What is the Advantage and Disadvantage of Roll Forming Machine

Apr. 28, 2025

Buying a Roll Forming Machine vs. Outsourced Forming: ROI

Sometimes it’s good to know when to ask for help. This is especially true when making decisions for a large business.

At times, metal manufacturers hit a crossroads when trying to decide the best way to complete a project. Time and money are often two things at the front of a decision-maker’s mind, and a hyperfocus on these savings can lead to costly decisions.

Such is the case when trying to decide between contracted roll forming and in-house forming. Although your in-house forming capabilities may be decent, do you truly understand roll forming machines and what they’re capable of in experienced hands?

What Is a Roll Forming Machine?

A roll forming machine is a machine that can fabricate specific configurations using long strips of metal, typically in coil form. They operate in a continuous cycle, and can be used to perform several other metalworking duties, such as cutting and in-line punching.

After the metal is fed into the machine, it makes its way through each stage of the machine’s operation. Custom-made tooling can be incorporated to get an exact shape out of the final product. As the strip of metal travels through the tooling, or sets of rollers, it bends a little more each time until it reaches the desired shape. Complex shapes may require 20 or more passes through the equipment.

Roll forming machines are cold formers, meaning that no heat is needed to form the metal. Roll forming is great for creating precise parts that don’t require much, if any, finishing work.

Roll forming comes with many advantages over other metal forming processes.

Advantages of Roll Forming

The advantages and disadvantages of roll forming can be weighed against one another in the same way other metal forming processes can. However, the list of advantages for roll forming is much longer than that of the disadvantages.

Some advantages of roll forming include:

Speed
Ability to use in-line punching or notching
Economy of scale
The ability to produce long shapes that wouldn’t fit in a brake press
Customization - no matter how many bends or how complex the part is, the process time is the same

All these advantages make roll forming look attractive to many manufacturers. Others, however, are still curious as to whether their in-house forming capabilities can effectively do the job they need.

Outsourcing Roll Forming Vs. In-House Forming

If you’re trying to decide between a roll forming supplier or in-house forming, then there are many factors to consider. Three of the most important to consider are:

Cost
Expertise
Where to Spend Your Time

The investment in time, training, and equipment may make you reconsider in-house forming.

Cost

First and foremost, you need to consider what your total cost will be to achieve your final product. Will the up-front equipment costs and hiring of specialty workers end up costing more than employing the services of a dedicated roll forming company?

How much will the parts cost that you need to create your custom profile if you use in-house labor and materials? If you don’t have any of the equipment on-hand, then you’re likely going to spend more trying to equip yourself than you would choosing roll forming. Will your new equipment be fully utilized? And if you do have the labor and equipment on hand, do you have the capacity?

And multi-step metal forming machine costs are capital-intensive, so buying the exact machinery needed to mimic what a roll forming supplier can do will likely cost you an arm and a leg. You may have to buy some tooling from your contracted roll forming source, but some roll forming service providers will work with the customer on making tooling a more affordable and profitable investment.

Expertise

Your operators will directly affect your ability to make your product a great one.

Metal forming companies typically employ experts dedicated to a specific forming process (not roll forming). There is a time and place for custom metal fabricators , and it normally should not involve large quantities of the same parts. Craftsmen who fabricate metal should be doing the custom work that makes your business unique. They should be satisfying the needs of your customers - not banging out widgets using custom fabrication equipment.

And this expertise will also be needed for when things go awry. It will be needed to fix things, handle Murphy's Law, and protect the quality and delivery your customer’s expect.

Additional reading:
7 Essential Facts About Stamping Equipment Overseas Commissioning Services

With competitive price and timely delivery, Lihao Machine sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.

Where to Spend Your Time

Depending on when you’d like to have your finished product or products, and how many shippable units you want to complete per day, where you spend your time can be a major factor.

This includes maximizing the speed at which shippable, billable, complete assemblies are produced without any component part bottlenecks. So, if you walk through your plant, do you see resources being used to make monotonous, repeating, high volume components? Are those processes keeping up with the velocity of invoicing completed units that you would like?

In-house forming may be slowing your entire business down. Don’t you want to see most of your resources completing units you can actually invoice? Let a contracted provider that specializes in components support your employees who should be making what you sell...and at the fastest rate possible!

Then there’s the matter of capacity. If your facility is backed up with component orders or some other component snafu, your lead times and sales may suffer. For slender, linear metal components, a roll former is more likely to have the bandwidth to pump out support for your products in a timely manner.

Ending the Classic Debate

If you need metal forming services, and are trying to decide between a roll forming supplier and using in-house forming, seriously consider the three factors discussed above. Ultimately, to get the fastest delivery time at an affordable price, OEMs usually select a roll forming company to complete the job.

