Capacity is bought in big pieces
A machine shop sells hours on equipment. A CNC mill, lathe, laser cutter or press brake produces parts, and the shop's capacity is limited by what is on the floor. Adding capacity usually means buying a machine, which is a large purchase that sits idle until work is booked for it. The shop must be able to afford both the machine and the ramp-up time.
Shops in the Los Angeles area, the Inland Empire and Orange County serve customers in aerospace, medical, industrial and consumer products. Quotes are competitive, and customers often want shorter lead times, which rewards shops with spare capacity and punishes those without it.
What a job costs before it pays
- Raw material. Metal stock, plate or bar is bought for the job, often by weight.
- Programming and setup. Labor spent before the first part is cut.
- Tooling. Cutters, inserts and fixtures consumed or built for the job.
- Machine time and labor. Operators paid weekly while parts are made.
- Finishing and inspection. Outside processes such as plating or anodizing are paid before delivery.
- Invoice terms. The customer pays after shipment, commonly net-30 or longer.
Where tooling and downtime hit
Cutting tools wear and break, and good tooling is not cheap. A crash on a machine can mean a damaged spindle or a ruined fixture. A shop with one critical machine is exposed: when it is down, the work stops. Owners in that position often delay repairs until a gap in the schedule, which risks a longer outage later.
| Event | Cash consequence |
|---|---|
| Large order | Material and labor funded in advance |
| Machine crash | Repair cost and lost production |
| Slow-paying customer | Next job's material waits on the last invoice |
| New machine | Purchase, installation, operator training |
A worked example
For illustration only, and not our terms: a shop wins a recurring order for a bracket that requires a five-axis machine it does not own. It must either buy the machine, find another shop to subcontract the work, or decline. Buying means a large outlay before the order produces cash, plus training for operators. Working capital lets the shop take the order directly and keep the margin that would otherwise go to a subcontractor.
How to apply
You complete a five-minute application and provide roughly three months of business bank statements. We use a soft credit pull, require no tax returns and consider FICO 500 and above. Funding ranges from $25,000 to $5,000,000, with money possible in as little as 24 hours. Sole proprietors, including owner-operated job shops, can apply. Start here.