Manufacturing
Metalwork and contract machining
Many small orders, drawings that change, and customers asking for certificates months later.
A machining or fabrication shop lives on many small orders. The documentary problem is not volume: it is that each order carries a drawing at a specific revision, a material with its certificate and sometimes an outsourced treatment, and all of it disappears as soon as the part ships.
The three failures that cost money
| Failure | How it happens | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Making to the previous revision | The customer emails a new revision | The whole run to be redone |
| Being unable to provide the certificate | It is asked for six months later | Payment withheld or the customer lost |
| Losing the outsourced treatment record | A third party does it and their paper stays there | The assembly ends up unevidenced |
Important
The first is the costliest and the most avoidable. If the current drawing lives in the order's file rather than in the inbox of whoever received it, nobody can make to a superseded revision without it being visible.
How to organise it
- 1
The order is the file
Drawing with its revision, material, treatments and inspections, all inside.
- 2
Each new revision visibly supersedes the last
The old one is not deleted: it is marked. It tells you what was made and to what.
- 3
The certificate arrives with the material
That day. Hunting for it six months later is why it never turns up.
- 4
And outsourced treatment returns with its document
If only the part comes back, the set is incomplete and nobody notices until it is requested.
Watch out
The blind spot is the sales inbox. Drawings and revisions usually land there, and if that person is on holiday the shop works from whatever was last passed on. It is the origin of failure number one.
What demanding customers ask for
When that is answered in minutes, you become the easy supplier. When it takes a week, you are the supplier who has to be chased — and that weighs in the next award.
Worth knowing
The same approach suits fabrication, structural steel, laser cutting and processing generally: the unit is the order, and traceability runs from material to delivered part.
›What if the customer never asks for certificates?
Keep them anyway: they ask exactly when there is a problem.
›Is it needed for one-off parts?
The drawing always. The rest, depending on customer and material.
›How do we avoid making to an old revision?
Have the shop look at the file, not a forwarded email or an undated printout.
A real case
The situation
A shop makes a run to the previous revision of a drawing received by email.
What you do
- Moves to keeping the current drawing in the order's file
- Marks earlier revisions instead of deleting them
What you get
The shop looks in one place only and can prove which revision each run was made to.
The situation
The drawing comes from the client and there are several versions.
What you do
- Records which version each batch was made to
What you get
You know what was made to which drawing.
The situation
The client supplies the material and it is not recorded.
What you do
- Records intakes and consumption per client
What you get
You answer when they ask.
The situation
A client asks for a part's material certificate.
What you do
- Ties the part to the consignment received
What you get
The certificate is located without searching.
The situation
The drawing changes midway through a run.
What you do
- Records from which unit it applies
What you get
You can say what each one carried.
The situation
Material is left over and there is a dispute over whose it is.
What you do
- Agrees in writing what happens to leftovers
What you get
The conversation is settled by the agreement.
This article answers
- drawing revision control in a workshop
- material certificates for customers
- machining traceability
- orders with different drawing revisions