Automated quoting and manufacturability feedback are lowering barriers to entry and increasing demand for fabrication services
Just like with automated quoting for sheet metal parts, immediate simulation, DFM feedback, and quoting of tube cutting and bending help solve the low-quantity conundrum. When a customer sends in a print for a part requiring tube cutting and bending, estimators need to submit a bid and engineers need to clean the drawing up, perhaps offering DFM feedback that requires time-consuming back-and-forth emails or calls. For this reason, a shop might choose to quote only the low-quantity work that has volume potential. It’s betting a money-losing, disruptive-to-production prototype will pay dividends down the road.
The crux of the issue is the office workload. On a shop floor with modern, flexible equipment, producing one piece doesn’t present major issues, besides disrupting bread-and-butter production work. But in the office, all the effort doesn’t make that one-off job worth pursuing.
Today, the industry has what could prove to be a better solution to the quantity conundrum: automate the office with instant quoting and software-driven order processing. It’s working for sheet metal cutting and bending, it’s working for tube cutting, and it’s now just starting to work for tube bending.
Technology like this aims to create clarity and democratize access to CNC tube bending. As more people discover the new convenience, demand will increase for shops everywhere. A niche service will become mainstream.
------
Read the full article at The Fabricator
