Five Queries to Consider When Talking With Stainless Manufacturing Companies
If you need stainless steel floor drains for your factory, enclosures or custom stainless products, you need to find a company that focuses in stainless manufacturing. To ensure a manufacturer is right for your needs, you may want to ask a few questions. Consider talking about the following with prospective candidates.
1. What Is Your Engineering Process?
For custom stainless manufacturing, this question is particularly important. Ask the company's representatives how they handle engineering. Ideally, you want an in-house group of engineers who can take your ideas and turn them into the product you need. They should have a project manager to spearhead the efforts and be a point of contact between you and the company as well as a quality assurance manager to overlook the processes as they happen in the manufacturing facility.
2. What Type of Laser Cutting Do You Do?
With stainless manufacturing, you often need laser cutting. This can be faster and more precise than using hand tools or hand-powered machines. You may want to ask pointed questions about the company's quality certifications. For instance, many companies are ISO certified. There are a variety of certifications developed by the International Organization for Standards, and if a company has these certifications, that gives you extra assurance about the quality of its services.
You may also want to talk about the types of metals the company can handle cutting, beyond stainless steel. Additionally, you may want to ensure that they can cut both sheet metal and tubes.
3. What Type of Welding Do You Do?
In some cases, you need stainless steel cut, but in other cases, you may need it welded together. Talk with the company about its welding capabilities. Does the company employ seam and spot welders. Does it offer both TIG and MIG welding? Ideally, you want variety so the manufacturer can meet your needs for the long term.
4. Do You Offer Metal Forming and Rolling? For best results and easy project management, you probably want to select a company that employs fabricators as well as engineers and welders. Make sure the companies you consider have fabricators, and in particular, talk about the company's metal forming and rolling capabilities so you know if they meet your needs.
5. What Finishing Services Do You Offer?
Once the stainless manufacturing company has created your product, they go through a finishing process. Talk with the company about what it offers. For instance, does it do punching and stamping, machining, and painting? Does the company provide special coatings as needed to metal objects? Cover questions like that to ensure these specialists can meet your needs.