Internet To Link Manufacturers, Fabricators Agilelink Wants To Wean Manufacturing Process From Paper

A paperless manufacturing process is the latest Internet vehicle to be offered by a Spokane company.

AgileLink, which will be in full operation by July, is a start-up company that electrically connects manufacturers in need of parts to fabricators and suppliers through the Internet.

“We’ve got between 25 and 30 members on the system right now,” said Mike McDonald, AgileLink’s president and chief executive officer. “But that list changes every day. We find ourselves in a very high growth situation.”

McDonald formed the company after spearheading an initiative sponsored by the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute (SIRTI), Isothermal Systems Research Inc., and the Washington Manufacturing Network. They wanted to develop a paperless manufacturing network where computer-designed products can be transferred electronically to manufacturers.

When the system was running, McDonald said the response was strong enough to convince him it was a commercially viable concept. Members pay an annual fee to use the system.

AgileLink provides a network upon which manufacturers post specifications for parts or entire devices that they need fabricated. Fabricators, vendors and suppliers search the AgileLink database for proposals to bid on.

Once a manufacturer and a fabricator are linked, AgileLink works with the two as a specific design is created electronically via the Internet.

The whole process, McDonald said, can be completed in hours, with parts delivered in days, instead of weeks.

In addition to cost savings and efficiencies, McDonald said this process offers greater security to manufacturers because they don’t have to risk putting on paper the specifics of their concepts, often unpatented.

“If you send out the specifics on paper,” he said, “once it leaves your possession, you have no idea who has made copies, how many of them were made or where they’ve gone.

“We have proprietary agreements with our clients, though, and in our system, if someone looks at it, he leaves a trail and we can hold somebody accountable.”

Right now, McDonald said, about 80 percent of the company’s customers are from the Spokane area. But he sees a vast, worldwide potential for the AgileLink process.

“I could tell you what our financial projects over the next five years are,” he said, “but they are just projections. But just look at the growth of the Internet over the past two or three years. That growth has been exponential, and I think our company’s growth will be the same.”

The biggest barrier right now, he said, is cultural.

“When you talk to most manufacturing people,” McDonald said, “paper is their teddy bear and they just don’t want to let go of it. So we have to convince them one customer at a time.”

The key, he says, is to sell a few larger manufacturers on the process, and use them as examples that will convince others.

“We are working with a couple of high-profile customers who are already sold on this concept,” he said. “They will give us the critical mass we need to get going, and they are going to be committed enough to stick with us and help us build.”

SIRTI is a regional technology development and commercialization center which cultivates innovation and brings new products to the marketplace by converting emerging technologies into marketready products.

, DataTimes