CNC Industries: Your Precision Aerospace Machining Partner

At CNC Industries, we have spent many years becoming a premier CNC Machine Shop with a focus on aerospace machining and defense component parts.  Because of the extremely critical nature of Aerospace machining and Defense components, they require a very high level of attention to detail.  CNC Industries is a unique precision machine shop in many ways and we will explain on this page the attributes which highlight our competitive advantages over our competition.

At our core we are focused on precision CNC and aerospace machining. We have dozens of precision high speed CNC milling and CNC turning machines capable of holding extremely tight (.0001″) tolerances. All of our equipment, including our custom designed fixtures, is engineered for high speed machining. We have many dual pallet machines which enable our machines to run non-stop even while the next part is being loaded into the fixtures. All of our business and production processes are focused on increasing throughput to ensure on-time deliveries and competitive prices while maintaining the highest level of quality possible.

In addition to our aerospace machining services, CNC Industries has an assembly department focused on common aerospace mechanical assemblies. With our aerospace parts we typically assemble helical inserts, o-rings, mating manufactured components, dowel pins, spring pins, snap rings, etc. We also have the ability to meet any part marking or identification requirements specified by our customers. Our engineering department is fully involved with the assembly department. Not only do they create fixtures to make assembly operations more efficient, they also design them to be mistake-proof from start to finish.

Our primary focus of machining is high grade aluminum. Although approximately 90% of the parts that CNC Industries manufactures are made from aluminum, we have the experience and engineering capability to handle most materials.  With our expertise in aluminum, we have been able to competitively produce components that have proven too difficult or too expensive for many of our competitors to manufacture. It is very common for our customers to comment that we have simultaneously increased quality and lowered costs.

CNC Industries has experience in machining both small prototype batches as well as full production batches of hundreds of thousands of components. Our largest aerospace machining customers tend to order a high mix of low volume machined parts. We have become experts in quick setups and quick turn-around of new components. Job Manager II, our second generation ERP system, allows us to determine the optimum batch sizes and part production order to handle the large variety of production parts that we receive from the aerospace industry.

We are happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding our equipment or capabilities.  Please see our contacts page.

At CNC Industries we regard information management as one of the most critical components to success in the aerospace machining field. It is no longer acceptable, or in many cases even possible, to run a successful precision machine shop without having sophisticated information management techniques. CNC Industries has focused on information management from the beginning of our company.

Our main advantage in information management is our custom written ERP system — Job Manager II. Job Manager is a real-time ERP/MRP system. With Job Manager II whenever we make an update to any individual piece of information it is instantaneously updated throughout our entire facility. Before designing our own ERP system, we examined all of the off-the-shelf ERP systems. In each case, we found severe deficiencies for our purposes. With Job Manager II we are able to update and tailor our system as our requirements change. As we have upgraded our operations from ISO 9001 to AS 9100 we have been able to fully integrate all of the different processes into our Job Manager II System.

Included within Job Manager II is our Doc Manager System. Doc Manager tracks all pertinent documents, keeps a version history, and updates all references to the documents in real time, just like our ERP system.  Oftentimes we will receive a change request shortly before we start production — sometimes even mid-process.  With the old way of doing business, and one that many machine shops still use, we would have had to track down every printed document related to the process or part that is affected.  There is a great danger when using a paper based system that obsolete documents may persist in the system and adversely affect processes. With Job Manager II and Doc Manager we have been able to completely remove that danger from our operations. In fact on several occasions we have discovered discrepancies in our customers’ documentation before they noticed the discrepancies themselves.

Our information systems allow us to integrate our software efficiently with our customers’ and our suppliers’ systems.  We are able to create custom reports, data links, charts, based on their data, our data, or a combination of both to accommodate our customers’ needs. Our analysis techniques allow our customers to quickly visualize the important information about their parts.  We regularly create new reports to show new or different information upon request from our customers.

We pride ourselves in our use of technology for advanced information management.  We promise you, our Customer, that we will maintain our systems to the absolute latest technology and that we will ensure information flow is quick, easy, accurate, and dependable.  You can depend on us to efficiently answer your questions about deliveries, job status, or any other concerns that you may have.

