Blog

Our massive 250,000-square-foot facility houses approximately $2 million of steel at all times. Here are some of the most popular types of steel we use at MFP:

At MFP, we understand how crucial it is for our customers to receive parts as soon as possible. Every day saved makes a significant difference in meeting customer needs and maintaining a steady production schedule. Any kind of delay has negative repercussions on the final delivery date.

To ensure we are always ready to go when a customer requests a quote, the Metal Fabrication Professionals team has access to a substantial on-hand steel supply. With varieties ranging from common to rare, MFP is equipped to handle precision metal fabrication services with speed and responsiveness.

We’ll walk you through our considerable steel inventory and how it can support your precision sheet metal fabrication services. 

MFP’s On-Hand Steel Inventory

• Mild steel: From 16 gauge to 3-3.5” 
• 304 stainless steel: 16 gauge to ¾”
• 316 stainless steel: 16 gauge to ¾”
• A variety of others – contact us to learn the types and sizes 

The Benefits of Our Steel Inventory

Having a steel supply readily available at all times in our sheet metal shop offers us the ability to benefit our customers in the following ways:

• Significant time savings
• Reliability and protection against supply chain disruptions

Time Savings

When a metal fabrication shop has to order steel, the fastest they can get it is the following day but lead times on steel are typically two to three days. And when it’s not your run-of-the-mill size, it could take much longer than that. That means one day (if you’re lucky) to a week added to your lead times.

This is not the case for Metal Fabrication Professionals. Our vast supply of steel grants us the flexibility to get started on an order as soon as we receive it. The sooner we can begin processing, the shorter your lead times will be on all fabrication and machining services.

Consistent Access to Steel

With many types and sizes of steel in-house, MFP is not vulnerable to supply chain disruptions in the sheet metal industry. We bulk buy our steel ahead of time so our customers don’t have to wait.

At a time when steel was difficult to come by, we had over 300 sheets on hand in our sheet metal shop to support customers’ requests. Lead times for seven-gauge material were as high as 10 to 14 days at one point. But thanks to our supply, our service wasn’t impacted and we were able to get parts out to customers without delay.

MFP Delivers Successful Outcomes by Working Proactively and Strategically

When our customers order from MFP, they can count on…

• Our Red Wrap Guarantee, MFP’s policy that ensures high-quality parts are delivered with care.
• A partnership with a one-stop shop that will gladly facilitate production from request to shipping and everything in between.
• Short lead times as a result of our substantial stock of material.

The Metal Fabrication Professionals team is eager to offer solutions to customers to help them shorten their lead times. Our access to a large steel inventory is a major way we can offer time savings.

Request a quote to streamline production with a proactive sheet metal shop.

To meet our customers’ demand for high-volume production as well as their accuracy and quality standards, Metal Fabrication Professionals made a strategic investment in state-of-the-art robotic welding equipment. This upgrade to our welding services enables our customers in the mass production of identical components.

If you’d like to find out more details about our robotic welding equipment, feel free to contact us. In the meantime, let’s explore MFP’s top-notch welding capabilities.

Robotic Welding vs. Manual Welding

Metal Fabrication Professionals offers both manual and robotic welding, and each has its own ideal uses. Manual welding, performed by our highly skilled team, provides exceptional quality in low- and medium-volume production. Though manual processes are invaluable, robotic welding offers unique benefits that expand and diversify our welding capabilities.

Greater Speed

One of the primary advantages of robotic welding is speed. While initial setup takes longer for robotic welding, as the machinist must program the machine, the equipment can run nonstop once set up. The output rate for robotic welding far exceeds what a human operator can achieve through manual processes, as machines do not require breaks or shift changes. This makes robotic welding ideal for high-volume production jobs that call for speed and efficiency.

Consistency and Repeatability

Another significant value-add of robotic welding is its ability to maintain consistent weld parameters across a large volume of parts. Once the robotic system is programmed, it can produce the same weld repeatedly. Repeatability is crucial for demanding industries that require consistency in component dimensions and weld quality.

