Quote:
Originally Posted by Mk.32
Also a big part of it is designing for what you mean. Teams that have only laser/water jet do a lot of a sheet metal, teams that have cnc do milled box/billet, teams that don't have any cnc design for manual milling only. (very generalized) So being able to design for what you have a is a big key, getting some copies of solid works or inventor and then training would probably be something to do first...
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Quoted for truth.
Mark is 100% right. Having tools is one thing but being prepared to design to utilize those tools effectively is something all on its own.
Before you shell out hundreds to thousands of dollars on in house machining equipment, I would make sure that your team is can design to utilize that equipment. It would be sort of pointless to get a Haas CNC but end up only using a few times a year for jobs that could just as easily have been done with a hand drill.
Additionally, at least on my team, finding manufacturing sponsors (CNC Laser and 5-Axis CNC Brake in our case) that can make parts for the team is often more useful than just getting low-end machine tools in house.