Internet is changing everything in our lives. And it includes manufacturing ecosystem. I shared my thought about how networking will change design, engineering and manufacturing. You can catch up on my earlier articles – PLM and new manufacturing in networked world; Plug-n-produce and manufacturing networks; Future product lifecycle and digital networks. Internet and new cloud technologies are inspiring to develop new tools and to bring new type of collaboration for hardware teams – openBoM cloud based tool for manufacturing companies and hardware startups (disclaimer – I’m co-founder and CEO).
Develp3D article – HWTrek simplifies hardware creation with new cloud-based collaboration tools brings an interesting story about HWTrek platform helping to improve supply chain and manufacturing visibility.
Based in Taiwan and Shenzhen, HWTrek (Hardware Trek) acts as a ‘matchmaker’ in the hardware creation world, where hardware companies (‘creators’) and those that have hardware solutions, components, insight and services (‘experts’) can meet on a collaborative platform to create smart hardware and bring it to market.
To date, more than 9,000 ‘creators’ have created 2,500 projects on the platform and have been connected to 1,900 of its trusted manufacturing and supply chain ‘experts’ from Shenzhen, Taiwan and Japan.
To me HWTrek solution is a great example how internet and online tools simplifies collaboration and improve communication between people. And it brings results. The following passage from the same article brings customer quote.
“The HWTrek platform is very useful to find partners and experts from various fields. A very useful feature is to invite experts, like the HWTrek team, to join the group conversation and help to evaluate potential partners and companies,” said Luka Mali, Co-founder and CTO of Slovenian-based company Ulla Labs.
It made me think about how network matchmaking will be improved by online collaboration tools. If you think about everything that happened for the last decade from early internet tools (eBay) and later social networks (Facebook), networking can empower any industry. Manufacturing certainly going to use it more in the near future.
What is my conclusion? Think about every successful global online business created for the last decade- Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber… All these businesses have one thing in common – they are relying on a power of connection, internet technology and networking. Manufacturing technologies are early in the adoption process. However, I expect the proliferation of networking and related technologies to increase. Until now, Cloud PLM initiatives mostly focused how to move servers from IT department to IaaS or hosted data center. It will change. New products will leverage the power of networking to bring value to users. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
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Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of openBoM developing cloud based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups and supply chain. My opinion can be unintentionally biased
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