Good businesses promise it. Great businesses deliver it. And here at Area Tool & Manufacturing, Inc., we live it.

We're talking about exemplary customer service. For our small-but-mighty team, customer service is a lifestyle that drives us to ask, "What can we do today to give our customers an incredible experience?"

As a company of doers, we're constantly implementing improvements to our processes, techniques, tools, and efficiencies, all of which help us give you a five-star experience from RFQ to order fulfillment.

Are you ready to learn more?

How Our Precision Machine Shop Works to Earn Your 5-Star Rating

Here’s how we continuously better ourselves for your benefit: 

1. Actively seeking opportunities to save you money

We're always on the lookout for cost savings—for our shop and customers. We find resourceful ways to slash prices while still exceeding your expectations.

We recently helped a customer achieve significant savings on their order. How did we save them so much money? We opted to hard mill the customer's parts rather than grind them, which took only a fraction of the time we'd initially estimated. Because we tailored our approach to the project's specific needs, we successfully reduced the turnaround time, cut costs, and delivered an exceptional final product.

Want another example? We’d quoted an oil industry customer based on a per-part machining time of five minutes, but then we discovered a faster solution. Without hesitation, we modified our process, and our machinists made hundreds of differently sized parts quickly and cost-effectively for the customer.

Maybe you're wondering, "Why didn't you just keep the extra money?" Many shops wouldn’t have thought twice about keeping the cost savings for themselves! But we deeply value every customer's trust, and part of maintaining that trust is making sure that each job is appropriately profitable. That's why we review every job for cost savings before sending the final invoice, then pass those savings on to you.

2. Pushing the limits of machining

Top-quality parts demand innovative solutions, and innovative solutions require a willingness to push boundaries and try new things. We’re not satisfied with saying, "We'll do this the same way we’ve always done it." Our Pennsylvania team approaches every job with creativity and curiosity.

Visit our precision machine shop, and you'll find it full of fearless machinists, operators, and QA professionals. One of these bold individuals is a master of wire EDM machining. A gentleman in his sixties, this highly skilled operator wrangles wire EDM to do things it doesn't typically do—and he's not the only team member who's driven to innovate.

Multiple machines and workholding systems make innovation possible for everyone in the shop. With a plethora of manufacturing brands represented on our shop floor, our team can customize a solution for every challenge.

3. Hand-selecting tooling and workholding for every job

Once, twice, sometimes three times each week, we're visited by our tooling distributor. He and his representatives go directly to the shop floor, where they interact with our team and learn about the materials and features we're currently machining. The purpose is two-fold. 

1. Our team is empowered to explore the best solutions for each job.

2. The distributor gets to make tooling and workholding recommendations, taking orders on the spot and quickly delivering the desired supplies.

As a result, our customers enjoy superior quality, reduced machine time, and lowered costs. 

4. Using the latest and greatest programs

Journeyman Toolmaker Dalton Conley posed the following question to a shop visitor who asked why we don't save our CNC code: “How can we continually improve if we're running old programs?” 

The visitor was an ISO 9001:2015 auditor who had arrived to conduct a standard annual audit. She saw repurposed code as an efficient practice for CNC machining services. However, with over 40 years of manufacturing experience under our tool belts, our shop has learned otherwise. We happily explained our reasoning to her, and she was impressed with our approach. 

We invest the time before every job to update our programming. Unlike shops that tackle their CNC machining work with years-old programs, you can trust that Area Tool & Manufacturing, Inc. is always at the forefront of technology. We modernize our Mastercam software several times a year with new programming, efficiencies, and tool paths. 

Because we prioritize current technology, our customers know their parts will always meet their high standards.

5. Optimizing our shop floor layout 

Starting 11 years ago, Area Tool & Manufacturing, Inc. began systematically appraising our shop floor layout. With 20,000 square feet of shop space, the placement of machines and supplies has a tremendous impact on the shop's overall efficiency.

We moved our tooling closer to the mill department, saving our machinists several hours each month in retrieval time alone. And each new equipment purchase is an opportunity to maximize the accessibility of our machine stations. 

Rearranging does require a time investment on the front end, but our efforts pay us back with time saved on the back end—and a morale-boosting spike in dopamine as we achieve lower prices and shorter lead times for our customers. 

We're Committed to Continuous Improvement

It's not that we don't abide by the tried-and-true foundations of manufacturing. We honor and implement the industry's best practices every day on the job. But as hard-working makers and determined innovators at Area Tool & Manufacturing, Inc., we refuse to settle for "good enough." 

We pursue ongoing improvement because we're passionate about our customers. You are the reason we do what we do. And we'll never stop working to deliver a five-star experience. 

Are you ready to see what we can do? Request a quote!