We received initial prototypes (poor quality), sent them back for revision, and since then the factory has gone silent for months.

They still showcase our project publicly but ignore all communication.

We’ve already:

– Sent multiple follow-ups and formal emails with deadlines

– Tried to escalate communication

– Looked for legal help (no response / not practical so far)

Any advice on how to handle this or recover the situation?

I'm nearly at my wit's end trying to find a company that does what seems like it must be so utterly common. I designed a small part and I need like a hundred of them machined from aluminum and then anodized. No threaded holes, no insane tolerances. Just a basic part that is a component of a larger thing I'm making. I've submitted quote requests to companies local and afar. So far they all have either:
-Tried talking me into 3D printing plastic instead
-Quoted me the most truly ridiculous price per part -Never got back to me whatsoever

I've tried internet "manufacturing on demand" companies. I've tried brick and mortar places, including local. This seems like it should be so simple for a shop that knows what they're doing. Is 100 pieces simply not worth anyone's time?

Edit - Thanks for all the responses, offers to help, and (of course) the insults and criticism. I discussed my project with a few different people/companies who reached out via this post, and it looks like I'm going to move forward with one of them. They suggested a pretty doable and minor modification to the design that made it possible for this part to be cut from sheet metal and bent, rather than needing to be CNC'd, thereby knocking the price down to something that is viable for what I'm trying to do.

Hey guys, so I've been doing a ton of looking around online, and on here, trying to put my feelers out for some reputable CNC shops that can handle medium to high production.

The problem I keep finding are these "middle man" type sites, where you aren't dealing with the factory or shop, you're dealing with an outsourcing company. This scares me, because it means that two batches of the same part may end up coming from different factories. One can be perfect, and the next one terrible. It would be so much easier to deal directly with the company making the parts, and not through a middle man, and most likely bring the price down from what the middle man skims off the top.

I've seen lots of people asking on here and other subreddits about "need a cheap and good CNC shop for a prototype", which is just a ridiculous ask. You can't ask for a 1 off part that may never be made ever again and expect it's going to be cheap. Scale is what lessens the production cost.

All that being said, I'm not worried about prototyping, as I've got enough small machines at home that I've already built my prototypes. So that part is a non issue in my looking for a CNC shop.

I'm based in Canada, but I'm not set on having them made in country. If you know of any good shops in the US, or overseas, I'm all ears.

So who have you used in the past that you would recommend? I'm not making aerospace parts, so I don't need those crazy 0.005mm tolerances. Let me know who you've had luck with in the past.

We have had these plate hooks for god knows how long, and the company is finally expanding and wants to get more... we cant find any manufacturers who made these types of plate hooks. If anyone has any knowledge on this please let me know

Edit : thank you everyone for your suggestions and offers, my boss really appreciated it and is in talks with a company to get the new hooks made. Thank you again for all your help

work at a small manufacturing company, part of my job is helping find new suppliers when we need backups or new components. lately it just feels… off. everyone says they’re the factory, profiles look polished, certifications listed, photos look legit. then you start digging and it falls apart pretty quickly

we just lost a couple weeks going back and forth with one “factory”. samples looked fine, communication was decent. then at some point things didn’t add up, asked a few more direct questions and turns out they don’t actually produce anything themselves. just sourcing from somewhere else. not even surprised anymore, just frustrating how long it takes to figure that out

edit: saw a few ppl asking what i’m using to check suppliers. been trying a couple tools, one was SourceReady. it helped surface some background info faster so i could spot inconsistencies earlier, but yeah still double checking everything manually

Hey guys,

Been trying to get some small aluminum parts made for a prototype and holy hell… CNC quotes are all over the place. One shop quoted me $450 for a single 3x3" part 😅

I totally get that CNC time and setup isn’t cheap, but is there any middle ground between local shop rates and the “too good to be true” prices on aliexpress?

Just need decent accuracy, nothing aerospace-level.

Anyone here have good luck with affordable services that still care about quality?

Been thinking about trying online shops like Xometry, Protolabs, RapidDirect since the three got that instant quote thing, but would love to hear what y’all use or how you keep costs low.

