Wildbend Funding Group, a small-business funding service in Newark, Ohio, helps Licking County, OH machine shops, fabricators and small manufacturers compare equipment financing for CNC and fabrication machines, inventory financing for raw material, and term loans for added floor space. Funding partners review each request and make their own decision.
| Manufacturing employers | 163 in Licking County, OH (CBP 2023) |
|---|---|
| Fabricated metal shops | 37 employers (CBP 2023) |
| Sector payroll | About $672.7 million (CBP 2023) |
| Common fits | Equipment, term loan, inventory |
The manufacturing cash cycle
A shop buys steel, aluminum or other material, runs the job, ships it, invoices, and waits. Industrial customers commonly pay on 30-, 45- or 60-day terms, so the money for a job can come back two or three months after the material was paid for. Large machines, meanwhile, are paid for over years. Growth makes the gap wider, because each new order needs material and labor before it pays.
Small business manufacturing loans usually address three needs: production equipment, material and work in progress, and space.
Manufacturing equipment financing: CNC, press brakes, lasers
CNC mills and lathes, press brakes, laser and plasma tables, welding cells and inspection equipment are financed through equipment financing. Production machines from established builders can hold resale value, which partners weigh, but rigging, installation and tooling are often quoted separately and may be financed differently. Ask for a quote that separates the machine, tooling and installation.
Used machines are common. Partners look at the control, spindle hours, condition and whether the builder still supports it. A used horizontal mill with a well-documented service history reads very differently from an older machine with an obsolete control.
A CNC machine loan calculator, worked by hand
Illustration only, with invented figures: a used five-axis machining center at $185,000, with $25,000 down, financed over 60 months at an assumed annual rate of 9. The monthly payment is about $3,321 and the total cost about $224,280 including the down payment. If the machine runs billable work for 30 hours a week at a shop rate of $95, that is about $2,850 a week of revenue before material and labor. The numbers are arithmetic, not an offer.
Run your own figures in the equipment payment calculator; it works for any machine because it only needs the price, down payment, rate and term.
How to finance a metal shop's growth
For material and work in progress, inventory financing or a line of credit can carry steel buys and the gap until customers pay. For a move to a larger building, a new bay or a second shift's worth of equipment, a term loan matches the long payback. Partners will want to see the order book, top customers and how concentrated the revenue is.
- Customer concentration: one customer at a large share of sales is a risk partners will ask about.
- Backlog: signed purchase orders support a request for material or machines.
- Capacity: show the bottleneck the new machine removes.
Manufacturing in Licking County, OH
| Code | Employer establishments | Share under 5 employees | In ZIP 43055 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fabricated metal products, incl. machine shops (332) | 37 | 27.0% | 14 |
| Food manufacturing (311) | 16 | 18.8% | 4 |
| Printing and related support (323) | 13 | 53.8% | 6 |
The Manufacturing sector as a whole had 163 employer establishments in the county in 2023 and an annual payroll of about $672.7 million (U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023). Fabricated metal shops averaged roughly 51 employees each by our arithmetic (about 1,872 employees across 37 shops; employee counts are noise-infused), against about 24 across all county employer establishments by the same arithmetic (77,088 employees across 3,277 establishments). Nonemployer Statistics 2024 counted 25 fabricated metal, 40 food and 19 printing businesses with no payroll (U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2024), a separate program and year.
Manufacturing is the largest sector by employer establishments in ZIP 43025, the Hebron, OH postal ZIP, with 27 of 156 (U.S. Census Bureau, ZIP Code Business Patterns 2023); see the Hebron, OH page. Other counts are on the Newark, OH data page and the industries page.
Food producers and print shops
The county's 16 food manufacturers and 13 printing establishments with employees may share the machine-heavy pattern. Bakeries and small food producers finance mixers, ovens and packaging lines and buy ingredients ahead of wholesale orders; print shops finance presses and wide-format printers and stock paper for large jobs. In both, customer payment terms decide how much working capital the equipment needs alongside it.
What partners commonly review for manufacturers
- Two or more years of financial statements and tax returns
- Machine quotes with tooling, rigging and installation separated
- Accounts receivable aging and the top customers' share of sales
- Backlog or signed purchase orders
- Existing equipment debt and leases
Requirements are set by each partner; none publish thresholds.
By Wildbend Funding Group · Updated