Nobody wants to be known as the guy who’s cheap. Yet as manufacturing costs around the globe continue to rise, many businesses are looking for ways to keep costs down—and some of them are getting it all wrong.
One area where shops should never cheap out is their material. Cheap raw material is an oxymoron: it’s cheap in the moment, but you’ll pay in the long run. Let’s dig into why cheap material choices lead to expensive manufacturing failures.
Where Poor Material Quality Costs The Most
Although cheap raw materials may be tempting, the cost of poor material quality compounds the further that they move through production.
Raw Material
In manufacturing precision parts, the root cause of poor quality at any stage can almost always be traced back to the base material in its raw state. Cheap raw material can often hide imperfections that may not be visible to the naked eye, like inclusions, voids, and incorrect ratios of alloying elements.
It’s important to detect these issues as early as possible so that the raw material can be removed from the manufacturing line before significant resources have been poured into it. The losses caused by a raw material failure will naturally be much less than those caused by a failure during a later production stage or finished product.
There are a number of ways to evaluate raw material quality. At Boston Centerless, we specialize in nondestructive testing methods that can detect surface defects, defects below the surface, and alloy composition. All materials that we handle must first pass these quality checks before they can proceed to the grinding area for processing.
Materials sourced from our network of suppliers have a high pass rate, though we can also work with materials provided by our customers. In one case, a customer provided us with a raw material lot for analysis that they had purchased from an unfamiliar source at a lower than usual price point. A shocking 75% of the lot did not pass material testing and validation, and therefore had to be rejected.
Unfortunately, not all mills will accept returns even if their product is found to be faulty. In those cases, all that the purchaser can do is eat the costs and find another supplier. For that reason, it is crucial for manufacturers to select a reputable mill to source their raw materials from, and to become extremely familiar with their quality, return, and refund policies.
In Machining & Assembly
At the processing and assembly stages, raw material quality issues result in not just scrapped items, but also lost labor.
If bars are not processed properly, they can harbor residual stress throughout or at certain points. Although the material may appear to be fine at a glance, that residual stress can cause it to deform over time. In precision applications where straightness is often a key factor, residual stress is an unacceptable defect.
Surface-level defects and alloy composition (if different from what was specified) can often create complications during machining, resulting in excess wear on cutting tools and machinery. That’s not to mention dimensional accuracy, which can be much more difficult to achieve with cheap raw materials.
If a part is found to have a raw material defect during machining, the part must be removed from the machine and evaluated to find out if it is better suited for rework or scrap. All of these steps take time and additional labor—both of which could otherwise be spent creating a defect-free part with high quality material.
In Product Use
The greatest costs of working with poor quality material arise only after a part is complete. Once a part crafted with cheap raw materials makes its way to a customer, there’s no going back.
At best, the part might fail in a non-critical application. From the customer’s perspective, it’s a pain to report the failure, so they may just avoid doing so altogether. But next time somebody asks them for a recommendation, they’ll be sure to tell their colleagues to stay away from the company whose part failed fast. Reputation is hard to recoup, and can keep potential buyers away from your brand.
At worst, failed parts can be responsible for serious harm to both machines and their operators. For instance, if a part under load were to fail due to an unseen void or inclusion, the consequences could be dire. The potential damages, both financial and otherwise, just aren’t worth the risk of using cheap raw materials.
Quality doesn’t have to break the bank. Contact Boston Centerless to explore options and request a quote for ground bar stock and blanks.
How High Quality Material Makes A Difference
The best way to avoid these costs is to recognize that you often get what you pay for. If a price seems too good to be true, it’s unlikely that the material will meet your expectations. By investing in high quality material up front, many businesses can actually save by eliminating the costs of scrap, rework, and additional labor.
Raw Material
Beginning with high quality raw material removes many of the roadblocks that come with using material of a lower quality. High quality materials can reliably pass testing and validation methods, creating a seamless path to the machining stage. This can also help manufacturers save on costs associated with scrapping raw materials, including additional labor.
In Machining & Assembly
Similarly, high quality raw materials can help eliminate costs throughout the entire manufacturing process. Materials that display consistent straightness and dimensional accuracy present much fewer machining challenges. This can not only expedite the machining process (if only by a few seconds per part—which adds up fast) but it can also reduce tool and machine wear for extended use life and fewer maintenance-related pauses.
In Product Use
A product that works safely, reliably, and as intended gives end users the best peace of mind—a feature that you can’t put a price on. When a user comes to know that they can count on your product in those ways, it helps build loyalty and reputation. And which would you rather have: a customer who returns, or one who doesn’t?
Get Quality You Can Count On At Boston Centerless
There’s one product and service provider you can always count on for impeccable quality: Boston Centerless. Over the years we’ve worked diligently to nurture relationships with some of the best mills in the nation, guaranteeing a reliable supply of high quality bar stock. We independently validate material quality ourselves at our in-house testing and validation lab which is Nadcap certified for nondestructive testing. We then process those materials using centerless grinding to achieve tight tolerances and consistency throughout the entire length of each bar that can be tough to replicate at scale with other processing methods.
With additional services including inventory management, laser marking, and more, Boston Centerless provides manufacturers with a trusted source for high quality bars and beyond.
Buy better bar stock through Boston Centerless. We fight to keep costs low and provide the greatest value to our customers without sacrificing quality.
Cheap raw materials often contain defects such as inclusions, voids, or incorrect alloy composition. These issues can lead to part failure, increased scrap rates, and higher long-term production costs.
Low-quality materials can cause excessive tool wear, dimensional inaccuracies, and unexpected deformation due to residual stress. This results in more rework, downtime, and higher labor costs.