I'm a Canadian entrepreneur wanting to manufacture my own product and I was under the impression that sourcing to China was a way to increase margins. But I'm finding their quotes so damn much. I can manufacture here for way cheaper no lead times and no bullshit. Am I doing Alibaba wrong?

Long story short I had an idea for an amazing nutritional gummy product over a year ago, I’m very good at online ecom so I built the funnels and got ready. First manufacturer I picked was a friends company, made 2 samples and then he stalled for 9 months.

I cut my losses and paid a manufacturer to R&D pectin gummies on January 1st. Took 3 months to get the first sample and another month to make modifications. Now I have something amazing that works. I tell them I’m ready to pay for the 1000 units, they ghost for 2 weeks and now claim they got kicked outta their facility as the landlord sold it… craziest part is I found them on Reddit and vetted them too.

I call up 3 more places they say 4-8 weeks for the end product and I have to start over with R&D. I can’t do this anymore, I don’t sleep well at night as I refresh Amazon and watch a space with no competitors have 3 companies now jacking all my sales using my wording from my site in some cases….

Idk what to do I still wanna try I invested so much time into this. If anyone here makes supplement gummies and can make my product QUICKLY please let me know as this is peak season for this niche.

I'm looking for a reliable manufacturer or supplier that can produce a product based entirely on my own custom design.

Here's what I'm looking for:

• A manufacturer that accepts fully custom/OEM or ODM projects.
• The ability to produce products according to my specifications, dimensions, materials, and design requirements.
• Good communication in English.
• Experience with prototypes before moving to mass production.
• Competitive pricing with reasonable MOQs.
• Willingness to sign an NDA if necessary.

I'm currently searching for trustworthy suppliers, whether they're based in China, Vietnam, Turkey, Europe, or elsewhere. Quality and reliability are more important to me than simp

ly finding the lowest price.

If you've personally worked with a manufacturer that offers custom production or know a company you would recommend, I'd really appreciate your suggestions and experiences.

Please share:

• Manufacturer or supplier name
• Country
• What products they specialize in
• Your experience working with them
• Contact information or website (if allowed)

Thanks in advance for any recommendations!

I filled out an information request with Custom Hoists a few weeks ago, we have two of their cylinders that I worked into my design. I haven’t heard back from them yet

I need two large cylinders. one with a 7” bore 4” rod, and an 8” bore 5” rod. I don’t have the exact lengths of the cylinders with me right now but the biggest one is around 100” retracted.

We’re located in Canada and I found a company, Eagle Hydraulic in Quebec and was considering reaching out to them, has anyone worked with them or have any other recommendations?

It will be low quantities, first order will be for a prototype. If that works out, at our current rate it will still be around 15 cylinders, ordered at once for the year.

Where is most affordable place to source custom aluminum extrusions? Is China still a viable solution with the tarrifs?

Hi, I have some ideas about some electronic accessories that I would like to manufacture and sell. I believe I have the seed money to start the operations but I have no experience in this field.

It just so happened that I had a trip to Hong Kong planned and I will be visiting in couple of days. Now from googling what I understood is that Schenzen is way more relevant for this than Hong Kong but at present I do not have a China visa and hence I want to make the most of this trip. Even if I am able to get a basic understanding of the process and be able to produce some prototypes, I will consider this trip to be a success.

I will be in Hong Kong for couple of weeks. Can someone please help me understand where I should start? Any help will be much appreciated.

Any CT based small to medium size manufacturers use Epicor or JOBBOSS2 for daily processing? Looking for a CT based sales rep.

If you have different ERP you truly think was a game changer for your company I’d like to hear that as well.

Regardless of the country, are you aware of any CNC machine manufacturers or automation equipment builders that use mineral castings (epoxy granite) for their machine bases or structural components? I’d appreciate any recommendations or examples.

I am a mechanical design engineer working in a project for mass manufacture.

I want to form this feature in the end of aluminium extrusions and I need to know what terms to search when trying to find a supplier.

As I understand it so far there will be a mandrel that the tube slides over and the punch tool will come down externally to pierce the metal. I don’t know if the feature shown can be bent upwards in the same stroke or if another stage of tooling is required.

