Your Supplier Shipped Out-of-Tolerance Parts—Now What?

You receive the shipment, perform incoming inspection or start assembly, and discover that some parts are out of tolerance. Suddenly, production plans, customer deliveries, and supplier trust all come into question. Out-of-tolerance parts do not create only a quality problem—they create schedule and supplier risks. The immediate decisions are whether the parts can still be […]

Should You Relax a Tolerance When a Supplier Can’t Meet It?

During quotation or drawing review, a supplier may ask whether a tolerance on your custom part can be relaxed. The request may reduce cost or improve manufacturability—but it also raises an important question: is the supplier protecting your project, or protecting their own limitations? You should not automatically agree—or reject—the request. A supplier asking to […]

Tolerance Failure After Heat Treatment – Why It Happens and How to Prevent

Heat-treated parts often come back warped or undersized — suddenly your build is stuck. Tolerance fails after heat treatment because residual stresses and phase changes cause distortion when machining sequence, fixturing, and finishing stock are not properly planned. Below are the 12 supplier-check questions that prevent tolerance surprises after hardening. Table of Contents Why do […]