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The situation
A component is discontinued. The equipment it serves has years of useful life left. The options are to buy the remaining stock, redesign around the part, or manufacture it.
Manufacturing is often dismissed early because the organisation has no view of what it would cost, how long it would take, or whether anyone can make it to specification.
Why it is hard
The specification may be incomplete
Drawings exist but material and process specifications may not, particularly for parts inherited from an acquisition.
Capability matching is specialised
Whether a part can be made by a given process is an engineering judgement about tolerance, material and finish, not a catalogue lookup.
One-off economics are unfamiliar
Teams used to volume pricing assume a single part is prohibitive, which is frequently wrong and rarely tested.
How we approach it
3D Bazaar puts the part in front of providers whose equipment matches the specification and returns competitive bids, so the manufacture option is costed rather than assumed.
The platform oversees quality against the ordered specification and tracks delivery, so the comparison against last-time buy and redesign is made on real numbers.
What changes
- The manufacture option costed with real bids rather than estimated
- Capability matched to the specification before bidding
- Quality checked against the ordered specification
- One accountable party for quality and delivery
Next
Is this your problem too?
Bring the version of it you actually have. We will tell you what it would take, including when the answer is that it is not worth doing.