3D site aids three-person company

By By William Atkinson -- Purchasing, 3/22/2001

One doesn't need to be a large company to take advantage of e-procurement. Take JDi Design, Vancouver, British Columbia, for instance, a three-person product design firm specializing in low- and high-volume medical equipment, although President Adrian van Wijk is quick to point out that the company has designed everything from telephones to dog collars.

In the "dark ages" (three or four years ago) van Wijk and his colleagues would create computer-aided-design (CAD) models of the components they needed for their products. They would e-mail these to the small number of suppliers they knew who could create physical models of the designs. "One problem we had was finding a large number of suppliers who could do this kind of work," recalls van Wijk.

After receiving the CAD designs, suppliers who offered quotes would create 3D physical models, which they would send to JDi Design. "We would then send these models to our clients," continues van Wijk. "Once the models were approved, we would also send them on to toolmakers so they could design their tools for production."

All of this has changed now with the availability of a Web site called Protomarket.com. With the new technology, van Wijk and his colleagues can create three-dimensional CAD renderings and download them to Protomarket.com. The site then makes the designs available (via e-mail) to its cadre of worldwide suppliers, who specialize in new technologies called rapid prototyping and rapid tooling. Rapid prototyping technology allows suppliers to create physical models from CAD models very quickly.

"I am able to get a competitive price very quickly and with relative ease," continues van Wijk. "I am no longer restricted by the number of suppliers I happen to know." (Protomarket.com matches a customer's specific RFQ data and supplier criteria with its supplier base, forwarding the information via e-mail only to those specific suppliers who are capable of meeting the criteria.) "Within two days, I usually have six to eight responses from rapid prototyping suppliers who are interested in quoting on our work," he continues.

To reach agreement with a supplier, van Wijk clicks an "accept quotation" link, which triggers an e-mail to the supplier confirming the order has been placed. "After we place the order, we usually have the physical model delivered to our door within a week," he continues. (One reason for the speed is that many of the rapid prototyping machines can download the customer's CAD information directly from Protomarket.com's Internet site and begin building the physical models from the electronic information that is being fed into the machine.)

"Once we receive a physical model, we can conduct ergonomic tests, drop tests, prosthetic appraisals, and so on," says van Wijk. If the model is acceptable to JDi Design, it sends it to the customer for acceptance, and then subsequently to the toolmaker who uses it as a visual reference while making the tool or preparing to quote on the tool work.

Because of the much wider selection of suppliers, van Wijk finds he is able to get more competitive quotes than he once did. "Before, with a limited number of suppliers, I might find that all of them were busy," he explains. "With Protomarket.com's large supplier base, there are always suppliers looking for work in rapid prototyping."

JDi Design has already completed four or five projects via Protomarket.com's technology. "It has allowed us to remain competitive in a very competitive and capital-intensive market," van Wijk says.