I’m a self employed jeweler in Yuma, Arizona, we are headed into our 37th year in business We are a retail manufacturer and we do most work in house, casting, machining, setting etc. etc.
I have been a goldsmith - metalsmith for 40 some years. My 4 children have been taking care of day to day operations for about 5 years now and that leaves me to do the design manufacture of the models, ( so far so good I’m still getting a check) ,
I’ve been running CAD - CAM for about 15 years , before CAD we carved, or fabricated all of our pieces , so CAD has had a major impact on my work, my life, simply because it enables me to compete in a sea of mass marketers - merchandisers and overseas manufacturing , we still hand carve or fabricate 20 % of our custom pieces, approximately 2/3ds of our gross sales come off the benches and I think I have 10 or 11 people that work in the store.