Is your job shop losing money laser cutting thin jobs?
We recently had an ipLaser customer ask us about the pricing model our laser cutting quoting software uses when there are relatively large parts cut from thin material, in this case 20GA (0.036 inch, approx. 1mm) stainless steel.
It seemed like a good moment to share with you all how ipLaser handles this situation, and how you might think about the pricing structure for such quote requests in your laser cutting job shop.
Imagine this:
- You charge $200/hour for cutting 20GA stainless steel, and use a feed rate of 1600 inches/minute.
- Your customer wants 30 parts, which each take six seconds to cut, or three minutes of cutting time for the whole job. That gives you a part cutting price of $0.33.
So far, so good. But here’s the kicker: in this job the parts are large, and you only get ten parts to a sheet. Based on the above, each sheet will be cut in 60 seconds. Well for anyone who’s spent time in a job shop (like the lifetime we have here at ipLaser), such quick cutting poses some challenges.
While the cutting is done in one minute, you need to wait for transfer tables (perhaps 30 seconds), then the operator needs to strip the parts off the laser bed, remove the skeleton and then load the next sheet (perhaps 2 minutes). Essentially, t he parts are cut faster than the operator can feed and strip the machine. Using the above example on a quantity of 30, you have 3 minutes of cutting, and 7.5 minutes of waiting for the operator. Without modification to the price, you’re charging 3 minutes for 7.5 minutes of machine time. Not good!
Well, lucky for our customer, ipLaser has a neat solution to address such situations.
The first is making use of the sheet change time setting. Simply enter a value in seconds, and ipLaser will incorporate the charge into the quote based on the number of sheet changes that are required. In this case, a 30 second allowance would cover the time for the transfer tables to do their thing.
The second is an unload allowance, specifically designed for situations where the operator cannot keep up with the machine. ipLaser knows how long it takes to cut each sheet, and if that is less than the unload allowance, then the difference is incorporated into the pricing structure of the quote. In this case, an unload allowance of 150 seconds, where the sheet cutting time was only 60 seconds, would incorporate the extra 90 seconds into the machine usage calculation. In effect, this setting essentially sets a minimum cycle time for the machine.
Applying both of these, the cutting part price rises from $0.33 to $0.83. Big difference, but important to ensure you’re not going backwards on a job.
ipLaser is loaded with features like these that cater for just about any laser cutting job shop quoting scenario - because as former job shop owners, we know it’s important to protect your business and your margins.
If you’re new here, or just sick of losing money on thin jobs, I suggest you book a demo so our fabulous team can show you more great features inside ipLaser.