The part had been turned from aluminum bar since prototype. At low quantities that was the right call — no tooling, fast turnaround, easy to iterate. But as orders grew, two costs scaled with the volume: the material left on the floor as swarf, and the machine time consumed cutting a complex geometry out of solid stock.
By the time volumes reached the thousands, the unit price was dominated by those two factors — not by the shop's rate. No amount of shopping around would fix it, because the problem was the process, not the supplier.
Unit cost fell roughly 50% versus the original turned design, with tooling recovered inside the first production run. The customer kept the same drawing-level tolerances on the faces that mattered, and stopped paying for material that was never going to ship as a part.
The process decision is covered in more depth in die casting in China; the shop-selection side is in CNC machining in China.
I check whether the volume justifies a tool, redesign the geometry for the actual process, and review the tool before steel is cut — so the cost saving is real and the tolerances still hold. Send the drawing and the volume; I'll tell you whether to machine or cast, and what the landed number looks like.
Send a drawing or an idea — honest assessment and a budget quote within one working day.