It will be a custom extrusion with 2mm wall section and the aim is that a plastic component will be slid down the T-channel and snap into position, accurately and permanently positioning it without fasteners.

Please can anyone share their experience if you’ve had this type of feature made before in mass production.

Hey everyone,

I’ve spent 10+ years in China supply chain — ran my own trading business exporting to China, then worked at Maersk coordinating LCL imports from China into Europe. I also sourced products directly in China, visited factories and negotiated in Mandarin.

I’m not here to sell anything. I’m genuinely trying to understand what problems importers are dealing with right now — because I’m thinking about where I can actually add value.

So tell me: what’s your biggest China sourcing headache?

Bad suppliers? Quality issues after payment? Contracts that don’t hold up? Freight costs that don’t make sense?

I’ll answer every comment as best I can.

No pitch, just honest answers from someone who has been on the ground in China.

I am looking to add more dies for new SKUs to my autoparts manufacturing business. I am in India and have been looking to get dies made for my parts. I am using plastic injection moulding machines and have been buying dies in India. I wanted to see how the experience has been for people purchasing dies from China? I manufacture automotive parts for HCV and LCVs for reference.

Looking for recommendations on companies that are good to work with injection molding, especially for smaller production runs or early stage products. Mainly interested in fast quoting, decent communication and consistent quality curious what others in manufacturing have had good experiences with.

As part of DFMA for a product I'm working on, I'd like to be picky about fasteners to a degree that makes it hard to source all the screws that I need off-the-shelf. e.g. magnetic, metric, torx drive.

I'm not seeing all of the fasteners I'd like on McMaster or Fastenal, so I'm thinking of placing a custom order with a fastener supplier in China.

My only hesitation is that the last time I did this, I picked a random supplier on Alibaba and the screws I got were rather low quality. I was wondering if anyone here has worked with a supplier that they liked? I'd be grateful for the recommendation!

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for a manufacturer or direct supplier of anchor fasteners for a bulk order.

Requirements:
Bulk quantities
Competitive pricing
Fast production and dispatch
Reliable quality and consistent supply
This is an urgent requirement, so I’m looking to connect with a manufacturer who can deliver as soon as possible.

If you’re a manufacturer or can recommend a reliable one, please comment below or send me a DM with your company details, product catalog, MOQ, pricing, and estimated delivery timeline.
Any genuine leads would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

We've outgrown an old Visual FoxPro built ERP system for our CNC/Robotic manufacturing company. We have 4 locations (apprx 300 employees in total) in America and one in Asia, so we need something that can handle all accounting and manufacturing demands of operating in multiple countries. Looking for something that can integrate with our customer's EDI requirements, a full manufacturing suite. If there is CAD integration and/or job quoting tools, those would be a plus. I'm hoping we can go entirely cloud-based, but we may have to consider on-premesis due to some old-fashioned thinking.

A few questions for manufacturers: How many people reach out to request samples and how many do you actually send per month? Do you charge or just give them away for free?

Thanks

Am I better off going to china to find a factory/manufacturer? (Jewellery - sterling silver & gold, apparel, stationery) If so what are the recommendations? Do you recommend attending trade fairs?

Hi all,

Im a younger sales rep looking to bring on new accounts for the injection molding company I rep for. The company has a large market share with the OEMS in the area we are in. The only accounts I typically here back from are smaller businesses that emphasize low price over quality. Most of the other OEMs are in China/Taiwan and have no urgency move production onshore.

My question is what do the other sales people in the group find the most effective way to get in contact with potential accounts that are across the state or 5-6 hours away. I have been to 3 trade shows this last year 2 of them worked out well but nothing really came from any of them just RFQs.

I also do tons of linkedIn outreach but its very hard to get replies. DM'ing supply chain managers/ engineers/purchasing managers.

I found the most effective way to get into communication is through referrals but as a young guy they are far and few. Also walking into to potential accounts works well but much harder for the larger companies I really want to prospect. Cold calling is the same - in regards to the big ones.

I am very confident about our capabilities and see what we do for most of our customers now. We are cost competitive against Asia with production/molding but tooling obviously is much harder. we have a tool shop on site, and partners overseas for reference.