What to build first?
Manufacturing is a massively complex and intricate industry. What you are building greatly effects how to make it. Industries have developed special tooling and processes for certain types of parts. Unless you are doing mass production, you need to find a manufacturing facility that has general manufacturing equipment, and ideally, they will have enough equipment to accomplish all of your needs in one facility. If not, you will have to transport partially finished parts to another place to get them finished, costing time and money as well as additional communication and organizing.
This puts us in a difficult position, as we eventually want to be able to offer a service that is a one-stop shop for the customer. So at first, we will only be able to do this on very simple items. Items that only require one process. So the question is which process?
The game of trade-offs
We are trying to balance a lot of factors to ensure a quality customer experience, while still offering a useful first product. We have settled on water jet as our first service to offer, and here is why:
- Easy to model cost structure (for instant quoting)
- Can cut nearly any material (versatility)
- Can cut a wide range of thickness (0-6" Thick!)
- Clean, unaltered cut (Looks good, and does not create heat while cutting)
- Quick Setups (Great for low volume orders!)
Simple is better
We want to provide a quick way for people to price their parts. Our goal is to provide access to even the smallest of companies, even as small as one person with a hobby. Many machines shops do not like dealing with small orders, but that is what we pride ourselves on!