Local News & Events | Haas Factory Outlet

Much of what we do in a CNC shop should be aimed at maximizing profit so we can reinvest in the business, reward our people and ourselves. However, profit dollars are only useful when in hand, not just on the books. Because, if the cash isn’t continuously flowing into the business you can’t meet your obligations.

As shop owners we want to get the most out of our assets, especially our employees. People, however, are not as simple as machines. We human beings are complex organisms that require a particular set of management skills. The more effective you are at applying these skills, the more successful you and your employees will be.

When you need a new hire for CNC machining consider recently discharged military veterans. They typically bring superior skills to the job such as maturity, the aptitude to learn machine programming and operations quickly and the ability to think ahead. Their capabilities often include:

Few would argue that we live in stressful times or that manufacturing is anything but a stress-free occupation. Of course, we handle most day-to-day stress in our lives and in the workplace pretty well. At least we think we do.

According to the American Psychological Association over half of U. S. workers surveyed indicate that they feel severely stressed at work and that such stress reduces their effectiveness on the job. So much so that the study estimates that employee stress costs American employers $300 billion each year in lost productivity plus legal and medical costs.

One of the oft-heard complaints from CNC shop owners is the amount of time it takes to train new hires on policies and procedures. Add to this taking your experienced employees away from producing parts to help train the new people, and your costs begin to add-up in a hurry.

The values, drives and personality differences between CNC shop owners/managers from previous generations and Millennial employees (born between 1980 and 2000) are significant. This is not to say that Millennials are better or worse employees, just different. Which means you need to understand some basic characteristics of this generation to maximize their value to your shop.

By nature, CNC machine shop owners tend to be practical people. After all they spend their days making quality parts or products for their customers. They also invest in new technology and competent employees. With a lot of hard work and no small sacrifice they build a successful business, and often hope to bring in their children or other family members as next generation owners.

Training new employees or introducing a new process to existing employees is not a favorite pastime for most CNC shop owners. After all, if the chips aren’t flying…well you know the rest. That’s why it simply makes good sense to document procedures so that training sessions go more smoothly and employees have material to refer to on the job.

Not everyone is cut out to be a CNC machine shop supervisor. You may have learned this the hard way by hiring or promoting someone into a supervisory role only to discover that they simply couldn’t handle the job. Fact is, the talents and skills that make a good machine operator or programmer may not be enough to enable a person to successfully supervise others. Being a supervisor requires the ability to juggle a number of responsibilities while leading, not just managing others.