The job shop capabilities page and capabilities statement buyers actually read

US manufacturing technology orders in August 2026 were up 36.3% from a year earlier, according to AMT figures reported by Manufacturing Dive on Oct. 16, 2026, with new orders of metalworking machinery at $732.9 million for the month. Orders for the first eight months reached $4.76 billion, up 36.9%. AMT said growth in orders from contract machine shops outpaced the overall market in August, and that IMTS 2026 “may be remembered as the point where contract machine shop orders began to lead the market.” If your shop added a five-axis cell or a bar-fed lathe in 2026 and the website still lists the machines you had in 2021, buyers are sourcing against the old shop.

A capabilities page and a one-page capabilities statement do the same job for two audiences. Both should let a buyer decide quickly whether a part fits: the equipment with its work envelopes, the materials you run, the tolerances you hold and can inspect, your certifications, the part size and volume range, and a lead time. The page serves engineers and search engines. The PDF serves supplier qualification and defense primes, who expect a specific format.

What do the best Top Shops’ capabilities pages show?

On Oct. 26, 2026 we read the capabilities, equipment, quality and about pages of four machine shops in Modern Machine Shop’s 2026 Top Shops program (three of them honorees) and three molders on Plastics Technology’s 2026 Top Shops list, and recorded what a buyer could find on each.

Shop	Equipment with sizes	Tolerance stated	Certifications	Part size or weight	Volume range	Lead time	Downloadable sheet
HEI Precision, Bellingham, WA	Yes, by machine	+/- 0.001”	AS9100, ISO 9001, ITAR	Yes, 45 lb max	EAU 200 to 200,000	4 to 6 weeks	One-page capability statement
Precision Profiles, Titusville, PA	Yes for hollow machining; summary in PDF for machining	+/- 0.001” honing; +/- 0.0002” in PDF	ISO 9001, ITAR, JCP	Yes	Not stated	“14 days or less” for hollow work	Two-page sheet, file from November 2021
Hill Manufacturing & Fabrication, Broken Arrow, OK	CMM size only	+/- .0005	ISO 9001:2015, AS9100:2016, ITAR	Not stated	“high volume, low volume”	Not stated	None found
Midway Swiss Turn, Wooster, OH	Yes, by model	+/- .0002	Working toward CMMC Level 1 and 2	Bar to 1.25” on two Swiss lathes, 2” on its Miyano; parts up to 10 ft	Prototype to high volume	Not stated	None found
Plastikos, Erie, PA	“Over 60 precision molding machines”; detail in PDF brochures	Not stated	ISO 13485, ISO 9001, ISO 14001	Not stated	“700 million+ parts shipped annually”	Not stated	Equipment brochures
Zircon Plastics, Hulmeville, PA	Press range, 55 to 250 tons	Not stated	UL and MIL-SPEC noted for thermosets; no ISO found	Not stated	“NO minimum Order”	“Fast Delivery”	None found
Molding Services, Olney, IL	Not found	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated	None found

Some pages load content by script, which we may not have seen; “not stated” means not on the pages we read.

HEI Precision, the 2026 Top Shops honoree for machining technology, is the model. Its capabilities page lists every machine with spindle speed, automation and work envelope, down to a Brother R-450 at 6.5 x 3 x 2 inches and a Makino PS105-2 at 36 x 16 x 8. Its about page sums it up the way a buyer thinks: three-axis parts up to 18 x 36 inches, four-axis up to 16 x 18, five-axis up to about a 10-inch cube, bar-fed parts to 3.0 inches in diameter, chucked parts to 14 inches, a maximum part weight of 45 pounds, and “quantities up to 200,000 per year depending on complexity.” A buyer with a 60-pound casting knows to look elsewhere, which saves both sides a quote.

Precision Profiles, the honoree for shopfloor practices, writes its hollow machining page like a spec sheet. Trepanning: six machines, OD 3 to 32 inches, ID 2 to 16 inches, up to 30 feet long. Honing: three machines, ID 0.50 to 26.25 inches at +/- 0.001 inch, up to 34 feet. Its downloadable capabilities sheet is strong too, with machine counts and size limits for grinding, milling, turning and wire EDM. But the PDF file dates from November 2021 and lists “<25 Employees,” the certifications page says “Small Business (< 30 Employees),” and Modern Machine Shop described a 34-person manufacturer in 2026. Documents drift like this at every shop, so put a date on them and review them each quarter.

Midway Swiss Turn lists its Citizen Swiss-type lathes by model, with bar capacity up to 1.25 inches on two of them and 2 inches on its Miyano, and states the numbers a Swiss buyer screens on: tolerances to plus or minus .0002, parts up to 10 feet long, surface finish down to 16 microinch.

Hill Manufacturing & Fabrication, the honoree for business strategies, makes strong claims, including tolerances of +/- .0005 and AS9100 certification, but the pages we read named no machines or envelopes. The one size it gives is a 48 x 120 x 29 inch CMM, which tells a careful reader the shop handles large parts, though the page should say so in words.