Additionally, removing manual human operations eliminates variability, ensuring that each weld is executed with identical precision and accuracy.

Higher Quality

The precision achieved through programmed robotic movements results in superior welds. This caliber of quality is often challenging to achieve consistently with manual welding, where the potential for human error is inevitable.

As our welders program the machines, they carefully provide weld parameters that yield fewer imperfections such as porosity or incomplete fusion. The result is highly precise, defect-free components that meet tolerance requirements and industry standards.

Robotic Welding at Metal Fabrication Professionals

MFP’s investment in state-of-the-art robotic welding technology allows us to exceed our customers’ expectations regarding lead time and quality.

High-Volume Production

Because robotic welders run efficiently following the initial setup, they’re ideal for producing high volumes of parts in the thousands.

Material Diversity

We handle a variety of materials in our metal fabrication services, and our welding services are no different. While we primarily handle stainless steel in our robotic welding work, we can also handle carbon steel and aluminum. MFP’s material versatility helps us weld components for a variety of industries and applications. 

Large-Sized Components

MFP can weld parts of all sizes, but our robotic welder enables us to manage sizable components. When our massive welding robot is in action, it’s truly a sight to see.

Metal Fabrication Professionals’ strategic investment in robotic welding demonstrates our commitment to delivering excellent outcomes in precision metal fabrication. The benefits of speed, consistency, repeatability and quality associated with our automated welding capabilities leverage us as a forward-thinking partner in high-volume manufacturing.

Request a quote from MFP to experience the quality results and repeatability of automated welding solutions.

At Metal Fabrication Professionals, we aim to achieve optimal efficiency with each of our precision sheet metal fabrication services. We’ve invested in equipment and technology to operate as a high-functioning one-stop sheet metal shop.

This pertains to our fabrication of large-scale components. Our 20-foot laser, which we explained in detail in a previous blog, offers us the capability to cut large parts with the tight precision a plasma cutter can’t achieve. The laser, an innovative addition to our sheet metal cutting capabilities, nicely complements one of our most state-of-the-art metal forming machines, our 24-foot press brake.

MFP’s 24-foot press brake and 20-foot laser are a testament to our ongoing investment in the latest, most sought-after capabilities. Moreover, this equipment serves the larger purpose of producing the best possible outcomes for our customers.

24-Foot Metal Forming Services

Our Accurpress press brake can bend material up to 24 feet long with exceptional precision. With 500 tons of power on this sophisticated equipment, our machinists can form ¼-inch materials while adhering to our stringent quality standards.

We’re not the only precision machine shop in our region with a press brake of this size, but the combined power of the 24-foot press brake and the 20-foot laser cutter in-house makes us stand out among our peers. We add value to our customers’ large-sized components in the following ways:

Dropping Weld Seams

When shops without this sizable equipment need to laser cut and form large parts, they must work with smaller sheets and weld them together to produce the desired length. This works fine, but it certainly isn’t the most effective way to produce high-quality components from large sheets.

By dropping weld seams, we can produce formed components much more quickly. Additionally, reducing the welding process from a job decreases overall labor costs. Additionally, manual welding processes require separate, time-consuming quality inspection procedures.

In short, because this large press brake simplifies our processes, it yields faster lead times and lower costs for our customers. It’s a win-win scenario.

Fewer Equipment Setups

A press brake of this size can bend lengthy sheets in just one setup. Cutting the number of setups produces the following results:

• Reduced cycle times
• Less human intervention, and therefore less chance for human error
• Greater bending accuracy

CNC Capabilities

Our 24-foot Accurpress machine isn’t just impressive because of its size alone. This press brake is CNC operated for repeatability at volume.

Segmented Tooling

A standard feature on Accurpress press brakes, but still one worth mentioning, is its segmented tool feature. This allows us to produce multiple bending shapes and angles on the same sheet.

In-House Capabilities

If you request a quote from a sheet metal shop on a 20-foot laser cut and formed component, there’s a good chance they would need to outsource one of these processes – most likely laser cutting, as most shops don’t have access to lasers of this size.

