Quoto - Quoting Quicker

Quoto - What we do.

Julian Stahl — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 22:14:32 GMT

We want to build your future widget!

At the moment we are a fledgling startup so we cannot offer all of our grand vision at once, but here is what it will one day be.

You have a thing that needs to be made. You upload the CAD file to our site. You select your various options and lead time, and you instantly get a quote on the price we can make it for. Any quantity, any material. Place it on order, and we take care of the rest.

Due to the complexity of 3-D Space, we will be starting our service with 2-D items and simple processes. However, our goal is to one day be able to do all types of parts and processes. But Rome wasn't built in a day.

What sort of things are we starting with?

Waterjet Cutting
Laser Cutting
Simple Press Brake Bends
Simple Turned Parts (Lathe)
Batch Processes (heat treating, anodizing, etc.)

We are developing the software to instantly quote the part, but until that is finished we will be able to offer 24 hour quotes. We are still building our manufacturing base, but have already added suppliers for these sorts of services to our network. As we add more, we may be able to offer shorter lead times.

Currently, we offer instant quotes on waterjet cutting only. We hope to be adding instant quotes for laser cutting soon.

5 Reasons we are offering water jet services first

Julian Stahl — Sat, 16 Sep 2017 23:29:00 GMT

What to build first?

Manufacturing is a massively complex and intricate industry. What you are building greatly effects how to make it. Industries have developed special tooling and processes for certain types of parts. Unless you are doing mass production, you need to find a manufacturing facility that has general manufacturing equipment, and ideally, they will have enough equipment to accomplish all of your needs in one facility. If not, you will have to transport partially finished parts to another place to get them finished, costing time and money as well as additional communication and organizing.

This puts us in a difficult position, as we eventually want to be able to offer a service that is a one-stop shop for the customer. So at first, we will only be able to do this on very simple items. Items that only require one process. So the question is which process?

The game of trade-offs

We are trying to balance a lot of factors to ensure a quality customer experience, while still offering a useful first product. We have settled on water jet as our first service to offer, and here is why:

Easy to model cost structure (for instant quoting)
Can cut nearly any material (versatility)
Can cut a wide range of thickness (0-6" Thick!)
Clean, unaltered cut (Looks good, and does not create heat while cutting)
Quick Setups (Great for low volume orders!)

Simple is better

We want to provide a quick way for people to price their parts. Our goal is to provide access to even the smallest of companies, even as small as one person with a hobby. Many machines shops do not like dealing with small orders, but that is what we pride ourselves on!

The Power of a Network

Julian Stahl — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 23:44:07 GMT

One of the goals of Quoto is to lower the amount of waste in manufacturing. By waste, I don't mean scrap metal; I mean machines that are sitting idle with nothing to do.

From the perspective of Quoto, we want to find the most under-utilized manufacturers. These manufacturers help us get the customer the lowest price and quickest lead time. The manufacturer is also excited because they don't have idle machines, a costly problem. Everyone gets what they want. That is a very powerful thing. We aim to harness that power (for good, of course) to increase the accessibility of industrial manufacturing to small businesses and individuals. Making things is always costly, but we aim to deliver a service of taking the headache out of it and hopefully add only a small financial cost to alternative sourcing (how much is your time worth?).

By creating an overlay on top of existing infrastructure, we create a more dynamic distribution of work. At the end of a week, we ask how much spare processing time our manufacturers have for the upcoming week. By getting their schedule, we can take orders and forecast remaining supply without always asking the manufacturers pricing and lead time. In a way, we are the brokers in a futures market for manufacturing process capacity.

The trick to being an effective intermediary, in this case, requires us to speak manufacturing language. When we get an order for a part, we need to determine what processes it requires, and then determine how much time for each of those processes. Once we know that, then we look to the network for pricing of those processes. Unfortunately, we do not have any magical way to decompose a part into a process list. To start, we will be relying on years of experience. However, as this company grows, we are going to start codifying as many things as we can. That way, someday we will have a magical way to determine the cost for any part, at current rates, instantly. However, we do not have the funding to write the hundreds of thousands of lines of code that would require. So bear with us in the early stages! As you can see we are offering simple, specific processes to start.

I've always hated the adage "It's not what you know, but who you know," because of its accuracy. By building our network, we take care of the "who you know" so you can focus on the "what you know."

Humble Beginning

Julian Stahl — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:31:51 GMT

So what possessed us to start this thing in the first place? It's really pretty simple. Throughout trying to build things ourselves, we realized there was a lot of friction to even get the ball rolling. This always starts in the form of a quote. With a shiny new quote, we would have a new data point in which we can make a decision or change a design. The real pain is when you need to get 3 or 4 of them to make a single part or product. First, you have to find the various places that have those capabilities and then send them, often duplicate, information and do the back and forth with each vendor. And for what? Just getting a price.

Our goal is to be able to make it easier for companies (or individuals) large or small to quickly and easily get pricing for the lead time they desire. Another source of value we are going to provide is a slow turn batching service. Have only 1 or 2 pieces to make? Don't want to pay all the setup fees yourself? With a long lead time, we can put your order with other similar orders or material types to help reduce unit costs. The batching service might not be limited to direct manufacturing processes, but could also help with heat treating, cryogenics, anodizing, or any other batch process with a minimum charge.

Cost generation can be a tricky business. To ensure our service is accurate (and thus valuable to you) we are going to start by offering only the most simple processes. For example, waterjet or laser cutting. After we get those under our belt we will be offering simple turning (lathe) processes. The closer to full 3-D processes, the more complex and intricate cost prediction becomes.