You wouldn’t ask a house painter to respray a Boeing 737 any more than you’d ask a Cordon Bleu chef to make a PB&J sandwich. It’s not that they couldn’t do it, but perhaps their skills are better used in other ways.
The same applies to metal fabrication shops. Some specialize in precise little enclosures, others do artistic yard sculptures or complex structural steelwork. At Wiley Metal Fabricating we like to think we’re more like the Cordon Bleu chef, capable of doing an excellent job on the simplest of projects, but really welcoming the more challenging assignments.
In this blog, we’ll explain why we’re the right choice for complex, unusual, and specialized metal fabrication projects. We’ll discuss topics like workforce skills and experience, fabrication machinery, project management, and quality control and assurance. First though, a reminder of the type of work we undertake.
Fabrication at Wiley Metal
We operate a large (by industry standards), fabrication shop with extensive cutting, shaping, and welding capabilities. A significant proportion of our work is vehicle-related, by which we mean parts and assemblies for semi-truck trailers, RVs, and utility trucks. We also have a niche of which we’re very proud, which is manufacturing bumpers for fire trucks and other vehicles. But, that’s far from all we do. We also serve customers in the agriculture and general industry with a wide variety of frames, brackets, structures, and assemblies.
In terms of materials, we work with sheets, plates, sections, and tubes, and we’re as comfortable working with stainless steel as copper and aluminum. As for size range, we can fabricate something the size of a shoebox or as big as a truck. (That’s a light truck, and not a semi, though with time to prepare, we could handle the latter in our shop if asked.)
If material quality is a concern, (and we’d argue it should be), we’ve got you covered. We source only from vendors with whom we’ve had a long relationship and where we know materials will meet national and international standards. If you need certificates for traceability, that’s something we can work with you on.
Quantities invariably come up when discussing new projects. Here we’re as happy working on one-offs as on orders for 1,000 or more pieces. Both our shop and our administration processes are configured for flexibility, so we can make samples and prototypes just as easily as turning out large quantity orders.
Workforce Skills and Experience
When choosing a shop for a more challenging fabrication project, these are the two most important things to consider. For example, if your project requires welding you want to know a shop employs only AWS-certified welders whose competency is in your specific area. (Ours are certified through the Hobart Institute of Welding Technology to structural codes D1.1, 1.2, and 1.3, which are steel, aluminum, and sheet steel respectively.)
More generally, if you’re entrusting an important project to a fabrication shop you want to know they have the experience to do it justice. At Wiley, we’re proud of our low labor turnover, which means many of our employees have been with us for a long time. They’re all highly experienced in their particular fabrication disciplines, and what’s more, we’re very focused on workforce skills development as we believe everyone should be continuously engaged in learning.
So, the bottom line; our workforce is both skilled and experienced. If you want to know if we’ve ever handled a project like yours, please just ask.
Fabrication Machinery
We’ve all heard tales about the person who fudges their way through a project because they don’t have the right equipment. The story usually goes along the lines of, “I made it in three parts because I didn’t have a [insert machine or tool here] big enough to do it in a single piece”. Well is that kind of shop you want to give your business to?
At Wiley, you can read about our equipment capabilities under the “Services” tab on the home page of our website. While doing that you’ll notice we use a lot of CNC machinery. That’s for the very good reason that CNC gives us more flexibility and improves accuracy and consistency. We also have a policy of progressively replacing and updating our fabrication machinery. One reason is that newer machines are more reliable and perform better. Another is that machine technology keeps advancing, and we believe it’s important to have new fabrication capabilities as well as those that are tried and tested.
Project Management
We believe this is something that really differentiates us from other fabrication shops, and is a big part of why we’ve been successful for a very long time. From how we handle an inquiry or quotation request to letting customers know their orders are about to ship, every aspect of our internal workflow is organized, disciplined, and customer-focused.
Every order, large or small, is assigned to an engineer. That person is responsible for ensuring everything that needs to happen, happens. The scope ranges from material selection and procurement to scheduling and ensuring the job stays on track. What’s more, we tailor this to meet unique customer needs. Whether it’s the delivery process, progress visits to our shop, or any other specialized requirements, we’ll make sure it happens. Just ask.
Quality Control and Assurance
How should a metal fabrication shop go about making sure the job they’re about to ship will meet the customers’ expectations? It all starts, and this links closely to project management, by having a system in place for drawing out and documenting what the customer wants. Then there are procedures for handling design, procurement, job planning, inspection, and delivery.
At Wiley, we operate a rigorous Quality Assurance system that covers all the above in great detail. We also audit our system to make sure it’s being followed and to find ways of making it better. We’re of the opinion that you can’t inspect quality, but at the same time, inspection is an important part of what we do. We calibrate measurement devices and verify every part and job is correct before it moves on to the next step in the sequence. So for us, quality isn’t about a checkmark or a sticker, it means following procedures to make sure the customer gets exactly what they were expecting.
Choose Wiley For Your Specialized Metal Fabrication Needs
When you’re looking for a fabrication shop we know you’ve got options. What we’ve tried to show here is that we have the experience, resources, and systems to consistently produce high-quality work that meets and exceeds expectations. We believe this is especially true for more specialized work that needs high levels of skill and expertise.
Hopefully, this has whetted your appetite. Now contact us to discuss your fabrication project.