However, MFP can handle 20-foot laser cutting and forming under one roof. Rather than sending large parts out to get laser cut and/or formed by one of our trusted external vendors, we just have to move the components a few yards from our laser to the press brake.

Combining 24-Foot Forming and 20-Foot Laser Cutting

Our 24-foot press brake and 20-foot laser cutter are the combined force our customers rely on for the most precise components. They work hand in hand, with many pieces moving straight from the laser cutter to the press brake.

We wouldn’t be able to accomplish the same caliber of work on large parts if we only had the 20-foot laser to work with. Without our 24-foot press brake, we would either need to:

• Laser cut 20-foot flat blanks exclusively
• Outsource this forming work to an outside vendor
• Separate the part to fit onto smaller press brakes, then weld them back together – this would then render the 20-foot laser obsolete 

Consider Metal Fabrication Professionals for parts of considerable lengths with optimal accuracy, quality, cost-effectiveness and efficiency. Contact us to learn more about our sophisticated cutting and forming capabilities and request a quote to get started.

Every project we work through in our shop demands exacting specifications and top-notch precision. This is especially true in fabricating large-scale parts, where the smallest inaccuracy can have significant repercussions.

Metal Fabrication Professionals has the in-house capabilities to handle large sheet metal with quality and precision. To handle large components with the greatest efficiency, we purchased game-changing laser cutting technology to level up our operations. 

To cement our position as experts in large sheet metal cutting, MFP invested in a 20-foot Bystronic laser cutter to complement our 20-foot press brake. Let’s delve into the significant benefits this advanced machinery offers our customers.

The Value of 20-Foot Laser Cutting

Laser cutters that can cut sheets up to 20 feet long are not common in the industry. Shops that don’t have 20-foot lasers can still cut large pieces, but their process isn’t exactly ideal. They would likely need to laser cut smaller sheets and weld them together to reach their desired length.

At Metal Fabrication Professionals, we decided to invest in our 20-foot laser cutter because we saw the value of cutting large sheets in a single process. Here are some of the major benefits our customers can experience when we drop these weld seams:

Cost Savings

By laser cutting these large pieces in one process, we’re effectively removing the need for labor-intensive welding or multiple setups. Anytime we can remove an operation, it substantially lowers our labor costs and we pass these cost savings to our customers.

Shorter Lead Times

Welding can be manual and time-consuming. By removing the welding process we eliminate an operation queue, a manual operation and additional weld quality checks. Your large sheet metal products can flow directly from our laser to our press brake, saving precious time. This translates to shorter lead times that allow our customers to meet tighter project deadlines more effectively.

Higher Quality

Welding sheets together introduces unnecessary heat stress into the product and can lead to unintentional warping. To avoid this, welders must straighten the welded sheets; however, this is also far from ideal, as this process introduces additional cold work stress into the material. When welding two laser-cut sheets together, retaining the positional relationship between the features on each segment can be difficult with a weld in between.

Cutting large flat patterns in one setup (therefore removing any welding processes) gives us more control over the dimensional accuracy of your large sheet metal parts.

20-Foot Laser Cutting vs. Other 20-Foot Sheet Metal Cutting Methods

When cutting large sheets, why would a customer benefit from our 20-foot laser over our 20-foot plasma?

Laser vs. Plasma Cutting

While a typical plasma table can cut 20-foot parts, the cut quality doesn’t compare to that of a laser cutter. Plasma cutting will oftentimes leave slag behind on the surface edges that need to be cleaned up with grinders, chipping hammers and other abrasive tools. Additionally, laser cutters can achieve much smaller holes than plasma cutters, a crucial feature that makes laser cutting the preferred choice for high-quality, precision parts.

20-Foot Sheet Metal Forming

Many projects seamlessly transition from the 20-foot laser to our 20-foot press brake. This machine offers excellent precision and repeatability, thanks to its CNC-driven capabilities.

Our 20-foot press brake has segmented tooling, a game-changer that allows us to perform different bending steps in a single piece flow, reducing the need to batch parts between setups and streamlining the overall bending process.

