Combine our machine shop's capabilities with that of our various partners and you have a one stop local machining solution. We can supply individual custom made parts or build assemblies combining sheet metal fabrication, machining, turning, milling, welding, plating, assembling etc. AC Manufacturing is your premier choice for CNC machine shop in Bay Area servicing local industry in surrounding San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose as well as distant customers in Texas, North Carolina and all across the USA. Give us a call or visit our shop located in Santa Clara, close to Route 101.

For directions to including printable maps and complete contact information, check out our Directions / Contact Pages.

CNC Basics:
The introduction of CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine radically changed the manufacturing industry.

Curves are as easy to cut as straight lines, complex 3-D structures are relatively easy to produce, and the number of steps that required human action have been dramatically reduced. With the increased automation of manufacturing processes with precision CNC machining, considerable improvements in consistency and quality have been achieved in modern machine shops. Cnc Automation reduces the frequency of errors and provides machine shop operators with time to perform additional tasks. Automation also allows for more flexibility in the way parts are held in the manufacturing process and the time required to change the machine to produce different components.

CNC machining in practice: In a production environment, a series of machines may be combined into one station, commonly called a "cell", to progressively machine a part requiring several operations. CNC machine today is controlled directly from files created by CAM software packages, so that a part or assembly can go directly from design to manufacturing without the need of producing a drafted paper drawing of the manufactured component.

In a sense, CNC machining represents a special segment of industrial robot systems, as they are programmable to perform many kinds of machining operations (within their designed physical limits, like other robotic systems). CNC machines can run over night and over weekends without machine operator intervention. The ever changing intelligence of controllers has dramatically increased machine shop cell production. Some machines might even make 1000 parts on a weekend with no operator, checking each part with lasers and sensors.

Our CNC machine shop link directory:

Industrial Management Solutions - Online solution database, engineering books, e-books and more.

Wikipedia.org/CNC - CNC machine shop information in Wikipedia.

American Machinist - All you would want to know about cnc machining and machine shops

CNC West - Online Magazine and cnc machine shop equipment mall.

Metal Web News - Editorials and news about metalworking and cnc machine shops.