The successful metalworking shop is an incubator for innovation. Rewards come from the creative use of technologies to address the daily pressures of competing, and metalworking shops get them from many sides.

Shops are under constant demands from numerous influences to reduce price, decrease lead-time, increase throughput, and improve quality—all while never skipping a beat on the production floor.

In response, metalworking shops of all sizes turn to technology for help. Much of the application of technology to improve a process falls under the large umbrella of automation. Automation technology spreads an ever-widening net over the metalworking enterprise, covering the shop from front door to shipping dock.

Traditionally, shops have implemented automation on the shop floor with capital equipment investments in material handling and setup reduction technologies. Likewise, communications improvements through shop control software products and DNC links between engineering and the shop floor have increased the productivity of metalworking shops. Software is available to expedite the quotation process, keep the business’ books, import or translate CAD files from customers, and streamline other, stand-alone shop activities. Most of these products and applications are relatively free standing, applied individually to processes or systems as add-ons.

The Internet allows for accelerated, more automated communications between a shop’s internal and external customers. It also offers a natural environment where the exchange of data, manufacturing applications, purchasing and technical research, and shop control functionality can be bundled together for greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Some believe the next great level of automation resides outside the walls of the shop, and that that automation will be found within the very attributes and methods the Internet offers.

What’s In It For You?

Simply put, there are three sometimes concurrent stages to the development of the Internet as a useful tool in a manufacturing environment. The first stage sees companies building their own Web sites and interacting with customers and partners on a rudimentary basis. The second stage involves putting lists of services or equipment online and then linking them into legacy systems (like shop control systems). The third stage is more complex; it involves using the Internet to link the indigenous systems of a shop with its internal and external customers, to create a “virtual supply chain” that streamlines all business and technical communications.

While that’s really cool and all, it’s still basically automation. In those terms, perhaps, the Internet looks a little less like magic and more like a tool—which, fundamentally, it is. And innovative applications of the right Internet “tools” into your manufacturing and support processes on the shop floor are where the most meaningful, near-term rewards may be found.

Kicking The Tires

Some of the used capital equipment sites have aspirations to develop into full-fledged industry portals; many have set their sights on selling new equipment and tooling as well. By most accounts, actual commerce in these sites is still relatively slow. But for the Internet-using shop owner or manager, using these sites to research purchases, applications and features can result in a higher level of preparation and education beyond what could be learned through traditional research methods.

You Can’t Tell The Players Without A Program

Many of the communications functions of a shop may be streamlined by wisely applying Internet connectivity and use to the shop’s processes. Tailoring these applications to only what works for your shop is key to a successful Internet strategy.

For buyers of machined parts and services, this model means exposure to shops with relevant capabilities for their needs that they otherwise may not have known about.

The speed and openness of the RFQ process stands to be greatly improved by these online services. In the typical online RFQ model, buyers and suppliers (shops) register themselves on a selected site. When a job comes up, a registered buyer submits the job—and all relevant details—to the Web site. Prospective suppliers (shops) registered with the site may bid on the job(s), and the buyer then selects the winner after an appropriate exchange of data among the participants has been exchanged.

Most online RFQ services vary somewhat from each other in their business models. Some require the supplier of the parts or services to pay a percentage upon being awarded a contract. Others require a monthly or yearly fee from a shop to participate or have access to expanded services. Others still require only registration to bid.

These services aren’t perfect yet, and even at this early stage in their development they have their critics. Some shops passed over for bids say that often, too little non-proprietary information is provided by the RFQ site that might make them wiser bidders on future jobs. They also say more feedback about the winning price, the winner’s qualifications, and geographic and other traits of the winner should be provided to improve the service. Further, some participating shops explain that this lack of feedback is even more obvious when compared to the amount of data required for them to register initially.

These issues exist because the online system in many ways still mimics the traditional system. Most will pan out over time as the markets weed out the less knowledgeable or agile from the current crop of RFQ sites.

In spite of these growing pains, online RFQ participation can have a positive impact on a shop’s business when care is given to select the right markets, jobs, partners and sites with which to participate. More importantly, thoughtful participation in these services while they’re still young can result in enhanced exposure for the shop and greater familiarity with the online RFQ system. Some shops have begun their indoctrination into RFQ services with smaller jobs and expectations, building momentum as they gain more experience. This early investment by shops can lead to greater success as these services mature and are embraced by more and more buyers.

