Manufacturing Can Be ‘Paperless’
Engineers, doctors and garage inventors dream of turning their innovations into money-making products. But the cost of design and manufacturing often kills the ideas before they’re born.
Mike McDonald and the fledgling Agile Manufacturing Network in Spokane believe they have a solution - paperless manufacturing.
Linking inventors with manufacturers through the Internet, AMN hopes to turn production of new products into an inexpensive, same-day event that eliminates reams of blueprints, bid proposals and correspondence.
The network could be a boon to inventors who want to test their products and machinists who are willing to make them for a fee. It also could become the quickest way to introduce new products in a competitive industry.
“The only paper we’ll print is invoices and checks,” McDonald said from his basement office at the Spokane Intercollegiate Research & Technology Institute. “This will be geared so that small business owners can afford to do it.”
AMN is a venture of five organizations and companies: SIRTI; Isothermo Systems Research, a Colton, Wash., engineering firm; the Washington Manufacturing Network of the state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development; Parametric Technologies Corp., a Massachusetts developer of computer aided engineering software; and the Washington State University VR Sim Lab, which develops computer-integrated manufacturing systems.
McDonald, a former Hughes Aircraft mechanical engineer, expects to have at least 15 customers and generate more than $6,500 a month in revenue by mid-year when SIRTI funding runs out. SIRTI and Isothermo both contributed $40,000 to launch the network.
Membership in AMN costs engineering companies $1,500 a year; manufacturers, $500. AMN will collect a 2 percent to 5 percent royalty on each product manufactured through the network.
The fees sound steep, but McDonald said it’s a small price for access to $60,000 in computer equipment humming inside his office. It’s also the price to pay AMN as a broker for new business.
“It’s another source of accounts for us,” said Pat Rice, owner of Intermountain Machine in Spokane and a new member of AMN. “I’m looking at this as an opportunity to get more work into the shop.”
The standard method for new product development requires engineers to convert a three-dimensional invention into a two-dimensional drawing. A manufacturer is hired to turn the drawing back into a three-dimensional object.
AMN’s aim is to allow engineers to create a three-dimensional computer model of the invention. The design engineer, with help from McDonald at AMN, creates the software code for the model that instructs a computer-aided milling machine how to build the object. The code moves electronically to AMN and on to a manufacturer, which builds the object.
AMN designers must be equipped with ProEngineer software, a pricey computer-aided engineering program. Manufacturers must be connected to the Internet to participate.
AMN acts as an electronic procurement process for members. Designers call for bids electronically and a deal may be struck within hours. Conceivably, the manufacturer could deliver a prototype on the same day.
“We all dream of living in a Star Trek world where everything is built by a replicater,” McDonald said, referring to the TV space crew who used a computer to instantly replicate any object. “We’re not there yet, but ideally, that’s what we’re shooting for.”
, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: DEMONSTRATION WEDNESDAY AMN will give a free demonstration of its network 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at SIRTI, 665 N. Riverpoint Blvd. During the demonstration, parts will be designed at SIRTI and manufactured moments later in a Washington State University laboratory. A video link will show both operations.