Milwaukee was once called the machine shop of the world, and southeastern Wisconsin still builds mining shovels, heavy equipment and the castings inside them. We write and prove out programs at your machine, from the raw casting to the finished part.
In the early 1900s, Milwaukee was known as the machine shop of the world, and the Menomonee Valley was its engine. Steam engines, gasoline engines, motorcycles and heavy machinery went out from here to everywhere.
The biggest machines of all grew up here. P&H started in Milwaukee in 1884, made its name on overhead cranes, and went on to build electric mining shovels. Bucyrus has built shovels in South Milwaukee since 1893, including 77 of the steam shovels that dug the Panama Canal. Both lines are still built here today under new owners, along with the giant gears and fabrications that go into them.
The household names grew up nearby too. Briggs & Stratton started in Milwaukee in 1908 and still calls the metro home. Mercury outboards began in 1939, when an engineer bought a small outboard company in Cedarburg, and the engines are built in Fond du Lac today. And in 1917, a four-wheel-drive truck called Old Betsy launched the company that now builds military vehicles, fire trucks and access equipment in Oshkosh.
Add power transmission equipment, industrial controls and power tools, in a state that ranks among the top five for foundries, and the machine shops and suppliers behind all of it reach from Milwaukee and Waukesha up through the Fox Valley. The CMM Programmer writes programs for every step of that work.
Much of that hardware starts life as a casting, which comes in rough and leaves machined, and the CMM has to handle both ends of that trip. Datum targets on raw surfaces, stock allowance checks before the first cut, the hand-off from casting datums to machined datums, and first articles on new patterns all take a program built with them in mind.
Mining hardware takes that to the extreme. Gear cases, housings and fabrications measured on gantry CMMs big enough to walk under need programs planned around the machine's full working volume: how the part is set, where the probe can reach, and how to keep the run from eating the whole shift.
When the foundry and the machine shop disagree about a part, a well-built program is how the argument ends: the same alignment, the same datum scheme and the same report for both sides, so the numbers mean the same thing on either end of the truck.
We write and prove out those programs at your machine, whether you pour the metal, machine it, or buy it from someone who does.
The work spreads across southeastern Wisconsin: the city, the Menomonee Valley and the Harbor District, south through Cudahy and South Milwaukee to Racine, west through Brookfield and Waukesha to Hartland, and north through Menomonee Falls and Germantown to Cedarburg. Beyond the metro, the lakeshore from Sheboygan to Manitowoc and the Fox Valley through Fond du Lac, Oshkosh and Appleton are in reach the same way. We set up at the machine, wherever in that stretch it happens to be.
And when two or three shops in the area have work waiting, they can share one visit and split the travel expenses between them. We work with you to make the most sense of your workload, schedule, and budget.
New part programs written and proven out at the machine
An experienced contract programmer on your floor when the need arises, hourly or daily
First article dimensional reports built to satisfy your customer's quality requirements
Custom training on your parts, your probing, and your version
$125 per hour and $950 per day, the same rates as everywhere else in the country.
Yes, a CMM program can measure both the raw casting and the machined part, using datum targets on the as-cast surfaces to check stock and position before machining, then switching to machined datums for the finished features, so one program family follows the part from the foundry through final inspection.
That continuity is what keeps a foundry, a machine shop and their customer looking at the same numbers.
Scheduling on-site CMM programming in Milwaukee usually runs one to two weeks out for a planned multi-day visit, and shorter notice is often workable, so a first article on a new pattern does not have to wait in line for weeks.
Urgent situations are worth a call regardless; we arrange travel around your dates the very best we can.
On-site programming coverage around Milwaukee runs across southeastern Wisconsin: the city and the Menomonee Valley, south through Cudahy and South Milwaukee to Racine, west through Brookfield and Waukesha to Hartland, and north through Menomonee Falls and Germantown to Cedarburg, with everything close enough to reach inside a single engagement.
North along the lakeshore to Sheboygan and Manitowoc, and up through the Fox Valley to Fond du Lac, Oshkosh and Appleton, the work is in reach the same way.
Validation of a new CMM program for production inspection is always your decision and your record, because you own the quality system that defines what evidence is sufficient to release a program into regulated production use, and that judgment cannot be delegated to an outside programmer.
We prove out programs at the machine, and we can support first article runs, correlation checks and repeatability studies during the visit. But the final judgment that the program is fit to run production stays where your quality system puts it.
Tell us about the machine, the parts, and the timeline. We will do our very best to plan around your dates, and it costs nothing to talk through it first. When a quote is the next step, a follow-up comes back with timing and a straightforward number.
