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C.N.C.
Computerized Numerical Control. This refers to modern milling machines and other machine tools that can carve complex parts from solid billets. Although CNC parts are not as strong as forged parts, they can be made into more complicated shapes than is possible with forging or conventional casting.
See also Jeff del Papa's article on Forging, Casting & CNC Machining on this site.
Most bike parts in current production have some level of CNC finishing. When advertising makes a big deal about it, this is usually an indication that the part concerned is "machined from billet", i.e. that it is entirely sculpted from a big lump of metal. This is actually very much inferior to processes that begin with forging and just use the CNC for the final finishing, because the billet (big lump of metal) will not have the desirable grain structure of a forged part.
