In the fall of 2024, manufacturers with a need for tube fabrication began to get a taste of what instant quoting is like. Xometry, a digital marketplace with an extensive network of shops, began offering instant quoting for work involving tube cutting and rotary draw bending.
“Using AI and machine learning tools, we’ve been working to expand our menu to include services that are typically a headache to source. Tube has been in that category for a while.”
That was Greg Paulsen, director of applications engineering and marketing at the North Bethesda, Md.-based company. That capability is the latest in the evolution of what has become a relatively new kind of company in the manufacturing space: a digital marketplace.
Considering the industry’s fragmentation, the business model already had potential when Xometry came on the scene more than a decade ago. Now with the ever-increasing information processing power of artificial intelligence (AI), the digital marketplace approach could find a long-term, sustainable place in the metal fabrication value chain.
Pour lire l'article complet : The potential of instant quoting in metal fabrication
