Each year, Arbiser Machine undergoes an audit to maintain our ISO 9001:2015 certification. Thanks to our rigorous commitment to upholding quality in our precision machine shop, we’ve passed these audits with flying colors for 20 years and counting. 

One way we remain committed to ISO standards is by diligently vetting our vendors to ensure that they share our obsession with quality. 

While we do most of the work on customers’ parts in-house at our Georgia facility, there are some processes we outsource to vendors. But we don’t just look for the lowest price or quickest turnaround. Although those factors are important, our goal is always to find a vendor we’re proud to call our partner. 

As a potential customer of ours, you deserve to know what goes into making that decision. 

Why Selecting the Right Vendor Matters

We put great effort into vetting every vendor we work with because their work impacts our relationships with our customers, and those relationships mean everything to us. 

We rely on our vendors the same way customers depend on us as a precision machining partner. If we send a vendor parts we’ve worked on, we want to be confident they’ll uphold the high standard we’ve set so that when our customers receive their completed parts, they’re thrilled with the outcome. 

Services we commonly outsource to vendors include material sourcing, heat treating, plating, coating, and grinding. We use a slightly different approach for assessing each type of vendor, but there are some general markers that are indicative of a trustworthy partner across the board. 

4 Factors We Assess before Partnering with a Vendor

Before agreeing to partner with a vendor, here are four factors we assess: 

1. Quality and organization of back office operations

We can learn a lot about a vendor by observing how their back office operates.

If the shop is disorganized or unresponsive from an administrative perspective, it stands to reason that their shop floor operations won’t meet our standards. We take careful note of factors such as:

• How quickly they respond to quotes

• How seamlessly they absorb information about requirements and due dates 

• How accurately they communicate about pricing, timelines, and even problems

2. Necessary certifications 

As an ISO-certified precision machine shop, we need vendors that comply with all relevant ISO standards and maintain any other certifications our customers require. 

During our annual audits, we have to show proof that the materials we source come from a certified vendor, and some of our customers require certifications for all the shops that work on their parts. When we work with vendors who have the right certifications, we never have to worry about being noncompliant with national or international standards. 

Another requirement for maintaining ISO certification is ensuring that our processes are traceable. We must be able to quickly access every piece of documentation for every project we work on, so it’s critical that our vendors also prioritize traceability.  

3. Consistent quality of their work

One of the most straightforward ways we vet our vendors is by assessing the consistent quality of their work. 

We need to be confident that our vendors will hit the mark each and every time. If a vendor sends back an incorrect part more than once, we won’t take the risk of working with them again.

We assess different criteria across vendors. For a materials sourcing supplier, we’ll want to see that they consistently provide materials free of defects. For an anodizing vendor, we’ll confirm that the parts maintain color consistency and that features are masked appropriately.

4. Longevity and reputation

Few things are as valuable in manufacturing as an experienced shop with a solid reputation. When searching for vendors to partner with, we’re looking to build a long-term relationship with a shop we can depend on. 

As a precision machine shop that’s been around for decades, we hope to work with other shops like us—ones that have honed their expertise over many years and can be trusted to get the job done right.  

When you work with Arbiser Machine, you can rest assured that every service provider in our supply chain meets our exceptionally high quality standards. Request a quote today, and your project will be in good hands.