The 5 Hidden Costs You Pay When You Pick the Wrong Machine First

Q1: Everyone starts my gearbox housing on a lathe because it has a big bore. Why do I still end up paying 40% more than budgeted?

A: Because 70% of the material and time is wasted before the part even looks like the drawing.
A Ø320 mm bore sounds like a lathe job, but the finished housing is a square-ish block with thin walls and twelve deep pockets. Starting on a lathe means you pay to turn a 180 kg bar down to a 38 kg part.
We start on a 5-axis horizontal mill from a 58 kg casting → finish the bore and threads on a lathe in one second setup. Same part, same tolerance, but 122 kg less chips and $68 lower cost per piece. Last year, we moved 1,800 gearbox housings this way for a German wind turbine maker.

Q2: My turned pins need two tiny milled flats for anti-rotation. Suppliers add a 1.80“milling surcharge” each. That’s 18,000 extra on 10k pcs. Fair?

A: Not even close.
Any modern Swiss lathe or mill-turn with C-axis and live tools mills those flats in 4–6 seconds while the pin is still in the guide bushing. No second machine, no transfer, no surcharge.
We removed that 1.80“surcharge”foraroboticscustomerlastquarter→21 400 saved on a single PO.

Q3: After heat treatment, my shafts warp 0.05–0.08 mm. The grinding shop wants another €12 per part. Is there a cheaper fix?

A: Don’t fight the warp — avoid the second clamping that causes most of it.
Hard-turn the shaft after heat-treat on a mill-turn with a grinding-grade CBN insert while the part is held in a high-precision collet. We hold ±0.006 mm total on 42CrMo4 shafts up to 800 mm long; no grinding wheel ever touches them. European truck transmission customer deleted the entire grinding operation and saved €340 000 a year.

Q4: My new pump body needs 45 days of machining spread over lathe → mill → EDM. Sales promised the customer 18 days. Now what?

A: Stop treating EDM as a separate step.
The “impossible” pockets are done with a 5-axis mill using 0.8 mm micro-tools at 40,000 rpm + the turned ports in the same fixture on a mill-turn.
45 days → 17 days real case last month (Monel K-500 subsea pump). The customer paid the normal price and still got it three weeks early.

Q5: I’m sick of “we can do it… but we need to outsource the milling/turning”. Why does that always end up late and over budget?

A: Because outsourcing = zero control + someone else’s profit + transport risk.
At Simituo, we made a simple rule in 2018: if we quote it, we cut it.
• 28 CNC lathes & Swiss machines
• 19 4-axis & 5-axis milling centers
• 15 mill-turn machines from Ø8 mm to Ø1 000 mm
All under one roof, one ERP, one quality system, one person responsible (me).
No stories, no surprises, no extra 25% because “the milling guy raised his price again”.

Stop paying hidden fees for the wrong process
Send your toughest drawing → www.simituo.com
Machine selection strategy + real cost before my coffee cools