Disruption,
commodities, platforms
The past year has been one where the overriding theme of several of our feature articles, often lead
stories, can be summed up as ‘not business as usual’ in the engineering manufacturing sector.
Andrew Allcock contemplates this theme further, pulling out a few examples from the year
Our January 2019 issue saw Italian, online-focused
delivery, just as you would buy any number of physical
commodities via Amazon. A commodity is uniform across
producers, trusted, expected to ful l its job, with price and
availability main selection criteria; even technical products
like cars and mobile phones are effectively commodities.
Of course, online subcontracting platforms/
marketplaces have existed for a while, offering buyers
access to multiple suppliers, but the instant quote and
rapid delivery elements have not been to the fore;
MFG.com and Orderfox are two such examples.
We carried two other features during the year about
online subcontracting services in the Weerg vein. In
August, we wrote about Fractory (https://is.gd/otukol),
an Estonia-headquartered operation that runs an online
subcontracting platform that connects buyers of sheet
metal parts with a group of vetted suppliers located in
Europe. This operation was started by an engineer with
experience of the dif culty of procuring sheet metal
subcontractor Weerg detailed (https://is.gd/tojafa).
A supplier of machined metal and additively
manufactured (AM) plastic parts, the key differentiator is
the company’s instant online quote capability for both
machining and AM, married to its fast delivery and global
reach (via third-party delivery services). Key software is
self-developed. Its metal machining operations are
automated to deliver round-the-clock production, while its
additive manufacturing process is, of course, a pushbutton,
unmanned and digitally-driven one, so automated.
Weerg was started by a non-engineer, online printing
business entrepreneur who is personally funding the
business.
In the comment piece that issue, we suggested this
represented the commoditisation of subcontracting –
arms-length, online purchasing of a technical service from
a company that offers immediate pricing and rapid
Top: Machines
you can talk to
Above: Affordable
industrial robotics
10 January 2020 www.machinery.co.uk @MachineryTweets
/MFG.com
/www.machinery.co.uk
/otukol
/tojafa