Metal Fabrication Professionals, Your One-Stop Shop for 20-Foot Laser Cutting and Forming

Having both a 20-foot laser cutter and a 20-foot press brake in our shop further demonstrates our one-stop shop operations. We have the capability to cut and form large pieces with the utmost efficiency, without needing to send parts out or add extra processes that could drive up production time.

Do you have large-scale parts that need to be cut and/or formed? Request a quote today to find out how our 20-foot laser cutter and 20-foot press brake can produce the quality results you need with the efficient lead times you hope for.

Most of the OEMs we work with have similar priorities when selecting a sheet metal supplier: efficiency, quality, and convenience. While many shops can offer quick-turn solutions and high-quality products, they may not be able to offer optimal convenience when they need to send parts out for services they cannot handle in-house.

Working with a one-stop shop eliminates the need for your parts to travel between multiple vendors. This reduces the hassle associated with navigating timelines and coordinating expectations with multiple vendors.

MFP, Your Go-To Provider for Precision Sheet Metal Fabrication

At Metal Fabrication Professionals, we take great pride in our extensive capabilities. Nestled within our sprawling 250,000-square-foot facility is a range of cutting-edge equipment that positions us as a one-stop shop for all your fabrication and machining needs.

Choosing a one-stop shop like MFP as your fabrication and machining partner can streamline your operations and improve your bottom line. When you’re ready to leverage MFP’s limitless capabilities, be sure to request a quote using our secure online RFQ form.

In the meantime, let’s walk through the benefits of working with a one-stop fabrication shop.

6 Benefits of Working with a One-Stop Sheet Metal Shop

Eliminates Outside Processing

When you decide to work with a one-stop shop, you’re choosing a partner that can handle every step of your project in-house. Keeping parts under one roof through all machining and fabrication processes, from laser cutting to welding and everything in between, minimizes complications and streamlines production.

Shorter Lead Times

With all processes under one roof, you can say goodbye to delays caused by shipping parts to external vendors. At Metal Fabrication Professionals, sending parts for secondary operations means we’re walking parts from one section of the shop to another; this takes just minutes, in contrast with the multiple days of travel time that come with sending parts to outside vendors.

Increased Cost Savings

Some OEMs think they can save money by using third-party vendors that offer the lowest possible costs. While their quotes might appear lower, there’s a chance they could be overlooking a significant expense: shipping costs.

By keeping everything in one place, OEMs can significantly cut out trucking and transportation expenses. These cut costs can help OEMs price themselves more competitively to their end users.

Reduced Risk

Shipping parts to external vendors introduces several risks, including the possibility for parts to become damaged in transit. This risk decreases significantly based on the fewer stops these parts need to make.

At MFP, we’ve made an effort to eliminate the risk of damage during travel by packaging our parts meticulously. Metal Fabrication Professionals offers our Red Wrap Guarantee, our assurance that our parts will be exceptional in quality and will arrive in pristine condition.

Single Point of Contact

With MFP, you have a single point of contact for all your fabrication and machining needs. There’s no need to coordinate between multiple vendors or micromanage when and where to send parts. We handle the project management side of things so you don’t have to.

Dealing with one shop – instead of two, three or more – simplifies communication. When you need to make any necessary changes to your part, you only need to contact one shop because we handle each stage of production. In addition to ease of communication, this direct delivery of feedback and instructions reduces the chance of miscommunication that could further delay production.

Quality Assurance

When multiple shops and multiple quality teams are overseeing a project, quality control becomes more of a balancing act than a seamless process. With only one shop involved, there’s a much lower chance that any specifications or requirements could fall through the cracks.

One-Stop Precision Metal Fabrication Services at MFP

At MFP, our large, state-of-the-art facility and top-of-the-line equipment make us well-aligned to handle a wide range of capabilities. From design and engineering support to metal blasting and painting, we offer a one-stop solution that can simplify your processes.

Contact us to discuss your next project, and discover how Metal Fabrication Professionals can provide your one-stop solutions.