San Diego Contract Manufacturing

If you have a project that either requires creating a product which involves a lot of different processes or materials, contract manufacturing may be for you!  Contract manufacturing is the process  of hiring another company or manufacturer to make  products or complete specialized processes on the  behalf of another business or company. Why? For one, small businesses typically have low overhead. Contract manufacturing helps keep costs low and minimizes the need to either buy expensive equipment or hire specialists in-house.

A skateboard company, for example, may hire one contract manufacturer to take care of the printing of the designs on the boards so they can minimize the cost of buying expensive equipment, while another contract manufacturer may be hired to take care of the welding, assembly and shipping.

How AP Precision Handles Contract Manufacturing

You might be surprised at just how many different industries contract manufacturing serves. AP Precision has been handling  a wide variety of production and contract manufacturing projects in San Diego for over twenty years. We handle projects for many different kinds of industries such as:

  •  Architectural
  • Tech
  • Robotics
  • Bio-medical
  • Military contracts
  • Power generation
  • Consumer and luxury goods

Contract Manufacturing Services

Whether the project requires welding, powder coating, or CNC press breaks, we use a variety of precision metal fabrication techniques to bend and shape metal. Some of these include:

Plate Cutting – Jewelers, automobile manufacturers and the healthcare industry all require plate cutting to specially shape metal to create beautiful designs to wear, drive and even to make tools to facilitate a wide range of surgical needs. At one time CNC technology was a long, arduous process. But no more! Now this technology is able to produce refined and incredibly precise shapes.

Laser Cutting – This particular method requires making very precise incisions within a variety of metal materials such as aluminum, brass, copper, steel, and stainless steel.

Welding – This fabrication process joins materials, usually metals, but sometimes very heat-resistant forms of plastic.

Powder Coating – Powder coating is a very efficient form of painting which works by electrostatically applying a dry powder metal surface which is then baked in an oven. The end result is typically a hardier, thicker, paint finish.

Brass Cutting – This process involves cutting brass in order to achieve specific applications for instrument making, interior design, restoration projects and many other project types.

Copper Cutting – Cutting pieces of copper from either tubes or sheets, using either precision tools or laser cutting is a technique used for small, detailed work, such as jewelry making, or larger, more robust projects for electronics or architectural design.

 

The AP Precision Contract Manufacturing Process

Most of our work is done in-house, however, AP Precision Metal is able to keep costs low and turn-over high because we partner with a collection of high-quality US Suppliers in order to access the best materials and finishing processes.

Typically our manufacturing process operates along the following process:

Concept Design – During the initial phase, our specialists team up with you to define the most important aspects of your project, including:

  •  Scope
  • Usage
  • Product design
  • Materials options
  • Manufacturer methods
  • BudgetProduction Oversight –Using LEAN Manufacturing principles we are able to offer rapid production while still providing all the benefits of material and process controls. This is the phase where the action begins. We start the engineering process by:
  • Cutting
  • Forming
  • Welding
  • Powdercoating and
  • Assembling your productQuality Control – Our dedicated quality control team helps keep us on track so we can guarantee the consistency, accuracy and quality of all our products. Many of our customers are ISO 9001 and CE certified companies. So, as a result we always operate with ISO Standards to better help our customers meet these requirements. In this stage, we put our time-honored, in-house process to work, guaranteeing quality and also ensuring we meet our production and delivery dates.

Packaging & Delivery of Final Product – After production is complete, we work to make sure your product is carefully packed in-house. We always use product-safe materials and we pride ourselves on our in-house delivery service truck, which makes regular deliveries throughout the region. But, we also have the option of long- distance shipments which we send through our contracts with ESTES and UPS.

 

About AP Precision 

Founded in 1998, AP Precision was created to fill a need for metal products in order to meet the demands of their growing robotics company. Twenty-three years later, AP Precision has progressed to offer an array of contract manufacturing services in San Diego. Their founding principle is quite simple: to provide stable, long-term, precision metal fabrication for businesses of all sizes and shapes throughout Southern California.