Traditionally, sheet metal fabrication has been handled by very small or very large vendors, with quote turnarounds sometimes taking days for longer jobs and pricing transparency and lead times generally poor. There weren’t the same off-the-shelf options you had in the electronics industry, with easy comparison shopping and stock ready for shipment.
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Buying sheet metal parts online allows buyers to quickly compare offers, and weigh their options for surface finishing, material selection, and part turnarounds. Online sheet metal purchasing greatly simplifies the process of costing and buying parts and makes it as smooth as buying electronic parts off the shelf.
Fast Turnaround
One of the most compelling reasons to buy custom metal parts online is the fast turnaround times available. Traditional procurement methods can be time-consuming, involving multiple steps from the initial price inquiry to delivery.
Online platforms like Komacut or Xometry streamline this process, providing instant or 24-hour quotes, and express part production and shipping, significantly reducing the time between placing an order and receiving the parts. Simpler parts can be ready in as little as 72 hours, and the quotation and ordering process can be completed in minutes. This efficiency is particularly crucial when parts are needed fast, whether for product development, just-in-time manufacturing, rapid prototyping, or when urgent replacement parts are needed.
Quick Quotations
Many online platforms generally feature instant or fast-turn-around quotes, enabling you to quickly price out different options. While not all platforms support immediate quotations at higher volumes, some instantly offer quotes online. This contrasts with traditional methods, where reaching out to a sheet metal shop and getting a quotation could take days or even weeks. Real-time pricing enables quicker decision-making and budgeting, streamlining the procurement process.
Customization and Options
You can specify dimensions, material, thickness, bending angles, and finishing options effortlessly. This level of customization is especially beneficial for projects requiring unique specifications.
On some online systems, you can customize your orders and immediately see how the changes affect the price. This feature is invaluable for tailoring sheet metal parts to specific needs without the back-and-forth communication traditionally required.
Fig. 2: Komacut's Sheet Metal Quotation Platform
Order Tracking and Updates
Online platforms offer robust order tracking and management features. You can monitor the progress of your orders in real-time, receive updates, and make adjustments if necessary. This level of transparency and control is a significant advantage over traditional ordering methods.
Support for Lower Volumes
Traditional manufacturing often requires large minimum order quantities, which can be a barrier for small businesses or individual projects. Many online platforms support low volume, making it feasible for you to order custom metal parts anywhere from 1 to 100,000 pieces.
Cost-Effectiveness for Small Batches
The economics of online ordering systems favor small-batch production. Advanced manufacturing technologies like CNC machines and laser cutters used by their systems are well-suited for producing high-quality metal parts even in smaller quantities at a reasonable cost.
Cost Transparency
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Online platforms have a more transparent pricing structure. You can see a detailed breakdown of costs, including material, production, and shipping expenses. This transparency helps you to make informed budgetary decisions without any hidden costs.
Fig. 3: Breakdown of Costs
Global Access
Online platforms offer a borderless shopping experience for sheet metal parts. You can access them from anywhere around the world, allowing you to find the best price, quality, or specific expertise that might not be available locally.
Simplified Logistics and Shipping
Many online platforms have integrated logistics solutions, simplifying the shipping process. This integration leads to more efficient and more cost-effective shipping options, as well as simpler processes for handling international customs and duties for cross-border transactions.
Continuous Availability
Unlike traditional brick-and-mortar suppliers, the online platforms are available 24/7. This constant availability allows you to place orders, make inquiries, or check the status of your order at any time.
Buying custom metal parts online extends beyond just convenience and speed. It encompasses a range of benefits like wider material selection, customization options, and instant quotation. It provides faster turnaround times, cost transparency, simplified logistics, the ability to support lower volume orders efficiently, and round-the-clock service, making it an increasingly preferred customer choice.
Rather than starting with a block of material, much of which will be machined away, sheet metal lets you buy what you need and use what you need. The remainder of a metal sheet is still usable, while swarf—the shavings removed in machining—must be recycled.
As with many modern fabrication techniques, sheet metal manufacturing can be automated and parts produced directly from CAD models. The technology uses a variety of materials and a range of processes for shaping finished components and products. Perhaps most important, in a world of mass production, sheet metal fabrication is highly scalable. While setup for the first piece can be costly, the price per piece drops quickly as the volume increases. This is, of course, true of many processes, but cost-per-piece for sheet metal generally drops more steeply than for a subtractive process like machining.
Sheet metal is cut, stamped, punched, sheared, formed, bent, welded, rolled, riveted, drilled, tapped, and machined. Hardware can be inserted into sheet metal components. The components can be brushed, plated, anodized, powder coated, spray painted, silk screened, or otherwise marked. And, of course, parts can be riveted, screwed, or welded into complex assemblies.
Like most other technologies today, sheet metal fabrication is evolving. Materials, equipment, and tooling have become more specialized than ever before. To take full advantage of sheet metal, it is critical that you leverage the correct supplier and method of manufacturing for your parts and their application. Along these lines, this white paper explores key components of sheet metal fabrication:
Sheet metal, by definition, starts out flat but can be shaped in many different ways to meet many different requirements. While this paper focuses on the technologies that shape sheet metal by bending it along a single axis, a variety of techniques exist for shaping the material into multi-axis forms that are not made up of flat planes or bent along a single axis. These include hot and cold forming techniques of deep drawing, hydroforming, spinning, and stamping. These are the kind of processes that create the body panels for modern vehicles, complex formed objects like metal sinks, and aluminum beverage cans. In many cases these techniques are iterative, shaping the metal by repeating the process several times to change the shape of the metal in increments.
Cold-forming processes addressed here are:
Cutting
Bending. Most metals can be bent along a straight axis using a variety of presses. The shapes of bends can range from gentle curves, like those along the vertical axis of a steel can, to sharp corners at angles above, below, or right at 90 degrees. Press brakes are used to create these relatively sharp bends. Rolling and forming methods produce open or closed single-axis curves in a continuous bending operation.
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