Manual or CNC

[Mid Day Machining]

Just as a small side note. Every employe that I ever had thought that starting a business after he left me would be easy. They would charge a little less then me and just be rolling in the dough. Then because they were making so much money they would only have to work a couple of hours a day or when they felt like it. None of them are in business today. In fact most were out of business with in 6 months. The rates I charge is based upon everything. Insurance, energy, rent, repair, TAXES, tooling, non billable items, screws, nuts and bolts. Most of my employes though that the 100.00 to 180.00 per hour that I charged just went into my pocket. The truth is that after overhead about 20.00 went into my pocket. And as for hours, I generally work 14 to 16 hours a day 7 days a week. When the employee went home after 8 hours I was still working on bids, new tooling for the next project, cad and cam work, billing, and a thousand other things a business has to do to survive.

If you are fortunate enough to have an employee who can turn a job you bid at $75.00 an hour into a $180.00 an hour job, pull him aside and pay him a bonus. Or start a bonus program whereby on any job an employee makes better than shop rate, pay him/her a percentage of the difference.

I worked for a company for a long time where they paid a quarterly bonus. It usually worked out to about a weeks pay, but if you made any scrap durring the quarter, they would take half the value of the material out of your bonus. I remember one bonus period, my check was almost 3 weeks pay.