Swiss CNC Machining Services

Lead time on a slender part is set by the number of process steps, not by a blanket promise. A simple pin with a few operations ships quickly; a complex shaft that runs ten to twenty steps, or that needs plating or heat treatment, sits at the longer end.

Complexity	Approx. lead time	Typical profile
Simple	~3 days	Few operations, single material, no finishing
Standard	~7 days	Multiple operations, standard tolerances
Complex	~30 days	10–20 process steps, or surface finishing / heat treatment

Our MOQ is 1 piece, so you can prototype and validate a slender part before committing to volume. Tell us your target date and we will tell you honestly whether it holds, not the other way around.

How Does a Slender-Part Order Move From Drawing to Shipment?

The path is short, but each step exists to catch a problem before it becomes a rejected batch.

1. Design-for-manufacturing review. An engineer reads the drawing against what the process can hold, and flags any feature that is hard to hit — before you commit.
2. First article. We machine a sample and send it with inspection data for your approval. Nothing goes to full production until you sign off.
3. Production with in-process checks. The diameters that mate are checked while the machine runs, not only at the end.
4. Final inspection. A Hexagon CMM pass, a dimensional report, and surface-finish checks before the parts are packed.
5. Shipment with records. Material certificates, inspection reports, and SPC charts ship with the parts, so you have evidence of what you received.

Which Secondary Operations Can You Bundle?

We ship finished parts, not machined blanks. Secondary work runs in-house or through qualified partners so you get one invoice and one accountable supplier.

• Surface finishing: standard and hard anodizing, zinc / nickel / silver / gold / chrome plating, brushing, mirror polishing, powder coating, painting, bead blasting.
• Heat treatment: vacuum, bright, carburizing, nitriding, and stress-relief aging through qualified partners. Our in-house ovens reach 500 °C; titanium stress relief above that goes to a partner rated for the temperature.
• Deburring, tapping, laser marking, assembly: included as the print requires.

Every secondary operation adds a handoff and time. Ask which ones the part actually needs before you sign the drawing.

What Do You Need From Me to Start?

Four things get a quote moving, and getting them right on the first email is the difference between a same-week quote and a week of clarification.

• The drawing: a STEP, IGES, or 2D PDF with the tolerance standard stated — DIN/ISO 2768-f or better where it applies.
• The material: grade and condition, and whether a material certificate must ship with the parts.
• The quantity: the first order and, if you know it, the annual volume — it changes the pricing and the machine choice.
• The finishing: any plating, anodizing, heat treatment, or surface finish callout.

Send those to [email protected] and you get a DFM review and a quote, usually within one business day.

How Does Bar Preparation and Tooling Fit Into the Service?

The service does not begin when the spindle starts; it begins with the bar and the tooling, because those two decide whether a batch holds diameter from the first part to the last. Before a run, bar is checked for diameter and roundness, matched to the guide-bushing clearance, chamfered so it does not chip the bushing on entry, and verified by XRF against the mill certificate. The tooling is set close to the support with the right chip-breaker for the material, because a chip-breaker chosen for 303 is the wrong choice for 304.

None of this shows up as a line item on most quotes, which is why it is the quiet half of the service. A shop that skips it still charges you the same setup fee — it just spends it on fighting the bar instead of preparing it. When you compare services, ask what happens before the first cut, not just what the machine is rated to hold.

What Does a First-Article and Pilot Run Actually Prove?

A first article is a single part machined, measured, and documented before full production, and its job is to prove the process before you pay for a batch. On a slender part, that proof matters more than on a stout one, because the risks — taper, chatter, deflection under its own weight — are exactly the ones a first article is designed to surface.

A pilot run goes one step further: a small batch run under production conditions, with the SPC charts that show the process is stable and centered, not just that one part happened to measure right. For a slender shaft, the pilot is where a bar-prep or chip-control problem shows up, because it only appears once the process runs for hundreds of parts instead of one. We run both — first article for the geometry, pilot for the process — and neither moves to full production until you sign off.

How Do Lead Times Break Down by Process Step?

Lead time is set by the number of process steps, not by a blanket promise, and the tiers map to the floor work behind them. A simple pin with a few operations and no finishing ships in about 3 days because it crosses one cell and one inspection. A part with multiple operations and standard tolerances lands around 7 days because it moves through turning, secondary, and a full CMM pass. A complex shaft with ten to twenty steps — or plating, anodizing, or heat treatment — lands in the 30-day tier, because every outside handoff adds calendar time that no amount of machining speed can remove.

The honest way to use the tiers is to read them as a question, not a promise: which operations does this part actually need? Every finishing or heat-treatment callout moves the part up a tier, and cutting one you do not need pulls it back down. We would rather tell you a date we can hold than one that sounds fast.

