The rise of the parts-making software company, a digitally-native manufacturer with in-house software development capabilities, is transforming the manufacturing industry.
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Written by John Nanry, co-founder and chief manufacturing officer, Fast Radius
Some of history’s greatest inventions spurred transformation by improving access to knowledge and insights—such as the printing press and the internet. Manufacturing is on the verge of a similar step-change, driven by software. Here’s why.
In many industries, it has become common for innovative, digitally-native organizations to think of themselves as tech companies first, and members of a specific industry vertical second. By building their businesses around software, these organizations gain a competitive edge based on agility, transparency and efficient, streamlined experiences.
Manufacturing has been late to this trend—but no longer. The rise of the parts-making software company, a digitally-native manufacturer with in-house software development capabilities, is transforming the manufacturing industry. Partnering with the right parts-making software company can unlock access to insights that will streamline the entire manufacturing lifecycle while also making processes more agile and efficient.
How Software Breaks Down Knowledge Silos
Traditional manufacturers are often highly siloed, including in their use of technology. Most use disconnected software solutions that don’t talk to each other. For example, their manufacturing execution system (MES) may not talk to their enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.
By contrast, a parts-making software company like Fast Radius can build an end-to-end system that encompasses the entire manufacturing lifecycle. By owning our software, we can collect more data, gain better insights about manufacturability and move parts faster through the manufacturing process. This enables greater efficiency, transparency and flexibility—but most importantly, it increases the accessibility of knowledge and insights previously siloed within organizations, teams or even individuals.
Most manufacturing organizations rely on their highly trained engineers and designers to understand and optimize particular steps in the manufacturing process. However, this can create knowledge silos in which key insights are not shared within organizations or between companies and their manufacturing partners.
For example, when an engineer needs to make a decision about the manufacturability of a particular design, they often rely on their own knowledge, experience and expertise as well as that of their colleagues making similar parts. That knowledge is likely to be fairly narrow since most engineers and designers only participate in a few steps in a long chain.
On the other hand, a manufacturer that builds their operations around a centralized software system gains visibility into the entire chain for every part they’ve ever manufactured. Over time, the system builds a vast library of insights. Eventually, an engineer using parts-making software will be able to draw on learnings from tens of thousands of production runs across many different customers—much more manufacturing expertise than could be contained in one person’s brain.
Accessibility Leads to Agility and Efficiency
It’s not just about sharing knowledge. Making insights more accessible also makes Fast Radius’ processes more agile and efficient.
- Faster iteration boosts agility: Centering your business around software means adopting software development best practices, too. By applying the principles of Agile project management to physical product development, Fast Radius accelerates product design and development cycles. For example, when we worked with Steelcase to reimagine personalization options for its bestselling SILQ chair, we produced 12 design iterations in just six weeks. With holistic software in place, it’s much easier to get feedback from a part in production back to the design file so designs can be iterated faster—moving quickly from prototype to production and back again.
- Increasing efficiency through automation: Fast Radius’ software makes it possible to translate engineers’ and designers’ expertise into computer code to selectively automate key steps in the manufacturing process. For example, to provide a quote, an engineer normally has to run a simulation to understand how long it will take to build a part and how much it will cost, applying their best judgment to determine potential yield issues, manufacturability and so on. This manual quoting process is time-consuming, and attempts to automate it often deliver uneven results. By contrast, Fast Radius’ centralized software gives us the comprehensive data we need to train auto-costing algorithms that are both fast and accurate.
The Next Phase of the Cloud Manufacturing Revolution
Fast Radius is at the forefront of the software-driven revolution coming to manufacturing. By unlocking the knowledge siloed within manufacturing organizations, we’re able to boost our agility and efficiency beyond our competitors—and these improvements are only the first step.
Visit Fast Radius to learn more about how cloud manufacturing is unlocking improved transparency, flexibility and supply chain resiliency.
