Electronic Pricing Machine Supplier Matching
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Solution Overview
Problem
Designers face significant effort, time, and cost in identifying suppliers capable and willing to fabricate specific structures, as current methods require manual submission of design specifications to multiple suppliers.
Innovation Solution
An electronic pricing machine is developed, equipped with automated costing software including an interrogation engine, willingness engine, and pricing engine, which automatically determines supplier capabilities and willingness based on CAD model data, generating prices and filtering suppliers for designers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If manual submission of design specifications to multiple suppliers is used, then suppliers can be identified, but significant effort, time, and cost are required
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables suppliers to self-register and self-profile their capabilities, equipment, and willingness parameters through automated forms. This eliminates the need for manual supplier data collection by designers, as suppliers automatically populate their own capability databases when they register with the system.
Solution Approach 2:
Suppliers pre-register their capabilities, equipment specifications, and willingness parameters in advance before any design specification is submitted. This preliminary data entry creates a ready-to-query database that enables instant matching when design specifications are later submitted, eliminating the need for manual supplier research at the time of need.
2Extent of automation
If automated costing software is implemented, then supplier identification is automated, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The automated costing system is divided into three distinct functional modules: an interrogation engine that extracts parameters from CAD models, a willingness engine that evaluates supplier capability matching, and a pricing engine that generates cost estimates. This segmentation allows each module to perform a specific function independently, making the overall complex system manageable and maintainable.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an automated costing software intermediary between the designer's design specifications and the supplier database. This intermediary automatically interrogates CAD models, compares parameters against supplier capabilities, and filters suitable suppliers, thereby managing the complexity of matching designs with appropriate suppliers without requiring direct manual intervention.
3Productivity
If CAD model data is automatically interrogated, then structure parameters are extracted efficiently, but difficulty of detecting and measuring parameters increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces manual mechanical analysis of CAD models with automated computational interrogation. Software algorithms automatically read CAD file structures, extract geometric and material parameters, and convert them into standardized supply parameters that can be compared against supplier capabilities, eliminating the need for manual measurement and analysis.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transforms complex CAD model data into standardized supply parameters through automated parameter extraction and normalization. By converting diverse CAD file formats and parameter structures into a unified parameter set that matches supplier capability descriptors, the system simplifies the comparison process while maintaining high extraction efficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and software facilitate supplier willingness awareness in a marketplace of suppliers of structures represented and/or specified in a design. In some embodiments, methods and software of the present disclosure allow each of any one or more designers participating in an automated marketplace to view a list of suppliers that are willing to fabricate a particular design and/or prices associated with fabricating such a design such that the designers can quickly and easily identify suppliers that are not only capable of fabricating particular designs but also willing to do so. Such a list may be generated by comparing a list of objective requirements for a design, which may be generated from fabrication data associated with a designer's request for price or computer aided design file, to willingness data associated with one or more suppliers.