On the three molders’ sites, press tonnage did the work of the envelope where it appeared at all. Zircon Plastics gives a 55 to 250 ton press range and a detailed material list, from nylons and acetal to phenolics and 40 to 90 Shore A elastomers. Plastikos leads with scale and cleanliness: over 60 molding machines, ISO 7 and 8 cleanrooms, ISO 13485, and more than 700 million parts a year, with its equipment lists in downloadable brochures. On the Molding Services pages we read, we found no press list, tonnage range or certification; a buyer screening molders would have to call to learn the basics. Three sites say little about how molders in general present themselves; our guide to what buyers search before they pick a molder looks at what else molders’ pages need, including cost.

What a buyer screens on	What the page says
Three-axis parts	Up to 18 x 36 inches
Four-axis parts	Up to 16 x 18 inches
Five-axis parts	Up to about a 10-inch cube
Bar-fed parts	To 3.0 inches in diameter
Chucked parts	To 14 inches
Maximum part weight	45 pounds
Volume	"Quantities up to 200,000 per year depending on complexity"

A buyer with a 60-pound casting knows to look elsewhere before asking for a quote. Source: HEI Precision, heiprecision.com/about, read Oct. 26, 2026.

What should a job shop capabilities page include?

Build it from the buyer’s screening questions, in HTML first, because engineers, search engines and AI answer tools read page text more readily than a PDF. Our guide to what OEM buyers search for a machine shop covers the searches that page should answer.

• Each machine by make and model, with work envelope or bar and chuck capacity, axes and automation
• Inspection equipment, including CMM measuring range
• Materials you run every week, and any you will not quote
• Tolerances you hold and can measure, by process
• Certifications and registrations, with the certificates posted as PDFs (Ferro-Ceramic Grinding, a 2026 Top Shop, posts its AS9100 and Nadcap certificates this way)
• Part size and weight limits
• Volume range, from prototype to annual usage
• Typical lead time and how fast you respond to an RFQ (our RFQ-to-quote playbook has what 20 Top Shops promise)
• Secondary and outside processes you manage
• A link to the RFQ form and to the capabilities statement PDF

Put the date of the last update at the bottom, because engineers notice it.

What goes in a one-page capabilities statement?

A capabilities statement is the PDF a prime contractor, a government buyer or a supplier quality engineer asks for before an RFQ. The term comes from federal contracting, and so do the format conventions. A guide by Gloria Berthold Larkin, hosted by the Buffalo State Small Business Development Center, recommends:

• One page, one side, with a second side only if needed
• The title “Capability Statement” at the top
• Sections labeled Core Competencies, Past Performance and Differentiators
• Company data: NAICS codes as numbers only, CAGE code, socio-economic certifications and any contract vehicles
• A named contact with direct phone and email
• Short sentences and bullets, saved and sent as a PDF with your company name in the file name

That guide still asks for a DUNS number. On April 4, 2022, SAM.gov and the other GSA systems switched from DUNS to the Unique Entity ID as the authoritative government entity identifier, so list your UEI instead.

HEI Precision’s one-page statement follows this format closely. It carries the CAGE code and UEI, three NAICS codes (332710 for machine shops, 332721 for precision turned products and 33641 for aerospace products and parts), core competencies with the same envelopes as its website, a list of differentiators and a named business contact. It lacks a past performance section, the part a prime reads most closely. Add two or three programs, customers or part families you can name, with permission.

If you are new to government work, APEX Accelerators, a Department of Defense program, offer no-cost guidance on the procurement process.

Block	Where it sits	What goes in it
Title	Top band	"Capability Statement" and the company name
Core Competencies	Left column	Short bullets: processes, envelopes, materials, tolerances
Past Performance	Left column	Two or three programs, customers or part families you can name, with permission
Company Data	Right column	UEI (not DUNS), CAGE code, NAICS codes as numbers only, socio-economic certifications, contract vehicles
Differentiators	Right column	What sets the shop apart, in short sentences
Contact	Bottom band	A named contact with direct phone and email, the website and the date updated

One page, one side, sent as a PDF with the company name in the file name. The federal government replaced DUNS with the SAM.gov Unique Entity ID on April 4, 2022. Source: Blocks: Gloria Berthold Larkin, How to Write a Powerful Capability Statement for Government Contractors, via Buffalo State SBDC; UEI: GSA, March 16, 2022; layout ours.

Why update the page now?

The AMT orders tell you competitors are adding capacity, and contract shops are now buying faster than the market as a whole. Buyers will compare what they see online, and they cannot see a machine you installed until you publish it. The refresh is an afternoon of work. Walk the floor with the equipment list, measure the envelopes, and update the page and the PDF the same day.

In your industry

Metals and machining. Lead with envelopes, axes and inspection. Defense and aerospace buyers also screen on CAGE code, ITAR registration and CMMC status, so put them on the page as well as the PDF.

Plastics and rubber. Lead with press range by tonnage, shot size if you can, cleanroom class, resins and secondary operations such as insert molding and overmolding. If you build tools in-house, say how many and how big.

What to do Monday

1. Walk the floor with your current equipment list and fix every model, envelope and count.
2. Add the four numbers buyers screen on first: largest part, heaviest part, tightest tolerance you can inspect, and the volume range you want.
3. Rebuild the capabilities statement on one page with your UEI, CAGE, NAICS codes and a past performance section, and date it.
4. Post certificates as PDFs and link them from the capabilities page.
5. Put a calendar reminder to review both every quarter, and after every machine purchase.