The Direct (Sales) Approach

This sector of the online metalworking marketplace is currently the most mature and sophisticated of all the models listed, most likely since the purchase of most of these commodities (tooling being one notable exception) may require less complex research. Also, the value-added services for these products—financing, shipment, and so on—are usually not as integral to the shop’s product selection. This maturity is evident in these sites’ variations on the online commerce theme. Aside from direct sales, several sites are set up to function as brokers, connecting buyers with sellers that match specific, unique or special requests.

Unlike their capital equipment brethren, many of the consumable manufacturers are themselves experimenting with direct e-commerce initiatives. In essence, this initiative by the suppliers can bode well for a “cyber-savvy” shop, since it adds more sources to an existing distribution network from which shops may choose.

Further On Down The Download

As ASPs become more prominent, shops and plants will realize numerous improvements to the current “shrink-wrapped” software delivery model. “Pay per use” price structures will allow shops to lease software only when used, theoretically reducing costs. “Latest versions” or enhanced or specialized functionality will be available real time when accessed through the ASP model, eliminating the need to load or upgrade programs manually. Improvements in software training can be realized by communicating directly with a machine or work station. Further, the resources to manage or maintain the systems that run or host those programs fall not on the user of the software, but on the ASP.

Users of CAM software applications within an ASP delivery environment may also find value through Internet access to volumes of part and modeling data available in accessible online archives. Customers, partners, the software developer, universities or anyone willing to share that data may be hosts of these data libraries, which will increase the resources available for research to a shop.

Most ASP models currently operate with the subscriber’s proprietary files remaining on their hard drive or internal systems, theoretically inaccessible by anyone unauthorized to do so. But some ASP models are experimenting with hosting a client’s parts files (with security measures), as well. Regardless of the methods employed by the ASP provider, shop and process managers should weigh the benefits of the ASP’s performance against any unique security requirements of the shop.

“Bill, It’s The Bridgeport On Line 2.”

The Internet may, in fact, provide shops with the Holy Grail of shop floor connectivity and efficiency—real-time, open, continuous communications with, and control of, the machine tool from anywhere, at anytime. Much has been written about this rapidly developing technology, and rightly so. Few Internet applications stand to deliver more value and opportunity to shops than machine tool Internet connectivity and functionality.

Software and hardware developers—as well as capital equipment OEMs and distributors—are developing and fine-tuning the technology that will Web-enable the CNC and all related communications methodologies around the machine tool.

Beyond the obvious application of this technology to control the machine tool from a remote location, an unexpected set of opportunities and improvements also becomes possible.

• The communications chain to support scheduled and demand maintenance requirements can be greatly simplified by the recording, tracking and notification of maintenance issues for a specific machine, on that machine.
• Searching for and ordering tooling, raw materials and components at the machine via Internet protocols present enormous potential to machine process managers to impact a machine’s efficiency and the shop’s bottom line. This feature may figure most prominently into a cellular or multi-project oriented environment, where purchasing decisions are made at levels closer to the project.
• Training opportunities for individual operators on specific machinery may be delivered from a variety of sources and locations.
• Developing Internet applications to support the delivery of model files and data associated with a specific job—and the ability of the operator and machine to communicate back real-time—might influence roles and reassign some project-related communications that have traditionally fallen in other areas, like engineering. These developments stand to improve turn-around by drilling some of a project’s less-complex exchanges down to the machine or operator level.
• The evolution of ASP-enabled software model capabilities at the machine tool will also lead to new levels of sophistication and agility through more rapid updates and improvements to control software, code and files.

  It’s What You Know

  The knowledgeable application of improved technology and automation has always forced decisions or activities that support a process to more efficient levels within that process. As more and more shop managers use the Internet to develop and discover new methods to automate their shops’ communications, research efforts and processes, they will find influences in those manufacturing processes shifting closer to the shop’s most important level—where the chips are made. The efficiencies that result from empowering the shop floor, the operator and the machine tool to contribute to product and process management can free up other resources and lead to unexpected improvements to the shop’s bottom line.