What Do You Get in the Quote and the Shipment?

A quote should describe the work, not just the price. Ours states the machine and process planned for the part, the number of operations and clampings, the inspection points, and any secondary operations, so you can compare it against another quote line by line instead of total against total. On a slender part, two identical totals can hide two very different jobs — one priced for a single clamping, the other for a clamping plus a straightening pass.

The shipment comes with the same transparency. Material certificates, a dimensional CMM report, and SPC charts where a characteristic is under statistical control ship with the parts, so you receive evidence of what was made and how it measured, not a box and a promise. If you need the records in a specific format for your own QMS, say so up front and we will match it.

How Do You Handle Design Changes Mid-Program?

A drawing change after tooling is set is where a program quietly loses money and time, so the process matters more than the policy statement. We treat a revision as a new quote against the changed features: the changed dimensions are re-checked for manufacturability, the tooling that no longer matches is re-quoted, and the lead time restarts only for the affected operations, not the whole program.

If the change is small — a loosened tolerance, a removed feature — it usually costs nothing beyond the engineering review. If it changes the geometry the guide bushing or the tooling was set around, it is cheaper to catch before the first article than after the pilot. The discipline is to freeze the drawing before the first article, and to make every change after that explicit rather than assumed.

What this shop actually runs

Capability evidence should come as specifics, not slogans. Behind this guide is a 6,800 m2 plant in Dongguan, China running 100+ CNC machines with 100+ staff. The machine list by category:

• 5-axis machining centres (10+) - Mazak VARIAXIS I-600 (510/910/510 mm travel, 12,000 rpm, 22 kW, 71.6 N·m, 30-tool BT40) and Mazak INTEGREX I-250H S (B-axis 0.0001°, 24 kW, 124 N·m, 38-tool HSK-A63). Practical for compound-angle parts, single-setup multi-face prismatic work, and aerospace fittings where datum transfer loss is unacceptable.
• 3-axis / 4-axis machining centres (50+) - Brother SPEEDIO S500Z2N / S700Z2N (10,000 rpm, 14/21-tool ATC, 0.7 s tool-to-tool, Z-axis 2.2 G) and Mazak VCE-430A L / VCE-570C L (10,000 rpm, 118 N·m, 24-tool ATC). Practical for prismatic parts, plates, brackets, housings.
• Swiss-type turning centres (10+) - Citizen Cincom A20-3F7 (Φ20 mm, 10,000 rpm), TSUGAMI B0206-III / B0205-III (Φ20 mm, 0.1 µm), STAR SR-32JII / SR-32J Type N (Φ32 mm, 8,000 rpm). Practical for long, slender rotational parts at ±0.002 mm.
• CNC turning centres (20+) - HEADMAN T70M/1250 (720 mm swing, 117 mm bore, 3,000 rpm, BMT75 12-station turret). Practical for shafts, bushings, flanges up to ±0.002 mm.
• Wire EDM (5+) - Sodick AQ535L (550/350/300 mm travel, ±20° taper, 800 kg workpiece). Practical for hardened tool steel, internal splines, sharp internal corners that milling cannot reach.
• Inspection: Hexagon CMM + 20+ gauges - Hexagon CMM for coordinate measurement, plus vision system, profilometer, hardness tester, coating thickness gauge, XRF for material verification. The 10:1 rule (gauge 10x more accurate than the band) is applied to every feature.
• Machine highlights - VARIAXIS I-600: one-setup multi-face 5-axis + MAZA-CHECK auto-calibration; INTEGREX I-250H S: DONE-IN-ONE mill-turn, B-axis 0.0001° + Ai thermal shield; SPEEDIO S500Z2N / S700Z2N: Z-axis 2.2 G + 0.7 s ATC; Swiss-type: guide-bush switchable + 0.1 µm resolution.

Tolerance: ±0.003 mm CNC milling / ±0.002 mm CNC turning / ±0.002 mm grinding and wire EDM. Capability: Ppk >= 1.67 initial on key characteristics, Cpk >= 1.33 ongoing.

Certificates: ISO 9001:2015 (116024/A/0001/UK/En), IATF 16949:2016 (131941/A/0001/SM/En, with design clause 8.3 excluded, stated openly) and ISO 14001:2015 (116024/B/0001/UK/En), issued to Dongguan Zhuohang Ltd, registration 91441900MA4UWT6X39, founded 2005.

Where we ship: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom in Europe; Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States in the Americas; China, Israel, Japan, Singapore and Sri Lanka in Asia; Australia and New Zealand in Oceania; and South Africa in Africa — plus other countries and regions worldwide, shipped from our base in Dongguan, China.

Contact: Felipe Iglesias, [email protected], +86 13126536955.

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