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Browse our collection of articles, covering a wide range of topics and ideas.

Featured Articles

The potential of digital-first manufacturing

What I’ve come to realize is that in manufacturing, software’s cost is justified not just by improved quality of life, but as a way to convert variable costs into fixed costs. In our case, we’ve used software to automate office overheads. First and foremost, we automate quoting and manufacturability checks. We employ zero estimators, but we can quote more than 100,000 parts per week without straining our systems.

Metal fabricators prefer the wrong kind of customer

Shops often find themselves in a strategic cul-de-sac—extremely busy, falling behind, and yet somehow unable to grow. This circumstance is created not by their competitors, but indirectly by their approach to overhead management.

OSH Cut To Open A Second High-Tech Factory Near Cincinnati

OSH Cut CEO, Caleb Chamberlain, announced last week that their second U.S. factory is nearly operational and will be located in the Cincinnati metropolitan area.

Where to Get Sheet Metal Parts

There are tens of thousands of sheet metal shops scattered throughout the United States, each with a different combination of capabilities and services. Here is our review of a handful of shops that make the ordering experience quick and easy.

Latest Articles

Toward Perfect Metal Parts

We are on a mission to offer perfect sheet metal parts. For a high-mix sheet metal shop, that works out to be a tricky problem for many reasons, but this week we took a big step along the way.

What software automation means for custom fabrication

OSH Cut is different, but is it disruptive to the sheet metal manufacturing industry?

Why operating at scale lets metal fabricators ship faster

Queues are a fact of life, and it’s really a shame. It means as demand grows, customers have a worse experience. Nobody likes waiting in line. Yet a healthy backlog is in some ways desirable for manufacturers. It’s nice to know that you’ll keep your people busy for the next several weeks. It’s great for the shop, but less so for the customer. This uneasy tension between manufacturers and customers creates a sort of balance.

Steel Prices Increased Dramatically in 2021

Driven by high demand and persistent supply-chain issues, steel prices increased dramatically in 2021. Price increases have affected the entire supply-chain, from material rationing at mills, to long service center leads, and finally increases in product costs.

More Articles

Instant quoting expands access to sheet metal and CNC tube bending

After months of working through numerous tube bending challenges, we’ve designed customer-facing software that simulates rotary draw tube bending tailored for specific bend dies, mandrels, and other tooling we have available.

How manufacturing businesses can maximize value with digital advertising

In the digital age, advertising can be tracked and measured. How manufacturing shops and other metal fabricators use that data can make or break a marketing program.

Great laser tube cutting machine, rough delivery

The Silicon Valley mantra of “move fast and break things” might not apply everywhere in custom metal fabrication, especially when it comes to new equipment. Columnist Caleb Chamberlain just found this out the hard way with a tube laser.

Dealing with Labor Shortages in 2022

Labor shortages have been an ongoing problem for manufacturers even before the "great resignation." OSH Cut observed that pattern, and found a simple solution: if you want talented adults to stick around, you have to pay a living wage, regardless of what the industry averages might be.

From quotes to delivery: Manufacturers must rethink the customer journey

Young people are primed to expect a different experience from manufacturers. This is the age of Amazon. Speed, accessibility, and simplicity are the new normal. This is obviously true for consumer products, but young people are bringing their expectations into businesses as well.

Evaluating 2025 and building smarter fab shop strategies for 2026

In this year-end episode of Next-Gen Metal Fab, Tim Heston sits down with All Metals Fabricating’s Lance Thrailkill and OSH Cut CEO Caleb Chamberlain to unpack a wildly unpredictable 2025 in metal fabrication.