Changes are afoot in the world of online supplier marketplaces, and manufacturers stand to reap the benefits.
Mfg.com announced in September that it will buy its European counterpart, Geneva-based SourcingParts.com. Terms of the deal were not revealed. In related news, ThomasNet recently announced a partnership with CAD vendor Alibre.
SourcingParts.com, like Mfg.com (formerly known as MfgQuote.com), serves as an online marketplace where manufacturers can contract with suppliers to build parts to their specifications. Manufacturers use both sites for free, and can post CAD drawings of parts and solicit quotes from contract shops.
Contractors pay a subscription fee for the ability to view and respond to RFQs. The European site counts 1,800 suppliers as subscribers and supports seven languages.
Mfg.com's CEO Mitch Free says it will take six months to bring the two technologies together, a complex job that involves integrating functionality across different languages and currencies. Once that task is complete, the two sites will operate as one marketplace.
The company is still mulling the details of branding, but Free says he expects both sites to eventually operate under the imprimatur of Mfg.com.
Free's philosophy on Mfg.com's success is simple: "He who controls the buy wins." He won't reveal specific revenue figures, but says the average yearly cost of a subscription to Mfg.com is $6,000. With 2,300 suppliers registered as subscribers, revenue stands to be in the neighborhood of $14 million.
Next stop for Mfg.com: China. "We will ramp up our supplier sales [and] members in China," Free says, but only after the integration of SupplierParts.com is complete.
As Mfg.com expands into new geographies, another supplier marketplace, ThomasNet.com, is expanding its capabilities to cater to a broader range of OEMs and contract manufacturers.
ThomasNet recently announced a partnership with CAD software vendor Alibre to offer ThomasNet users a free download of the Alibre Design Xpress program. A slimmed-down version of the company's commercial Alibre Design CAD product, the Xpress application will allow potential industrial buyers to view ThomasNet's 20 million CAD drawings in a native format.
While it is similar to Mfg.com in that it brings together
manufacturers and suppliers, ThomasNet works more like a search engine than a quote request site. Buyers enter the type of product they are looking to source and then browse a list of companies that can deliver it. Searches can be specific to a desired geographic location.
In addition to identifying potential suppliers, buyers can also access CAD drawings of the products through ThomasNet's CAD Register. The ability to download Alibre Design Xpress now enables buyers without CAD software to view the full functionality of 2D and 3D CAD drawings.
ThomasNet is owned by Thomas Publishing, the parent company of Managing Automation.
This article originally appeared in the October issue of Managing Automation magazine.