If you’re running a job shop, you already know—cost control isn’t just a goal, it’s a daily battle. Here, we show you 9 clear, practical ways to reduce costs across plant and operational areas without sacrificing quality or turnaround time. No fluff—just real strategies you can act on this week.
Job shops face a unique set of pressures: high-mix, low-volume orders, custom specs, unpredictable lead times, and razor-thin margins. Unlike larger, high-volume manufacturers, there’s no room to hide inefficiencies behind scale. That means every dollar saved, every hour optimized, and every process streamlined can make a real impact on your bottom line. This guide is your resource for doing just that—cutting costs in ways that respect the complexity of your work and the expectations of your customers.
1. Start with Scheduling: Stop Wasting Time on Machine Setups
For job shops, time is either your best friend or your biggest cost. And nothing eats up time faster than excessive machine setups. If your CNC operator spends more time prepping a job than running it, that’s not just inefficient—it’s expensive.
One of the fastest ways to reduce setup time is grouping similar jobs together by material, tooling, or operations. You’re not just planning the schedule—you’re designing it to work smarter. Imagine this scenario: a job shop doing 20 small-batch aluminum parts per week. Without grouping, each batch needs a tool change and setup. With grouping, the operator runs three similar parts in sequence, cutting setup time in half and freeing up hours each week.
Another win? Use setup reduction techniques like SMED (Single-Minute Exchange of Dies). Even applying just a few SMED principles—like preparing tools in advance or using quick-change fixtures—can save minutes per setup. Multiply that by dozens of setups per week, and you’ve got real savings.
2. Eliminate Manual Paperwork: Go Digital Where It Counts
Job shops are notorious for drowning in paperwork—job travelers, work orders, time sheets, inspection checklists. The problem isn’t just paper; it’s the delays, errors, and disconnects that come with it. A misplaced traveler can stall a job. A handwritten note can be misread. A late update can cause chaos.
The fix isn’t full-blown ERP software—most job shops don’t need the complexity or cost. Instead, think small: digital work instructions using tablets, simple shared spreadsheets for tracking job status, QR codes for part scanning, even WhatsApp groups for instant updates between the shop floor and office. It’s about visibility and speed.
One small job shop we worked with switched from paper travelers to a simple Google Sheets dashboard displayed on a tablet by each machine. The results? Fewer questions, faster job handoffs, and a noticeable drop in rework from miscommunication. Digital doesn’t mean expensive—it means faster, clearer, and more consistent.
3. Use Your Floor Space Like It’s Expensive—Because It Is
In a job shop, space gets eaten up fast—raw stock, WIP, jigs, scrap, tooling carts. And every square foot costs you money in rent, heating, cleaning, or missed opportunities. Treat your floor space like it’s prime real estate.
Start with a 5S audit. What can be sorted, straightened, or removed altogether? Are machines arranged in a way that minimizes material handling or are parts zig-zagging across the shop? Can tools be moved closer to the point of use?
One job shop in Ohio cleared out over 300 square feet just by eliminating redundant storage racks and consolidating tooling near machines. That cleared space became a new work cell that added capacity—without adding a single square foot.
4. Requote the Unprofitable Jobs You Keep Accepting
Every job shop has those “headache jobs.” You know the ones—odd materials, unusual specs, massive inspection requirements, or just jobs you’ve always taken but never questioned. And often, they’re priced based on old assumptions, not today’s true costs.
Here’s a tip: take one week and review every job you ran that month. Which ones made money? Which ones didn’t? If the data isn’t easy to find, start tracking it with simple job cost tracking sheets—materials, setup, runtime, rework, overtime.
One fabricator realized their “easy” stainless jobs were actually losing money once they factored in tool wear and post-processing time. They updated the pricing, and while they lost a few customers, they turned a profit on every future order.
5. Train One Operator to Run Two Machines—Safely
Job shops live and die by their people. But labor is expensive, and skilled labor even more so. One powerful strategy? Cross-training. Specifically, training operators to safely run two machines at once—like a CNC lathe and a mill—or to float between machines based on demand.
This doesn’t mean doubling workload or pushing staff too hard. It means smarter use of downtime. If one machine has an auto cycle of 2 minutes, that’s time the operator can use to check parts or start another job. You get more output per labor hour—without burnout.
A shop in Michigan staggered job starts so a single operator could bounce between two machines. That shift alone increased throughput by 18% on high-mix jobs, all without overtime or new hires.
6. Don’t Let Scrap Become a Hidden Tax
Scrap in job shops isn’t just about wasted material—it’s wasted time, effort, and opportunity. And because shops often work on one-off or low-volume jobs, scrap gets treated like a cost of doing business. It shouldn’t.
Start tracking scrap by job and by cause. Is it a programming error? A fixturing problem? Operator fatigue? Once you know, you can fix it. If 80% of your scrap is coming from one operator or one machine, that’s not a material issue—it’s a training or process issue.
One precision machine shop realized 40% of their scrap was happening on first-piece runs. The fix? A better first-article inspection process and a checklist at setup. Their scrap rate dropped 60% in two months. Real dollars saved, just from paying attention.
7. Stop Overprocessing—Your Customers Don’t Want It
Job shops take pride in quality, but there’s a fine line between quality and overprocessing. If you’re holding tolerances tighter than the print calls for or polishing parts that don’t need it, you’re spending time and money your customer didn’t ask for.
Ask your customers: what really matters? What tolerances are critical? What finishes are “nice to have” but not required? You might find that a 0.0002” tolerance isn’t necessary—or that a part doesn’t need to be deburred on all edges, just the mating ones.
A metal fab shop was bead-blasting every part after welding because “we always have.” When they asked the customer, they were told it wasn’t needed—and the customer didn’t want to pay for it. That change alone saved 4 hours a week.
8. Buy Smarter, Not Just Cheaper
Material cost is a major line item for any job shop. But saving money here isn’t just about getting cheaper rates—it’s about reducing waste, improving lead times, and negotiating smarter.
Can you standardize materials across more jobs? Can you buy sheet or bar stock in sizes that minimize drops? Can you partner with a supplier for just-in-time deliveries to reduce storage costs?
One job shop switched from ordering cut-to-length aluminum rods to full bars and cut in-house. The supplier offered a volume discount, and the shop saved nearly 12% on materials annually—even after factoring in cutting time.
9. Hold the Overtime—Until You’ve Fixed the Bottlenecks
Overtime is a necessary evil in job shops, but it shouldn’t be the first solution to every delay. Before approving another round of OT, ask: where’s the real bottleneck? Is it scheduling? Is it waiting on approvals? Is a single inspector slowing the whole shop?
Map your process flow. If 60% of your jobs wait 6+ hours in inspection, that’s your bottleneck—not the operator on the last machine. Shift resources, streamline approvals, or automate parts of that process.
One aerospace job shop reduced overtime by 30% just by hiring a part-time second-shift inspector. It cost less than the overtime and sped up deliveries.
3 Takeaways You Can Use This Week
- Your schedule is a goldmine—Group jobs by setup similarity to save hours of machine time each week.
- Paper is your hidden bottleneck—Replace paperwork with digital tools that cost little but save a lot.
- Question your assumptions—From scrap to job pricing, the cost of not reviewing your habits is higher than you think.