Paperless Parts and Online Metals Partner to Deliver On-Demand Materials Pricing

Paperless Parts, a secure, ITAR compliant cloud-based platform, announces that it has partnered with Online Metals. Through this partnership, Paperless Parts will combine its understanding of how part geometry drives materials selection with Online Metals’ instant materials pricing to provide engineers and custom part manufacturers with the ability to streamline one of the first steps in every quoting process—materials pricing. Online Metals will provide its customers who sign up for Paperless Parts with access to this tool free for one year.

Manufacturers have historically focused on the efficient delivery of their products, not the front-end processes that are critical to business success. But as the world becomes increasingly digital, job shops have had to keep pace—and for many, that means improving their quoting capabilities. However, this shift has been stalled by two critical components of the quoting process: the ability to quickly determine the required amount and price of materials to manufacture the part.

By integrating Online Metals’ materials expertise with Paperless Parts’ technology,  Paperless Viewer, estimators will have access to an engineering tool that analyzes part manufacturability, allowing estimators to deliver more accurate, comprehensive quotes with the right pricing in minutes, rather than days or weeks. Not only does this solution address key challenges related to selecting and pricing raw metals, but through the Paperless Viewer users have access to an engineering tool that also analyzes part manufacturability. 

Using the Paperless Viewer, engineers and custom part manufacturers will have the ability to quickly:

• view and securely store all 2D and 3D CAD file formats;
• calculate optimal materials requirements (bars, rods and nested sheets) for every job and get instant pricing and purchasing options from Online Metals;
• determine if a part is manufacturable based on configurable manufacturability thresholds; and
• securely and digitally chat with their teams and share design feedback with customers.

“In today’s supply chain, engineers have access to modern solutions that allow them to design parts using advanced technology,” says Jason T. Ray, co-founder and CEO of Paperless Parts. “Many manufacturers, however, are still working in Excel or—in some cases—pen and paper, creating a significant technology gap that leads to bottlenecks within the supply chain. By providing both engineers and manufacturers with access to the Paperless Viewer and instant materials pricing from Online Metals, we are leveling the playing field, allowing them to collaborate more effectively and deliver an accurate product to their customer more quickly than ever.”

“At Online Metals, our mission has always been to bring our customers faster ways to price and purchase metals regardless of the quantity or size required,” says Greg Raece, president of Online Metals. “This partnership with Paperless Parts is a logical extension of what we set out to do 22 years ago. Not only can our customers now calculate the material requirements of a specific job and seamlessly order materials, they can rest assured that they have the ability to accurately manufacture that part—a game changer for purchasing materials online.”

“The integration between Paperless Parts and Online Metals has been significant for our business,” says Justin Quinn, president of Focused on Machining. “Within a day of being onboarded to the solution we were able to more quickly, confidently and seamlessly calculate our materials requirements and visualize it. The tool makes it easy to order materials from Online Metals when we need them.”

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.