Driving Quality and Efficiency With Vertically Integrated Manufacturing

Manufacturing custom metal components and complex sheet metal products can involve many steps and processes. While some manufacturers may focus on providing a single service, this creates inefficiencies that often contribute to increased lead times and costs for customers. Working with a vertically integrated manufacturing partner can be a strong advantage, as vertical integration often results in shorter lead times, lower costs, and better-quality parts and products.

At Nu-Way Industries, we’ve grown thoughtfully and intentionally into a vertically integrated manufacturing partner, expanding our capabilities to serve our customers from end to end for all aspects of precision metal fabrication. By providing comprehensive contract manufacturing services – spanning product design services to punching, laser cutting, sheet metal forming, sheet metal finishing, and final assembly – we’re able to offer faster, simpler, and more cost-effective manufacturing solutions to fully meet your custom metal fabrication needs.

The Benefits of Vertically Integrated Manufacturing

When you’re looking for a company to provide contract manufacturing services, you’re likely to encounter many specialty shops that only perform one aspect of manufacturing. This means that they’ll either need to outsource certain operations or that you’ll need to find additional vendors capable of bringing your project to completion. 

However, vertically integrated manufacturing solves this problem. A truly skilled manufacturing partner can leverage their in-house resources, capabilities, and expertise to create a better, fully-finished product for you. 

Here are some of the benefits of vertically integrated manufacturing that you can expect when you work with a manufacturing partner like Nu-Way Industries: 

Efficient End-to-End Manufacturing

With vertically integrated manufacturing, your parts aren’t moving from supplier to supplier for each facet of their fabrication and finishing. With our extensive range of manufacturing capabilities, we utilize our existing in-house resources — outsourcing only for very specific processes, which we manage — to quickly and efficiently move parts through their various phases of production.

Shorter Lead Times

Directly tied to the efficiency that vertically integrated manufacturing creates are shorter lead times. With our size and range of capabilities, we’re able to provide in-house services for precision CNC machining, as well as sheet metal forming, stamping, laser cutting, punching, grinding, TIG, MIG and laser welding, finishing, and assembly, allowing us to progress from raw material to finished product with speed and efficiency.

Reduced Logistics Costs

With fewer outside processing requirements, there’s naturally going to be less of a need to ship parts between external vendors. While the shorter lead times might be one of the main benefits of vertically integrated manufacturing, reduced logistics costs can be an added advantage, especially when it comes to larger products that each take up a whole pallet and require more time and labor to move. With these larger products, we also typically mount the finished product onto a pallet that can move directly through our customers’ assembly or packaging lines. Not only does this reduce the risk of damage, but it also saves time and effort by eliminating the need for repalletization.

Larger Production Volume & Size Capabilities 

Vertically integrated manufacturing requires investment not only in additional equipment, but in larger facilities as well. However, it’s precisely the physical size that vertical integration requires that allows us to handle volume production with ease. With these larger facilities, we’re also able to manufacture larger sheet metal products, like server racks, that would pose storage issues for smaller shops to manufacture at scale.

Better Quality Assurance

When it comes to quality, the more work we can do in house, the more we can control. This allows us to closely monitor every aspect of the manufacturing process and communicate any changes or special requirements across teams with ease. Additionally, having all of the processes under our own roof allows us to quickly identify and resolve any issues proactively, providing you with a single source of responsibility when it comes to quality.

Leveraging Nu-Way Industries’ Vertically Integrated Manufacturing Capabilities

Vertically integrated manufacturing offers a number of benefits for both the manufacturer and the customer. Not only does vertically integrated manufacturing typically reduce lead times and logistics costs, but it also allows you to work with a manufacturing partner that ensures efficiency and quality at every stage of production. 

As a Chicago metal fabrication company with a comprehensive range of in-house capabilities, we serve as a true manufacturing partner that serves all of our customers’ custom metal fabrication needs. By leveraging our end-to-end capabilities to manufacture precision metal products, Nu-Way Industries can provide you with a one-stop manufacturing experience and be your single source for CNC machining and sheet metal fabrication services — just request a quote to get started.