LEAD FEATURE THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
components. Again, instant online quoting is key, backed
by self-developed software, with reliable, high quality
supply for buyers who do not need to personally approach
multiple rms. Fractory personnel work actively with the
supplier network to improve their processes and reduce
non-conformance. The company has a UK of ce, as this
market is a prominent one for Fractory’s service. The
company is backed by venture capital (VC).
Our third story, in September 2019, concerned
CloudNC (https://is.gd/vapavi), a single company like
Weerg, not a platform like Fractory. Another VC-backed
operation, it is one that has much larger ambitions than
the previous two, and one that didn’t even start out to be
a metal machining (mostly prismatic) subcontractor.
Online quoting with a 24-hour turn-around features, so not
instant. But CloudNC is looking to be both faster and
cheaper for the machining of high value primary metal
components via, most usually, 5-axis machining, and is
additionally looking to build 100s of clone factories
globally to deliver this service. CloudNC’s own software for
near-instant automated NC programming is at the core of
this – that was where it started – but other software to
support ef cient activity, both for people and machines,
is a growing element. The company employs many 10s of
software developers, in fact. Fundamentally, it aims to
marry a tech sector ethos to a manufacturing
environment.
There are an increasing number of these online-fronted
subcontracting operations that offer instant quote and
fast delivery of parts, some are individual companies and
others platform services that work with manufacturing
partners. Holland’s 3D Hubs is a platform drawing on
global suppliers and offering machining, injection
moulding, additive manufacturing and sheet metalworking;
America’s PartsBadger is a platform for metal machining,
with US and China-based manufacturing operations;
China’s Bohao Prototype is a single company, offering CNC
machining, injection moulding, vacuum casting, vacuum
casting, die-casting, sheet metalworking, plus SLA and
SLS AM, but a 24-hour turnaround for quotes is offered,
not instant; and well known in the UK is Protolabs,
a single company having global operations that offers
“quotes in hours and parts in days” for injection moulding,
machining and additive manufacturing. It’s focus is on
custom prototypes and low-volume batches. Set up in
1999, based on own-developed software, Protolabs’
service has grown to become a publicly listed
2,500-employee, $0.5bn operation.
Some of these operations demonstrate a ‘new-entrant
disruptor’ element: Weerg and CloudNC, certainly do.
Outsiders that bring different thinking to an established
arena. We had another example of that in November:
Automata Technologies (https://is.gd/eneceb). This
concerned a VC-backed company set up by two architects
who had attempted to employ industrial robots to bend
sheet metal for an artwork installation. It proved
impossible in any speedy or economic way. By combining
globally available standard, reliable parts with in-house
developed core mechanical technology (gearbox) and
software, it has developed an easily deployable, low-cost
cobot to allow automation of many mundane tasks not
economically automated by existing industrial robots.
More than that, it is sold via its website, typically unseen,
and delivered by post – an instant industrial commodity.
Called Eva, the cobot is made by a UK-based specialist
engineering company. Automota will establish a hardware
and software eco-system around its Eva platform.
Other feature articles during the year also had
disruption of the established order as a theme. Let’s take
one that is pretty obvious: AM. Developments in this
technology are covered increasingly frequently and were
many times last year. Big stories about its application in
mainstream manufacturing are less common, however,
but our October issue revealed how Bowman International
has employed plastic AM. It has allowed it to design,
assemble and produce bearings in a novel way, replacing
a pressed metal part in the process (https://is.gd/ibakew)
and boosting bearing performance. This development,
along with other similar ones, is anticipated as multiplying
the company’s turnover many-fold in coming years.
Autodesk’s message of convergence between design
and manufacturing also has disruption of
the norm at its core. We covered
developments here in August (https://
is.gd/jiseya). The company’s cloud-hosted
generative design software allows multiple
versions to be created, based on required
performance constraints that might
include strength, weight, size and xing/
connection requirements. Powerful cloud
computing means literally thousands of
designs can be generated; a number
never before possible. Now, this design
approach had previously been tightly
linked with AM, because designs had
typically been organic in shape, so
dif cult to produce by subtractive
machining. But the company has
added tools to its generative
design software that now
include a manufacturing
process constraint element,
allowing designs suited to
subtractive machining to
be realised.
That’s disruption at
the design end that is
being realised
through existing
manufacturing
Top: Online
subcontractor
Weerg
Above: Hexagon
Production
Software’s
connected
technologies
Below: Mazak’s
SmoothAI CNC
boasts artifi cial
intelligence
xxx
www.machinery.co.uk @MachineryTweets January 2020 11
EllerslieArt / stock.adobe.com
/www.machinery.co.uk
/stock.adobe.com
/eneceb
/vapavi
/ibakew
/jiseya