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制造业是一个难以驾驭的系统。工程师不断尝试通过制造能力的复杂景观，找到合适的伴侣将其产品带到市场上。beplay客户端下载
One of the biggest challenges here is that the best manufacturing partners are often:
- 很难找到（你必须知道一个人），和
- over-booked and hard to attract (they’re hustling to manage and grow a business of their own
As an engineer I’ve experienced this challenge and frustration first hand. Finding and vetting the best partners requires a lot of time, often a good reputation (and bankroll), and once you find a great partner they’re invariably time-constrained.
Enter: Big Manufacturing Players
为了寻找制造合作伙伴的一些效率，越来越多的大公司，我想在过去的几年里突然出现了越来越多的大公司。这些公司在充满机器的仓库中投资了大量资金，这些公司通常会符合整个产品开发生命周期（3D印刷，CNC，注塑）。
So where smaller, time and resource-constrained manufacturers are often backlogged, these larger companies always have machines available. And where small manufacturers are hard to find, these big companies have deep pockets to spend on marketing and customer acquisition for global visibility.
这些大玩家在资本和资源方面有一个优势，但在速度下降的地方是速度和质量。
This is where local manufacturing shines.
当地制造定位为速度
When ordering from a large manufacturing company, parts need to navigate through their complex system and then be shipped from the machine warehouse direct to the customer, increasing lead times.
From an engineer’s perspective, when you’re in the prototyping and ideation stages, time is everything and even a 1-2 day loss from a 3PL (third-party logistics player) matters significantly.
这是重要的是，在制造中，可以和will出问题。因此，当远程制造商不可避免地必须管理错误时，应对：3PLS，大型组织层，沟通问题以及最终失去时间的复杂性。
这在海外大规模制造中非常明显，这就是为什么公司将工程师尽可能靠近来源。当时间就是一切时，很少有利于在产品的早期原型原型阶段考虑相同的原则。
The beauty in working with smaller, local manufacturers on the other hand, is that parts can be picked up as soon as they’re ready or delivered via same-day courier, saving you the 1-2 days of shipping. In addition, if things go wrong (they always do), smaller shops have more agility, fewer organizational layers, and in general can respond more quickly compared with their larger counterparts.
小型制造商具有最优质的质量
在我的经验中，与爱他们的工艺的小型制造商相比，较大的公司无法竞争。大家伙正在播放卷游戏，质量往往迷失在混合中。
When I’ve vetted manufacturers in the past, I tend to look at layers. How many layers are there between the sales guys and the technician operating the machine? Manufacturing is all about communication so as layers increase without the proper systems in place, quality is the first thing to go out the door.
As customers search for solutions to optimize for speed and quality, paired with the right tools I believe small businesses have the greatest advantage and opportunity. The remaining challenge is in figuring out how to optimize a small shop’s operations to give them their time back and allow them to focus on the reason they started their business in the first place: craftsmanship.
Based on my experience, here are the top 3 areas small manufacturing businesses need to focus on to meet growing customer demands and compete with the larger companies:
3 Key Focuses for Successful Small Manufacturing Businesses
1.质量
质量是小型制造商和大型公司之间最大的差异化，并且应该继续成为重点和优先事项。
Consistently high-quality parts builds trust and loyalty with your customers and will turn customers into ambassadors for your business.
在FICTIV，质量是我们平台的主要关注点，我们在四种方式中培养所有当地制造合作伙伴的质量：
- Machine inspection– machines should be well-maintained and in top shape, with all the necessary tools to repair machines if (when) they fail.
- Facility inspection- 制造工厂应与安全性和质量标准保持一致，房间温度正确the right equipment for cleaningand packaging parts.
- 背景审查- 我们在显示技能和专业知识的机器操作中寻找基本的教育水平。
- Test part assessment- 我们在每台新机器上运行一组测试部件，以确保它可以产生一致的高质量结果。
There is a wide variance when it comes to quality across different manufacturers and if a small shop can develop a system for producing consistently high-quality work, that’s a clear advantage.
2. Specialization
While the larger companies are focusing on diversification, small manufacturers should actually do the opposite: embrace specialization.
我看到很多小商店试图使他们的产品多样化，以增加收入，但最常见的是，我发现这一策略是适得其反的。例如，在FDM上专注于FDM的3D打印店将在该区域优异，但通常不太熟于SLA或PolyJet。
我告诉我们的制造业合作伙伴，而不是试图成为所有交易的杰克，专注于他们所做的最佳（通常是他们最爱的东西），而且我对这一战略看起来很有成功。
例如Moddler，湾区的3D印刷商店，是为他们的高分辨率3D打印而闻名用于模型制作。他们的伊甸园500，主要印在Vero.White, is almost always at capacity because their skill in this area is unparalleled and customers seek them out for their expertise in this specific area.
Small manufacturers should be proud to be specialists and I’ve seen this to be a successful strategy for growth.
3.自动化提高效率和容量
Efficiency and capacity are typically the two areas where small manufacturers have less advantage compared with the larger players.
This is the problem we’re solving for at Fictiv. A significant portion of small manufacturers’ time is spent educating users, quoting parts, dealing with orders, and managing shipping logistics on top of maintaining and operating machines. We believe that manufacturers should be given the freedom to focus more on their craft and less on administration, which is why we built software to reduce the complexity typically involved in running a manufacturing business.
Our platform is also built for distributed manufacturing, which means small manufacturers can compete where capacity is concerned. This means small shops never have to turn away new business because they can’t fulfill lead times. Fictiv’s software ensures a manufacturer stays at capacity and leverages distributed manufacturing fulfillment so everybody wins; engineers get their parts on time and small shops optimize their capacity.
With automation that manages and streamlines quoting, job scheduling, and shipping logistics, the partners we work work are able to operate with smaller, leaner teams, resulting in more profits and more time to spend on what matters most: excellent craftsmanship.
The manufacturing industry may be rapidly changing, but we believe small manufacturers will continue to be the cornerstones of an ecosystem for lean hardware development. With the right tools and partners, small manufacturers can achieve the economies of scale that typically only larger companies are able to realize and meet growing demand for fast, high-quality hardware development.
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