60 minutes CNC processing: fast and reliable

A 60-minute job is not one operation on one machine. The clock starts when the drawing, model and material are clear, and it covers CAM programming, workholding setup, the first machining pass and a first-article check against the drawing. If the part needs a second operation on the back side, we count the door-to-door time with the part mounted, not the spindle time alone.

The window works because the shop is already running. We hold 127 high-precision CNC machines across three wholly-owned plants and 7,600 m² of floor space, so a hot job does not wait for a machine to free up. Cutting tools, soft jaws and standard stock sizes are on the shelf. The 16 simultaneous 5-axis machining centers take parts that would otherwise need three or four separate setups.

Most parts that hit the hour are small to medium. Think a bracket, a manifold block, a housing, a heat-sink plate, a jig plate. They fit inside a 500 × 500 × 450 mm travel envelope or the compact 500 × 310 × 200 mm envelope, and they have ordinary aspect ratios. Nothing about them is exotic. They are simply needed now.

If your drawing needs a mirror finish on a deep cavity, a 10:1 bored hole, or a fixture built from scratch, it will not finish in 60 minutes. That is not a failure of the process. It is the physics of material removal. We would rather tell you on the quote than after the cut.

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  In the hourCAM program, setup, first machining pass, first-article check
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  Not in the hourDeep mirror polishing, custom hard fixtures, exotic stock orders
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  Typical size500 × 500 × 450 mm or smaller, ordinary aspect ratio

The best candidates are functional prototypes and replacement parts in aluminium, mild steel, brass and common plastics. A 6061-T6 sensor housing with pockets, tapped holes and a flat mating face is a clean fit. So is a 303 stainless shaft with a shoulder and a keyway, or a POM guide block with a few profiles on two sides. These parts share traits: modest depth of cut, generous tool access, and tolerances that a good machine holds without babysitting.

Parts drop out of the window for predictable reasons. Long slender parts deflect, so we slow the feed and take more passes. Hardened tool steel and Inconel wear tools quickly, which forces more tool changes. Titanium and magnesium need specific cooling and chip control. A part with a 0.5 mm floor or a 0.4 mm wall cannot be roughed hard, and finishing passes have to be gentle. Add any two of these and an hour becomes a day.

Five-axis capability widens the list more than people expect. Undercuts, compound angles, organic shapes and features on five faces can be cut in one setup, which removes re-fixturing time and the alignment error that comes with it. That is often where the hour is saved, not in the spindle speed.

We also look at quantity. One part in an hour is realistic. Fifty parts in an hour is not, unless the cycle time is under a minute and the stock is cut to length. For small runs we still quote fast, but the lead time follows the cycle time.

Programming is the first place time gets lost. We keep a library of tool assemblies, holder gauges and post-processors, so CAM does not start from zero. For a family of parts, the second program is mostly a geometry swap. Tool paths are checked for holder collision in the software before the part ever reaches the machine.

Setup is the second. Soft jaws are pre-cut for common stock sizes, and the 5-axis centers let us reach five faces from one datum, which kills the second and third setup. On the compact machines we use a Ø400 mm rotary table when a part needs indexing. Fixture design is where we push back hardest on the clock, because a rush fixture that flexes will not hold ±0.005 mm.

Inspection runs alongside the cut, not after it. Tool probes check critical features in process and compensate for wear. The final check covers the dimensions and GD&T you marked on the drawing, and we can supply reports on request. Every part gets inspected before shipment, not a sample of the batch.

Speed does not lower the tolerance. We hold ±0.005 mm (±0.0002 in) where the drawing calls for it, and as-machined surfaces land at Ra 1.6–3.2 μm, with Ra 0.8–1.6 μm available when the print asks for a finer finish.

A fast part that is wrong is slower than a slow part that is right. That is the rule the hour has to live under. We hold ISO 9001:2015, IATF 16949:2016, ISO 13485:2016 and ISO 27001:2022, and the inspection steps those systems require do not get skipped on rush work. Raw material is checked on arrival, dimensions are monitored during the cut, and the final inspection happens before the box is closed.

Our historical late-delivery probability is below 2%, which matters more than a headline turnaround. If a job is going to run long, the useful thing is to know early. The quote and the free DFM analysis come back within 12 hours, and production can start within 24 hours of approval. Standard parts ship in 3–5 days.

Confidentiality is part of reliability for many of our customers. Uploads are secure and confidential, and we sign an NDA on request. That applies to rush jobs too. A drawing sent at night does not become public in the morning.

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  In-process probingTool wear compensated while the part is still in the vise
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  100% inspectionEvery part checked before shipment, reports on request
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  NDA on requestUploads stay confidential, including rush work