Big Rocks Engineering

Manufacturing floors are full of inherited processes — "we've always done it this way" is one of the most common phrases in operations.

The quote reframes innovation as less about R&D budgets and more about a cultural habit: people who keep questioning inherited constraints instead of just working around them.
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Want to see how we help manufacturing teams innovate?
Book a call with us: (314) 649-0610

𝐒𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 | 𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠
Anybody can machine a good part once.

The question is whether your supplier can do it on the thousandth part, in month eleven, when nobody's watching.

There's a wall at CED Precision Machining with a supplier excellence award on it from Essex Industries — a leading supplier to the aerospace and defense industry. They don't hand those out for showing up. Essex issues that award annually for superior supplier performance: quality, on-time delivery and customer service, sustained across an entire year. Not one good quarter. A year.

That's what 𝟐𝟓+ 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 looks like in practice.
☑ Mazak 4-axis milling centers with four-sided tombstones and touch probes on every machine.
☑ Multi-spindle turning with live tooling and bar feeders.
☑Wire EDM. A Flow waterjet that cuts any material up to 3½ inches thick.
☑ Hexagon CMM inspection backing all of it.
⭐ ISO 9001 certified.

If your current machining supplier is great on Tuesday and inconsistent on Thursday, that's not a supplier. That's a liability.

Send us a print. We'll show you what consistent looks like.
— 𝐌𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐥𝐥 | 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | (𝟑𝟏𝟒) 𝟔𝟒𝟗-𝟎𝟔𝟏𝟎

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞...

"We can't take on the additional volume." Every purchasing manager dreads that call.

Business is good. Your customer just increased the order. And your supplier — the one who's been solid for years — just told you they're tapped out. No new capacity for six months, maybe more.

Now you've got a problem that has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with math. Demand went up. Supply didn't.

Here's what makes it worse: most companies discover this at the exact moment they need the capacity, because nobody asks the capacity question when things are running smoothly. The supplier's constraint quietly became your constraint, and you found out when it was already costing you.

Two things prevent this.

First, know your suppliers' headroom before you need it. It's a fair question and good suppliers will answer it honestly.

Second, have your documentation in order so a second source is actually an option. If your only supplier holds your only drawings, you don't have a backup plan — you have a hostage situation you haven't noticed yet.

If you're staring down a capacity gap right now — or want to make sure you never do — reach out. We can build the documentation that opens up second sources, and with five manufacturing companies in our family, capacity is something we happen to know a little about.

— 𝐌𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐥𝐥 | 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | (314) 649-0610

"𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫-𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝; 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝, 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞." — 𝐎𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐮𝐩

The quote means that unlike a math problem, where there is often a single correct solution, engineering challenges involve many factors—cost, safety, materials, time, manufacturability, performance and reliability. Several solutions may work, but not all of them are equally effective.

In manufacturing, for example, if a customer needs a custom machined part:
- One design may be the cheapest to produce.
- Another may last the longest.
- Another may be the easiest to assemble.

A skilled engineer evaluates the trade-offs and chooses the solution that best meets the customer's goals.

𝐓𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡: 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐚 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲.

Most people treat powder coating as the last step. The afterthought. The thing you figure out once the parts are made — until the coater's lead time slips two weeks and your finished inventory sits there, unsellable.

My dad taught me a long time ago: you can't make money from a business if you don't make money for the business. Parts sitting in queue at a finisher aren't making anybody money.

That's why Total Powder Coat & Finish runs two systems, not one. A 20-foot batch booth and oven for smaller runs, and a fully automated chain-driven line with quick color change for volume — parts up to 54 inches long. Small jobs don't wait behind big jobs. Big jobs don't get hand-sprayed at batch prices.

And because they sit inside the Big Rocks Manufacturing family, they do more than coat. Light assembly, kitting, inventory management, over 40,000 square feet of warehousing, and shipping direct to your customer. PACCAR certified.

Your finisher shouldn't be the weakest link in your chain. If yours is, reach out — we'd be glad to quote your next run.

— 𝐌𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐥𝐥 | 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | (𝟑𝟏𝟒) 𝟔𝟒𝟗-𝟎𝟔𝟏𝟎

𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠!

The manufacturing community is stronger when we connect.

Join Big Rocks Engineering for an evening of networking, collaboration and conversation with professionals from across the manufacturing industry.

📅 Thursday, August 13
🕓 4:00 PM
🍺 Come grab a drink, meet new faces, exchange ideas and grow your network.

No RSVP required.

"𝐖𝐞'𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐲."

The most expensive phrase in manufacturing isn't "we need new equipment." It's "we've always done it this way."

I've said for years that this is the biggest constraint in any operation — bigger than any machine, any labor shortage, any material cost. Because a machine constraint you can see. This one hides.

It hides in the supplier you've used for 15 years and never re-quoted. In the part that's been single-sourced since before anyone can remember why. In the policy written for a problem that stopped existing a decade ago. In the metrics everybody reports on that no longer measure anything that matters.

None of it shows up on a spreadsheet as a cost. All of it costs you.

I'm not saying change for the sake of change. Long supplier relationships are valuable — we're built on them. But there's a difference between a relationship you keep because it earns its place every year, and one you keep because nobody's asked the question in a decade.

Ask the question. What in your sourcing, your process, or your documentation exists only because it's always been that way?

If you want a second set of eyes on it, that's a conversation we have with manufacturers all the time — no pitch, just an honest look. Reach out anytime.

— 𝐌𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐥𝐥 | 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | (𝟑𝟏𝟒) 𝟔𝟒𝟗-𝟎𝟔𝟏𝟎

Every mistake is a lesson. Every challenge is an opportunity to improve.

The companies that innovate the fastest aren't the ones that never fail—they're the ones that learn, adapt and keep moving forward.