It’s hard to imagine a more complex business model than that of a typical American job shop.

2025 Top Shops Conference attendees will hear ideas and strategies of top-performing shops as well as this year’s honorees in a special panel discussion. Those who arrive early can take part in facility tours and fun at Roush Yates Manufacturing and the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

High product mixes, tight-tolerance requirements, constant scheduling trade-offs, talent shortages, limited pricing power and volatile material costs are the main ingredients of a bitter truth: Small efficiency gains matter disproportionally in this industry.

Featured Content

When Will We See Humanoid Robots on the Manufacturing Floor? READ MORE

DN Solutions and HELLER: A United Vision for U.S. Manufacturing Renewal READ MORE

Addressing Manufacturing Challenges with Automation READ MORE

Saving a few minutes on a setup, holding onto skilled employees or simply reducing scrap by a half-percent can mean the difference between profit and going into the red.

The best measure of where any given shop stands on these metrics is direct comparison — stacking one shop’s performance against its peers and leaders in the industry. Which is exactly the purpose of Modern Machine Shop’s Top Shops benchmarking program.

Thousands of machine shops have completed the annual Top Shops survey and received a custom report that clearly detailed how their shops align or diverge from the top 20% of overall respondents — specifically in the key areas of machining technologies, shopfloor practices, business strategies and human resources.

When the 2025 survey window closed this spring, the numbers pointed us to four shops that embody the strengths we look for in each year’s selection of Top Shops Honorees. Each of our 2025 honorees shows how the choices a business makes — about technology, processes, people and culture — translate directly into competitiveness.

Midway Swiss Turn: Shopfloor Practices

Visit Midway Swiss Turn of Wooster, Ohio, and you’ll see the facade of a modest operation along a sleepy road. Inside, nine CNC machines, including several Swiss-types, are usually staffed by just two machinists. But read Evan Doran’s feature article, and you’ll find a shop characterized by continuous improvement and disciplined experimentation. CEO Jayme Rahz and General Manager Tyler Beal are constantly balancing careful stewardship with bold decision-making, from investing in five-axis machining with robotic part handling to adopting Harmoni MES for digital revision control and tool-life tracking.

Midway’s adaptability also stands out among a competitive field. When customers asked for stricter inspection protocols, Midway wisely decided to apply the practice across all jobs. When an RFQ exposed a gap in bar diameter capacity, the Midway team invested in a Miyano twin-spindle lathe to close it. Midway’s approach to security is particularly proactive among smaller shops, as defined by its pursuit of CMMC 2.0 compliance to safeguard both defense contracts and employee data. Rahz is blunt about the stakes: “Stagnant is just a layover to going out of business.”

Aerotech Machining: Machining Technology

Aerotech Machining of Bloomingdale, Georgia, has learned to navigate the technological crosswinds between small and large parts. Large aerospace structures run across profilers with travels measured in hundreds of inches, while smaller, high-mix jobs are handled by automated Mazak Palletech systems. One three-machine, 44-pallet cell with a combined 400 tools runs with just two operators — a testament to how smart automation can maximize limited labor.

But Aerotech also knows when high tech isn’t the answer. For a 22-foot-long shaft, the shop opted for a new manual Kingston lathe rather than financing a new CNC. That pragmatic decision turned what might have been a problematic and infrequent job into a profitable one.

In Doran’s feature, you’ll see how that kind of careful deliberation is exemplified in the company’s workforce decisions, too. Apprentices at Aerotech begin in a classroom setting, move on to manual machines then finally progress to CNC. Annual CAD/CAM workshops round out the experience. CEO Joey Jones insists on a culture of mentorship, stating bluntly that machinists who refuse to help the next generation learn have no place at the company, period.

Win-Tech: Human Resources

Located in Kennesaw, Georgia, Win-Tech is proof that HR strategy is about more than insurance plans and retirement benefits — though the shop has proved to be exceptional on both fronts, paying 100% of employee healthcare premiums and offering an immediate 401k match. The bigger story at Win-Tech is leadership’s respect for its employees’ ideas and objectives.

In Julia Hider’s feature, Win-Tech Co-President Allison Giddens explains how its employees are surveyed weekly about work schedules and benefits, encouraged to suggest improvements and rewarded when their ideas are implemented. In fact, Gidden says that it was this process that led to Win-Tech adopting a four-day, 10-hour schedule — a perk so popular that taking it away would cause “all hell to break loose,” Giddens jokes. Fridays are now optional days that can be used for training with access to NTMA-U and Mastercam classes.

To recruit new talent, Win-Tech maintains close ties with Chattahoochee Technical College and runs an annual Advanced Manufacturing Virtual Internship that draws students from across the country. It also partners with local organizations such as veterans’ programs and the chamber of commerce — connections that build workforce pipelines and community trust.

Marathon Precision: Business Strategies

Connections play an important role at Marathon Precision of Wheeling, Illinois, too, but with a twist. Under the leadership of founder Mike Bauer, this 60,000-square-foot shop has built one of the most diverse technology portfolios under a single roof: palletized Matsuuras, compact five-axis machines, Mazak multitasking lathes, EDM, grinding, chemical etching and blacksmith forging.

The diversity of these production capabilities allows Marathon to keep complex, high-tolerance work in-house. Other strategic business decisions here include reorganizing plant layout in CAD to improve workflow, developing disciplined quoting systems to ensure accuracy and investing in metrology like a Keyence optical scanner to catch discrepancies mid-process.

In the end, Marathon’s business strategy success has also relied on a truly unique culture. It is a shop that literally makes space for employees to create art or repair household items and work on their cars. The same machinist that fabricates a car bracket over the weekend will handle precision fixtures during the week, likely better at his job and certainly more loyal to the company. The result is a workforce that is cross-trained, motivated and ready to hit tight deadlines for complex jobs.

Join Us in Charlotte

Through this work, the Top Shops program creates a community where the ideas and strategies of top-performing shops are shared freely. And that community is joining together this coming November 11–12 at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina at Modern Machine Shop’s Top Shops Conference.

The 2025 Top Shops Conference will feature presentations, workshops and networking opportunities focused on the pillars of the Top Shops program. Attendees will hear directly from this year’s honorees in a special panel discussion, and those who arrive early can take part in facility tours and fun at Roush Yates Manufacturing and the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Early bird registration is available through October 10. Whether your interest is automation, quoting accuracy, workforce strategy or shop culture, the Top Shops Conference is your chance to learn from peers and see what the top 20% are doing differently.