Need New Manufacturing Contacts

[ajlapp]

221 Robotic Systems LLC. is in need of new manufacturing companies to work with.

All of our products are designed, manufactured and assembled in the United States. In the past we have sourced our component manufacturing to local companies or manufactured in-house.

Now we're looking to expand and we need access to more specialty suppliers to help us keep costs low and innovation high.

Specifically we like to work with small shops. Many of our current suppliers are one man operations...a man in a garage with a Haas Mill wedged in between his Christmas decorations! These are our kind of people.

If you are one of these people or you know a great small shop that is interested in doing manual and CNC machining with a healthy dose of development work, midnight phone calls and on the fly "how do we make this for cheap?" machine shop engineering, please pass along their contact info.

Thanks in advance for helping us stay within the FIRST family.

[AdamHeard]

221 Robotic Systems LLC. is in need of new manufacturing companies to work with.

All of our products are designed, manufactured and assembled in the United States. In the past we have sourced our component manufacturing to local companies or manufactured in-house.

Now we're looking to expand and we need access to more specialty suppliers to help us keep costs low and innovation high.

Specifically we like to work with small shops. Many of our current suppliers are one man operations...a man in a garage with a Haas Mill wedged in between his Christmas decorations! These are our kind of people.

If you are one of these people or you know a great small shop that is interested in doing manual and CNC machining with a healthy dose of development work, midnight phone calls and on the fly "how do we make this for cheap?" machine shop engineering, please pass along their contact info.

Thanks in advance for helping us stay within the FIRST family.

This describes the majority of our shops (Well, less garage and more small building), but they're all out in California obviously. Still interested?

[Andrew Lawrence]

I agree with Adam. California is the best place do do something like that, especially here in the Silicon Valley! If you make a new 221 location is Silicon Valley, you'd get a lot more interested people!

[AdamHeard]

I agree with Adam. California is the best place do do something like that, especially here in the Silicon Valley! If you make a new 221 location is Silicon Valley, you'd get a lot more interested people!

I think he's looking for jobshops to make parts and ship them to 221 directly, rather than open up a new "facility".

[ajlapp]

I think he's looking for jobshops to make parts and ship them to 221 directly, rather than open up a new "facility".

Exactly. We need new shops to help us manufacture our products.

These small specialty shops can be hard to come by because they don't usually have an internet presence.

We are able to keep our prices low by leveraging smaller shops with less overhead....we don't currently have the luxury of ordering large quantities.

Plus we need personal relationships. New product development might entail tolerancing studies, fixture designs or creativity in the manufacturing techniques. We like to use that personal relationship to make the products better in every aspect.

As long as the shop is in the US we're interested to meet them.

[Andrew Lawrence]

Then I'll introduce the idea as my own! You should open up a facility in the Silicon Valley!

[Andrew Lawrence]

I researched small shops in San Jose, and this conveniently came up! http://techshop.ws/ts_sanjose.html They have parts, machining, and they are local (to me)! Our team may try using them for some of their machines.

[ajlapp]

Bump.

This thread has yielded a few new contacts so far! Awesome work.

I'm still looking for more. :D

[Brandon Holley]

I have a guy in the Boston area who is exactly what you are looking for. Interested?

-Brando

[ajlapp]

I have a guy in the Boston area who is exactly what you are looking for. Interested?

Yes.

I should have said more explicitly in my earlier post that it doesn't matter where these companies are....

We have no location requirements.

Thanks.

[R.C.]

Yes.

I should have said more explicitly in my earlier post that it doesn't matter where these companies are....

We have no location requirements.

Thanks.

What sorts of stuff are you looking for? Email me when you get a chance, I might have some as I'm looking as well ;)

-RC

[topgun]

Summit Machine in Shoreview MN http://www.summitmachineinc.com/
Oakdale Precision in Oakdale MN http://www.oakdaleprecision.com/
Vista Technologies in Vadnais Heights MN http://www.vistatek.com/

All good, fast and willing to work with anybody.

[JesseK]

Hackerspaces may have some non-FRC contacts, or FRC contacts who aren't on CD this time of year.
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

[Alex Cormier]

I'll PM you the information for the place I work at. It's a small automation build shop that should be able to do this for you with no issues.

[Andrew Remmers]

I have someone who might be interested, but I'll have to talk to him. He machined his own motorcycle from the ground up in his garage BY HAND He used to be a gunsmith so he has a very fine eye for detail. :D

- Andrew

[Akash Rastogi]

If you're looking for someone to do sheetmetal work: www.gpsheetmetal.com

Also check out www.kozakproducts.com

Both are in dirty jerz.

[sanddrag]

It looks like you have several contacts already, but I know a guy here in SoCal with CNC mill (3 and 4 axis), lathe, and router capabilities who does small production runs in off hours. He may also have a live tooling lathe. I'd have to check on that. He has large machines with through-spindle coolant if the need exists. He does everything from parts <1/2" up to full car wheels. PM me if you are interested in having him give you a quote.

There's also RFQWork.com