Outdated Manufacturing Processes Result in Problems in Communication, Quality, and Transparency Across a $350B Market
Fast Radius’ study, The Case for Cloud: Charting the Future of Custom Manufacturing, shows opportunities for digital transformation to improve custom manufacturing
CHICAGO, Feb. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fast Radius, Inc. (“Fast Radius”) (NASDAQ: FSRD), a cloud manufacturing company, recently conducted a survey of 250 engineers, industrial and product designers, and procurement professionals about their manufacturing and procurement strategies. The resulting report, The Case for Cloud: Charting the Future of Custom Manufacturing, measures the pulse of the custom manufacturing industry, identifying main pain points and areas where technology can substantially improve quality, communication, and visibility into production.
Key insights from the report include the following:
Companies are moving away from just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing due to concerns about flexibility and resiliency. 48% of custom manufacturing customers tried the JIT model and have since moved away from it, with more than half of those having changed supply chain strategies since the start of the pandemic.
Communication difficulties with custom manufacturers delay design and development cycles and hold back product innovation. Time-consuming communication is identified as the top pain point during the product development process, as 44% of respondents said they exchange more than 50 messages with their manufacturer during the production process.
Inconsistent product quality is a major pain point that affects companies’ bottom lines. 65% of respondents said that they have issues with part quality from custom manufacturers at least sometimes, and more than half say inconsistent quality has impacted their bottom line in the past year.
These results demonstrate the need to improve upon existing models for product development, production, and fulfillment. While other industries have used technology to fuel process improvements, the manufacturing industry has been left behind with communication, quality, and transparency problems that make new product development and part production more expensive and time consuming. With a variety of problems stemming from decentralized analog processes, the solution is clear: cloud manufacturing.
“As consumers, we’ve come to expect two-day shipping, updates about every movement our packages make, and instant customer service when something goes wrong. It’s time for the manufacturing industry to catch up,” said John Nanry, Co-Founder and Chief Manufacturing Officer at Fast Radius. “Cloud manufacturing is setting a new standard for how we make and move parts around the world in a faster, sustainable, and transparent way.”
Fast Radius’ Cloud Manufacturing Platform™, an end-to-end digital solution that integrates design, manufacturing, and fulfillment through software, presents an alternative that maintains the speed and efficiency engineers and procurement professionals crave along with the improved reliability, visibility, and flexibility that JIT failed to provide.
Access the full report, The Case for Cloud: Charting the Future of Custom Manufacturing, for a more in-depth look at the findings.
ABOUT FAST RADIUS
Fast Radius, Inc. is a leading cloud manufacturing and digital supply chain company. The Cloud Manufacturing Platform™ from Fast Radius is a first-of-its-kind solution that integrates design, production, and fulfillment operations through a common digital infrastructure to make manufacturing easier, more accessible, and more sustainable. Founded in 2017, Fast Radius, Inc. is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Atlanta, Louisville, and Singapore and micro-factories in Chicago and at the UPS Worldport facility in Louisville, KY. To learn more about Fast Radius and how its digital manufacturing capabilities are helping manufacturers, please visit www.fastradius.com or connect with us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/fastradius or Twitter @fastradius.
CONTACT
Kelly Smith
MSL U.S.
Kelly.smith@mslgroup.com; 646-500-7654
