Last February I boarded an airplane and left Utah in the middle of a snowstorm. Four hours later, we touched down in clear, warm weather in Tampa, Fla. The Fabricators and Manufacturers Association (FMA) held its annual meeting in Clearwater, at a hotel right on the white sand beach.
Regrettably, I didn’t set foot on the beaches. Instead, I met a lot of great people and had many interesting conversations throughout the week and into the evenings. One conversation in particular galvanized a lot of thought. Just before the conference ended, I sat down with Tim Heston and Dan Davis for an interview with The Fabricator Podcast. Among other things, they asked whether what we are doing at OSH Cut (my fabrication company) is “disruptive.” I told them no, but I’ve thought a lot about it since then. Could our software technology disrupt sheet metal manufacturing?
No Sales Staff, Just Software
If you haven’t been following my monthly column, here’s some context. My brother and I started OSH Cut in 2018. We are an on-demand, online sheet metal manufacturing company. We use custom software to automate quoting, design for manufacturability, and online ordering, allowing us to analyze and quote a little over 12,000 parts per week as of 2024. When customers upload 3D models of their parts, our system unfolds them to create the flat patterns, then simulates the bending process right in the web browser for the customer to see. If there are problems, our software tells the customer right away by showing how the parts will form (or can’t be formed) on our tools. By the time customers submit their orders, we already know we can make them.
People upload parts and tinker all the time, so while we quote a lot of parts, in the end we make around 2,000 unique parts of varying quantities each week. Our service is narrow—we offer blanking and bending on a press brake and (as of this year) tube cutting—but for our customers, the service is extremely fast, economical, and easy to use. We don’t do complex custom work at all, and so far our service is more transactional than relationship-based. In fact, we have zero marketing, sales, quoting, or engineering staff. Instead, we have a software team.
About Disruption
OSH Cut is a different kind of business, but is it disruptive? That’s a loaded term. It conjures imagery of arrogant technophiles sauntering into an industry, breaking and remaking it, then exiting five or 10 years later with gold-lined pockets. Manufacturing has always been about providing real, sustained physical value. Manufacturers’ “long-haul thinking” is inimical to the scale-and-exit strategy sometimes trumpeted by the world’s self-proclaimed disrupters. So, when people wonder if our business model is disruptive, it makes me wary.
Even so, it’s a good question. History is littered with highly successful and admired companies that faded as the world changed around them. Within my lifetime, I’ve seen the rise and fall of countless companies both inside and outside of tech: AOL, Yahoo, Circuit City, Blockbuster, Polaroid, Compaq, Palm, iomeg—the list is endless. Technology’s relentless pace created all-stars and then put them out of their misery barely years later. Businesses come and go faster now than ever before.
Manufacturers are in some ways shielded from the chaos. There are only so many ways to make parts out of metal, and new technologies—like metal 3D printing—aren’t even remotely cost-competitive compared to more traditional processes. If that ever changes, fabricators are a single machine purchase away from taking advantage. Widespread use of fiber lasers, cobots, modern brakes, and other automation indicates that manufacturers are plugged in and evolving with technology.
That said, in our chaotic, tech-fueled environment, survival might depend on understanding technological trends and getting onboard quickly. The problem with disruptive tech is how irrelevant it might look at first. Disruptive technologies democratize access, offering products or services that are more convenient, affordable, or efficient. They often start by targeting niche markets or overlooked segments, gradually gaining momentum until they become mainstream. This gradual ascent can catch established players off guard, as they dismiss the new technology until it’s too late to catch up.
Pour lire l'article complet : What software automation means for custom fabrication (thefabricator.com)
