Job shop: A job shop is a manufacturer that makes custom parts to each customer's design in small to medium batches, using general-purpose machines that switch between many different jobs.
A job shop does not have a product of its own. It sells capacity and skill: CNC machining, fabrication, 3D printing or a mix, applied to whatever parts its customers send. Today’s work might be ten aluminium brackets; tomorrow’s a single prototype housing and a batch of 200 spacers.
That variety shapes the business. Machines are general-purpose, so setup cost matters on every job. No two quotes are the same, so estimating takes real time. And because the work arrives through RFQs and repeat customers, quoting speed and accuracy have a direct effect on revenue.
Example: a five-person job shop with three mills and a lathe might quote 30 to 60 new parts a week. If each quote takes 20 minutes, that is 10 to 20 hours a week of estimating, much of it on jobs it will not win.
A job shop is often compared with a service bureau. The terms overlap, but “service bureau” is used more for additive manufacturing and online ordering, while “job shop” suggests traditional machining and fabrication. Both differ from a production manufacturer, which runs a small number of parts in high volume.
See how Quotometry fits job shops, or read how to quote manufacturing parts.
Go deeper: How to quote a manufactured part: the estimator's method