With a roll forming supplier working all the magic, all you need to do is supply design specs and a deadline. To learn about what goes into designing a great roll formed part, download our free e-book below:

Roll Forming Post-Cut or Pre-Cut Advantages and Disadvantages

When roll forming producers are making serious decisions about new roll form products, it is critical to consider the best mill configuration to produce the desired product. The options involve when to make the cut-off, choosing between roll forming pre-cut material or post-cutting the material. With pre-cut material, the strip is cut before entering the roll forming mill, whereas with post-cut material, the strip is cut after the product is shaped through the roll forming mill. There are advantages and disadvantages to each choice. The following points should be helpful in choosing the best option for your roll forming application:

Advantages of a post-cut roll form line:

Increased production and less downtime, since material is fed continuously through the roll former
Typically, fewer forming stations are required, since there is no need for the material to self-thread
After a new coil is threaded, the leading edge of the profile does not get deformed
Tooling tends to wear longer between reconditioning, yielding more linear footage
End flare, twist, camber and bow defects are easier to control
Minor mill adjustments are possible with continuously fed material under load in the roll former
Part lengths are not limited by mill specs (i.e. horizontal centers); if floor space is an issue, the parts can be run directly to the outside of the building

Disadvantages of a post-cut roll form line:

Edge condition from the cut-off die can leave a slight burr and/or distortion with hemmed parts or non-supported areas of a cross-section
More cut-off die inserts are required, when there are many sizes or combinations for a given product
Sometimes it is better to form a pre-cut strip, when there is a severely notched feature in the product
When pre-notching is needed, the mill system requires additional capital to add the cut-off press to the system

Advantages of a pre-cut roll form line:

Generally, it is less expensive to utilize an existing electronic feed system already used in the pre-shear, as opposed to adding a second post-cut press at the end of the mill
Hand feeding strips is more economical for low-volume production
Some notch configurations make it easier to run pre-cut strips
Combination roll tooling that forms multiple strip widths does not require shear die changeover
Parts with severe notches or complex cross-sections may not cut well after roll forming

Disadvantages of a pre-cut roll form line:

Strips must self-thread without damage to the lead edges, normally requiring additional forming stations
Lead and trail ends of pre-cut strips are not supported against adjacent roll passes, resulting in straightening issues
Auxiliary guides may be required to control the material as it transitions from pass to pass
Tooling generally experiences more abuse and wear from lead-in edge of profile
End flare condition on exit and lead-in edge can be more prominent on pre-cut parts
Twist, end flare, and bow are harder to minimize, when forming pre-cut parts – especially asymmetrical profiles
Material can jam or double up in production and cause damage to the roll former and tooling
Producing shorter parts has limitations – the profile should be engaged in three forming stations at all times
If floor space is a concern, longer parts require a material conveyor between the pre-notch press and the roll former, equal to or greater than the longest part

Click here to contact our team with any questions you may have about choosing between post-cut or pre-cut for roll forming mills. One of our technicians will you an answer or call you for more details.

Profit Pointer Pipe and Tube Production

All too often, production problems are the result of incorrect tooling and mill setup, as well as poor maintenance practices.

Solving Pipe & Tube Production Problems

All too often, though, these problems are the result of incorrect tooling and mill setup, as well as poor maintenance practices.

Profit Pointer Roll Forming Materials

High-strength materials have many advantages over general strength, or standard, materials and are widely used for structural components in various industries.

Profit Pointer for Tooling Management

A properly employed Tooling Management and maintenance Program will go a long way toward improving your overall performance.

Profit Pointer for Tube Mill Alignment

This article covers the important areas on the mill so as to insure proper alignment and therefore high quality tubing, as well as longer life out of the tooling.

Profit Pointer for Changeover Times

Reducing tooling and equipment changeover times is critical to operating a cost-effective tube or pipe mill.

What is the Advantage and Disadvantage of Roll Forming Machine

Buying a Roll Forming Machine vs. Outsourced Forming: ROI

What Is a Roll Forming Machine?

Advantages of Roll Forming

Outsourcing Roll Forming Vs. In-House Forming

Cost

Expertise

Where to Spend Your Time

Ending the Classic Debate

Roll Forming Post-Cut or Pre-Cut Advantages and Disadvantages

Roll Forming Post-Cut or Pre-Cut Advantages and Disadvantages

Related Articles

Profit Pointer Pipe and Tube Production

Solving Pipe & Tube Production Problems

Profit Pointer Roll Forming Materials

Profit Pointer for Tooling Management

Profit Pointer for Tube Mill Alignment

Profit Pointer for Changeover Times

Time to Roll Profits!

Have a technical question?

Need a quote from one of our performance specialists?