have additional services beyond sheet metal fabrication. These added capabilities can save costs and reduce delivery timelines by not shipping products to multiple manufacturers.

Consider if your current partner offers:

By working with a company that provides a full range of services from engineering through inventory management, you gain a partner who can help oversee all aspects of your work, identify additional cost-savings, and have your product completed under one roof.

If you haven’t discussed your fabricator’s value-added services previously, it’s important to get the conversation started.

Availability

In addition to ensuring your fabricator has a wide range of capabilities and has been a reliable partner, keep in mind their upcoming availability. If they will not be able to fabricate a new product for you or cannot keep up with a new high-volume order, it might be time to bring in a second fabricator to assist with overflow.

It’s also beneficial to see if your fabricator offers inventory management and just-in-time delivery. By having additional product available for last-minute orders, you’ll not only have product ready right when you need it, but you may also benefit from price breaks for fabricating higher-volume orders.

Up-To-Date Certifications

When you first started working with your sheet metal fabrication partner, you likely inquired about an ISO 9001:2015 certification.

While this is a large consideration when initially selecting a fabricator, it should be an ongoing consideration. Every year your sheet metal fabricator must be reassessed by their certifying body to maintain this certification. If your fabricator has not maintained their ISO 9001:2015 certification, it may be a sign that they have not maintained their quality standards.

Pricing

Pricing is also something that may change over time. If your fabricator’s costs have significantly increased and you can no longer develop a cost-effective product with them, it may be time to look for some alternate quotes from additional companies. While you may find that your fabricator’s costs are still competitive, you may find a similar quality item for a significantly lower cost elsewhere.

Supply Chain

Do you know where your local sheet metal fabricators source their materials?

A fabricator’s supply chain can have a long impact on pricing and availability, so it’s crucial to know where they source their products and what implications it may have. Working with a partner that sources materials locally, such as Highland Machine, can help ensure that your lead times are not impacted by international shipping delays and trade requirements.

Evaluate Your Partnership

The six considerations above can help you vet if you’re working with the right sheet metal fabrication partner for your company.

If your partner is reliable, cost-effective, maintains their commitments to quality, and offers the services you need, then the health of your partnership is intact, and it makes sense to continue working with them.

However, if they are failing to deliver on the considerations above, it might be time to look for an alternate sheet metal fabricator. If you’re looking for a local sheet metal fabricator with a wide range of services and a commitment to quality, contact Highland Machine today. We’d be happy to offer a free quote and discuss partnering with you.

The Real Cost of Custom Enclosures

Posted on September 29, 2020September 29, 2020 by Bill Sullivan

When looking into the cost of working with a new manufacturing partner, it’s easy to focus on your proposal’s total product cost. But just because one manufacturer’s price looks less expensive doesn’t mean it will be in the end. It’s necessary to break down all the considerations for the cost of your custom enclosures and components to ensure you know the true cost of your investment.

Fabrication Considerations

When ordering multi-component products, you can either have everything built and assembled under one roof, or multiple-sourced parts can be assembled at your facilities.

While the under-one-roof option might appear more costly, the individual components can quickly add up – and in some cases, cost more.

Imagine you’re looking to produce custom enclosures made of a cabinet, door, gasket, and locking latch. You can go about this in two ways.

Fully-Assembled Custom Enclosures vs. Multiple Components

Consider this example: Ordering a complete, ready-to-ship product or separate components requiring in-house finishing and assembly.

An end-to-end fabrication partner like Highland Machine can help deliver this from start to finish with just a few steps.

Scenario 1 – Highland Machine quotes $100 per assembled cabinet

A purchase order is issued for 100 fully-assembled cabinets
Highland Machine fabricates, powder coats, and assembles all components, including items not manufactured in-house (e.g., gasket, plexiglass window, keyed latch, etc.)
Highland Machine ships the fully assembled cabinets to your company
You receive all the components in the designated lead time and process the receiving record
You receive and process the invoice
You issue payment

By ordering through an end-to-end manufacturer, you save on freight costs, reduce lead times from shipping components between vendors, and your team only processes paperwork for one vendor.

Scenario 2 – Three separate vendors quote a total cost of $75 per cabinet

A purchase order is issued to Vendor A for 100 cabinets
A purchase order is issued to Vendor B for 100 doors
A purchase order is issued to Vendor C for 100 gaskets and latches
Vendor A fabricates the cabinets and ships to your facility
You process a receiving record for Vendor A
Vendor B fabricates the doors and ships to your facility
You process a receiving record for Vendor B
Vendor C fabricates the gaskets and latches and ships to your facility
You process a receiving record for Vendor C
The cabinets and doors require powder coating, so you issue a purchase order to Vendor D for powder coating
You repackage and ship the doors and cabinets to vendor D
You process a receiving record for Vendor D
You receive and process the invoice from Vendor A
You receive and process the invoice from Vendor B
You receive and process the invoice from Vendor C
You receive and process the invoice from Vendor D
You issue payment to Vendor A
You issue payment to Vendor B
You issue payment to Vendor C
You issue payment to Vendor D
You assemble the powder-coated components

Is it still less expensive?

In scenario 2, you processed four purchase orders instead of one, received five freight bills versus one, and processed four receiving records, received four invoices, and processed four payments, not one.

Again, did you save anything based on the quoted price alone?

In addition to the extra freight costs and transit times, the multi-source option requires more effort from your team – additional paperwork, additional coordination of vendors, and assembly of the final product – each of which is a cost consideration. Now your $75 quote per cabinet can cost well above $100 per unit.

Quality Considerations

While cost is a large factor in any purchase, it’s also essential to consider the quality implications of using multiple vendors. The more vendors involved, the more room for error.

By working with one ISO 9001:2015 certified partner, you have one accountable source for your quality products.

The All-in-One Choice for Custom Enclosures

Though it might look most cost-effective at first glance to use multiple vendors, consider the implications. By using one trusted partner for your fabrication, powder coating, assembly, and inventory management, you can reduce costs and lead times while ensuring a high-quality product. If you’re looking for a partner that can do it all, look no further. We’d be happy to provide a free quote for your custom enclosures or components.