You’re probably reading this on a computer. Thank a machinist. Without precision machine tools and the people who operate them, your computer, desk, office chair, the cars in the car park and the building around you wouldn’t exist. In fact, machining makes every aspect of modern life possible, from the food in your refrigerator to the clothes on your back. It has been that way since the discovery and subsequent refinement of metals such as copper and iron.
Granted, machining is a subset of a much broader manufacturing industry, but it’s important to recognise that sheet metal fabricating, injection moulding, casting, semiconductor fabrication, and all the rest would never have developed without machined parts.
Even that new kid on the manufacturing block, 3D printing, relies on and indeed owes its very existence to machining, despite the fact that additive manufacturing is changing the way we design and build many products. Long story short, machining is here to stay, and it gets a little bit better, faster, and more accurate every day.
Touring the Machine Shop
Most of what you will read on these pages refers to highly automated machining services provided by digital manufacturers such as Protolabs. These technology-enabled manufacturers are dramatically different from traditional machine shops….
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