With all of the complexities of aerospace machined parts, good quality control is essential. CNC Industries has state-of-the-art inspection equipment and experienced quality control inspectors.  This enables us to ensure that we are able to provide 100% quality parts to our customers.  Using customer supplied CAD models to automate the CMM process we not only speed up the inspection process, we also insure the highest level of quality control. All measuring tools throughout the facility are calibrated in compliance to ISO 9001, AS 9100 and MIL-Q-9858A standards on a regular schedule. To handle the high volume of inspection we have two complete inspection rooms.

All of our machine operators are trained in inspection and are able to complete their own in-process inspections.  Our Quality Control department is then able to verify the findings as well as perform AS 9102 First Article Inspections, and final lot inspections.  Our aerospace customers frequently do not perform inspection on incoming parts. Because of that we must be extremely vigilant in our inspection to ensure that all parts are 100% in conformance.  To date CNC Industries has not lost a single customer to quality issues, whether in the aerospace industry or in any other industry.

CNC Industries is a firm believer in standards. From the beginning of the company we have operated in compliance to ISO standards.  In 2002 we were officially certified to ISO 9001:2000 – in a single audit with no major findings. Since 2002 we have been reassessed each year, again with no major findings each year. Since 2007 we have been performing AS 9102 first article inspections.  Now in 2010 we have been certified to ISO 9001:2008 and AS 9100.  Through our ERP system we are able to create reports for any standard that we currently follow as well as any that our customers may desire in future.

In dealing with aerospace machining we deal with numerous parts that have multiple standards and requirements that we must adhere to.  MIL-SPEC , ISO 9001, AS 9100 and other various industry standards are kept on file in our doc manager system.  We are very accustomed to controlling multiple specifications and standards for each part that we manufacture.  Additional purchase order requirements are easily handled and maintained as well. We have security-enabled document management for each of our customers to safeguard confidential information whenever needed.

While we specialize in the machining and assembly of parts, it is important to be able to handle all requirements of the parts we supply.  For the chemical processes, which we do not handle in-house, we have a variety of NADCAP certified subcontractors that also focus on aerospace parts.  Through our subcontractors we can handle painting, nickel plating, anodizing, iridite, black oxide, chromate conversion, chem filming, passivation, pressure testing, fluorescent penetrant inspection, and other processes. As a full-service supplier, we stand behind all of our subcontractors and are capable of handling inspection for all of their processes.

CNC Industries has a customer service oriented business philosophy. We firmly believe that we need to go beyond the norm in satisfying our customers.  Of course quality, delivery, and price are the key components to a satisfactory relationship between CNC Industries and our customers.  However, we have many additional services which add to our customers’ satisfaction.

Our advanced information management capabilities allow us to provide long term stocking arrangements.  In many cases we hold the inventory for our aerospace customers and allow them to draw from our inventory rather than maintain their own inventory.  We use various just-in-time production techniques to keep up with our customers’ assembly demands.  For one of our customers we deliver parts on an demand-flow basis directly to the assembly line.. In addition we are able to build to an annual forecast, rather than directly to individual purchase orders. Machining the parts to an annual forecast, while we also maintain the inventory, combines to save our customers considerable cost and time.

CNC Industries has the ability to handle many different methods of receiving orders.  We have multiple electronic systems, such as Exostar which many aerospace companies use, through which we receive new orders. We also have many customers who send electronic triggers through email to indicate additional requirements.

Some other value added services are more transparent to our customers but are still important. Our standard practice of handling machined parts within our facility is to create unique totes and tubs to protect the parts throughout the entire manufacturing process.  We have strict maintenance policies and keep our facilities climate controlled, clean, and well lit.  One traditional view of machine shops is that they are dingy, dirty and dangerous to walk around in. When coming to CNC Industries, we expect that you will immediately notice the difference in the care we take in maintaining our facility. Visitors frequently tell us that our facility is the cleanest and most advanced manufacturing facility that they have seen.