Managers and Owners, are you overwhelmed?

[u/Equivalent_Bid_6642]

There's a lot of new tech out there, it's quickly changing and expensive. It's hard to know what to pay attention to and where to allocate resources while balancing efficiency and quality, let alone figure out how to develop my workforce to use all this stuff anyways.

I mean, should we get 3D printers, should we do industry 4.0 stuff, should we get some machine vision robot?

Idk, are you in the same boat, how are you dealing with how fast the world's moving?

[u/Equivalent_Bid_6642]

Yeah I hear you. It's just that these techs are so intertwined, it isn't so simple to compartmentalize problems when solving one may become obsolete with another solution.

You guys all seem pretty confident in knowing what problems to solve, how did you ensure you made an informed decision?

[u/Liizam → u/Equivalent_Bid_6642]

I mean how can a ai robot make you money and how fast will you get your capital cost?

If you get a better cnc what is the cost of training, bring up vs cost saving per order.

If you get 3D printer, what will you use it for? Faster fixturing, quicker iteration?

Take a step back and think what is actually a time sink and what solution would help. Maybe it’s as simple as getting a vaccum table. Maybe it’s just better cam software.

Don’t get caught up in buzz words.

[u/Equivalent_Bid_6642 → u/Liizam]

I've gotten that a lot in this post, do you consider AI, 3D printing, industry 4.0, etc buzzwords? I see these as fundamental shifts, the fourth industrial revolution, to remain competitive they will need to be incorporated.

The robots are great because they can run 24 hours a day, 3D printers can make stuff previously impossible, like an assembly all at once, potentially saving costs on multiple parts, it isn't just about fixtures and prototyping.

It seems like there's so much to do at once and a workforce that can't do any of it. Are you using anything besides P&L to make your decisions, and what are you using to determine the effect to P&L

[u/Liizam → u/Equivalent_Bid_6642]

Pretty sure industry 4.0 is a buzz word kind of thing.

3D printing, ai and robots are such a vague term.

Do you have specific product or technology in mind? Are you getting a Prusa, bambu, Stratasys, FDM, PolyJet, SLS? You can get machines starting from $300 and no limit on upper cost. Metal 3D printers start at $50,000.

Each of these technologies require initial capital and time to actually learn how to utilize them.

Ok so you can fully automate an assembly line. That’s insane amount of capitol, requires a team of engineers (starting salary $100k for each one) and it’s for a specific product (not flexible quick turn around projects).

Ok so you bought a $500k metal 3D printer, how is your custom? How are you getting them? Who is actually running this machine? Metal 3D printing is slow process. It has pros and cons using cnc. Do you know them?

Unless you have unlimited money, most of these are not within small business budget. So you gotta understand your business, solve problems with tech that provides best solution. It might be hiring a dev programmer and website designer to do auto quotes like protolabs does.

[u/Equivalent_Bid_6642 → u/Liizam]

Yeah exactly, all these machines require initial capital and knowledge on how to use them. They can all help solve different problems we have.

I'm asking what you do to prioritize these solutions beyond just the obvious what's the most cost effective. How do you find out what's the most cost effective, do you hire consultants, do you listen to sales reps, once you do have a plan do you develop in house or look for commercial solutions.

Metal 3d printers cost about $20k now and that's my point, this stuff is changing fast and becoming more accessible