Competitive Advantages of Laser Cutting

There are numerous advantages to fabricating a component part from a laser than any other cutting method. These advantages can be broken down into 2 categories: The Geometric Advantage and The Cost Advantage.

The Geometric Advantage

• Accuracy…Accuracy…Accuracy…with excellent repeatability.
   Depending on specific part geometry and material thickness our
   standard tolerance is +/- .005. However, we can achieve
   +/- .002 on some thin materials.
• Smaller cut taper than other methods such as plasma cutting or
   turret punching.
• Minimal heat input, results in less distortion of the workpiece.
• Increased cutting speeds and higher throughput in most
   instances.
• Lasers let you successfully achieve very intricate and difficult
   geometric cuts.
• Lasers cut a wide range of steels and other materials from Acrylic
   to wood.

The Cost Advantage

• There is no expensive tooling to add to the cost of producing a
   part.
• No tooling to wear or replace.
• No tooling makes prototyping parts inexpensive and fast.
• Cleaner edges so no secondary deburring operations are
   necessary on some materials.
• A Preset laser cutting heads minimize set-up time.
• Lasers are extremely flexible and lend themselves to quick
   changeover.
• Smaller cut width (Kerf) allows parts to be cut closer together
   than other cutting technologies. This advantage can be taken a
   step further by nesting like materials and thicknesses together on
   the same sheet thus reducing scrap and yielding more parts per
   sheet.