Joel Tortolero: 0:03

We've had customers who've cut cost by 30, 40% just by building something slightly differently after, a design for manufacturability discussion. Even, just an hour or two. It doesn't have to, to take too long to get there. So companies that want to build, that want to improve, that want to reduce risk, can then have a supply chain fully designed online

Tom Raftery: 0:29

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Digital Supply Chain podcast, the number one podcast focusing on the digitization of supply chain, and I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Hi everyone. Welcome to the Digital Supply Chain podcast. My name is Tom Raftery, and with me on the show today, I have my special guest, Joel. Joel, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Joel Tortolero: 0:53

Thank you, Tom. Yes. And very nice to be here. Thanks for the invite. Lovely to to see you again. I'm Joel as you know, and, I'm the CEO of Wiki Factory, currently living in Spain and, having a bit of a, a whirlwind tour of, Europe through my career and ended up in, in sunny Spain today.

Tom Raftery: 1:10

lovely. I'm in Spain as well, but it's a bit overcast where I am in Spain, unfortunately. So not so sunny, but still lovely to be here. Joel, for people who may be unaware, what's Wiki factory?

Joel Tortolero: 1:23

Wiki Factory is a cloud-based platform where anybody who designs physical products can participate in a collaborative design to manufacturing process. So, If you use design tools to create, 3D files that eventually get to be produced, you can use Wiki factory to share over 30 types of files with anybody, project managers, supply chain players, manufacturing networks, and your own designers. So it, it brings the usually not so digital process of getting things made onto the web.

Tom Raftery: 2:00

Okay. Couldn't I do that with Dropbox or you know, a another OneDrive or you send it or whatever other sharing tools that are available out there.

Joel Tortolero: 2:15

Absolutely. It's one of the things that is, a pain point actually, where you have so many tools to be able to share files and then discuss annotations on the designs. PDF screenshots, 250 email chains with sometimes the wrong version of the file, getting to people. And also in a, in a slightly less secure way. What Wiki Factory brings is all of those tools into one place where instead of having to discuss things by email or with PDF notations, you can keep all of that, not just on a drive because you can import your drive data or synchronize it with Google Drive, for example, or GitHub, repositories. But in a place where the actual 3D file can be viewed, annotated, comments added directly on the specific geometry or parts that you want to discuss. Also keeping not only all the file history checks, but time travel availability. And, and a chat for any collaborator in that project that you want to discuss with. So it doesn't, work, necessarily outside and on its own. It doesn't replace the tools that you've got. It, it's a place where you can collaborate and really integrate with them so that you, you simplify that collaboration process. Especially over the last couple of years where we've seen many teams going remote and, uh, and many companies and especially individuals, designers, inventors who don't have extremely expensive licenses to be able to do certain things on 3D files online, can now do it. So it's, a really useful tool to integrate into your workflow and, and really adapt to your own process.

Tom Raftery: 3:53

Okay, and who is the tool aimed at? I mean, it's not aimed at supply chain managers, for example, in an organization who would benefit from using this tool?

Joel Tortolero: 4:05

I think what we've seen over the last couple of years especially is it starts with the designer in mind. It starts with the creator, the engineer, whoever is actually designing the product and needs to collaborate on that. But actually it really involves the players that are part of that process, because what we are seeing in industry today, and especially with the recent issues we've seen globally, is that collaboration and the speed of response, accuracy of what you're working on with many people, supply chain managers as well, is quite important. So it really brings all of those players into one place, almost like, GitHub and Figma have done for software and for graphic design. So it's a tool that brings everybody into the same box rather than being a box just, on its own for a designer in an isolated way. And the, the recent trends we've seen is actually suppliers, either suppliers of parts or manufacturing technologies or components who want to develop these better relationships with their customers and really start to identify better ways to design their products for manufacturability. Not only how easy it would be to manufacture something a specific way if your manufacturer is part of those collaborative discussions, but also how to decrease costs or improve quality or choose a better material for what you're trying to build. So whether it's the actual product inventor, so to speak, or engineer that needs to collaborate with another engineer or another designer, or actually the project manager that wants to keep the entire design to production flow in a, in a way that, that everybody has visibility of what's happening. They can now do that online. And of course there's many tools that do parts of this process online already but there's, really not a, a comprehensive, platform where you can bring it all together. Especially for SMEs and for individuals who may not have access to extremely expensive professional enterprise licenses, that are usually quite proprietary and not, not working really well with open, or with other files that are a bit open for, sharing between different teams.

Tom Raftery: 6:26

Okay. And if I am an engineer or a designer and I have this design and I want to get it manufactured, what's the next step with Wiki factory? How do I do that?

Joel Tortolero: 6:38

If you think about the normal process first, and, and of course, we're trying to bring something that is a bit more than what, what normally happens. You would find out a supplier, find a supplier that can actually build what you want with the technology you want at the right quality, the right price point, the geography that can be really daunting for many companies, especially if they're, not, geared up to managing and handling massive supply chains globally. And secondly, the logistics to get that shipped, whether it's a prototype or a serial production run. What we bring is the ability for anybody to build their supply chains. So quality assured manufacturers, that can talk directly to you as a customer, or as a designer, to really have that, direct link between what you've designed and how to get it produced in the best way possible. So a designer, an engineer could then find in Wiki factory the right provider. But not only the right provider. There's many, portals and many websites where you can find, many manufacturers. It's the right one for you, and especially with the design for manufacturability solution on top that adds the extra value. We've had customers who've cut cost by 30, 40% just by building something slightly differently after, a design for manufacturability discussion. Even, just an hour or two. It doesn't have to, to take too long to get there. So companies that want to build, that want to improve, that want to reduce risk, can then have a supply chain fully designed online. And as we grow, we will of course add other parts and other players that you will require, like electronic component providers that can already give you some some of the, of the things, of the parts that you would require for your product. But, but that engineer would have at their fingertip the way to, to really speak to someone directly and saving a lot of time in terms of procuring, suppliers with either quality assured or certified suppliers that meet your needs or your internal quality processes and, and requirements.

Tom Raftery: 8:52

Okay. And just as you mentioned quality, how are you assured of the quality of the goods that are manufactured?

Joel Tortolero: 9:02

In any sort of production run, you would have various ways of checking for quality and depending on the supplier. They'll do spot quality checks, randomized sample sizes, at every step of the way. Golden samples, for example, to make sure that, you know, you have a good view of what the end product is before you produce thousands of the same thing, whether it's a small or big run. So the manufacturers themselves have various capabilities. Some, companies or some engineers or some inventors, for a small part that is, a, prototype just for functionality tests may not require, the absolute top quality in terms of form, in terms of the, the quality of the surface. And that's fine. You can actually get a prototype just to check the functionality of the device you're building. But then once it gets into, okay, I need to produce 20 thousands of these, there are various standard practice quality checks that the manufacturer will implement. So we do vet all manufacturers, but you can also bring your own, and this is another sort of innovative way of using a cloud-based platform. You're not bound by the manufacturers we've got. We have some companies that have specific manufacturers for very tailored made parts or with proprietary technologies they wouldn't want to share with somebody else. They use Wiki factory to then speak with those manufacturers in a better way than emails, Dropbox, We Transfer links, PDF and annotations, especially as some manufacturers may not have all the same software as their customers, so they need a place where they can translate it all view the same thing, and really follow whatever procedures and quality checks you want them to follow plus of course, certifications. If you need a manufacturer with a particular ISO certification, the best way to to do it is to, to have someone vet that and to double check that, that is there. But with top level manufacturers, it's more about the collaborative side and really speak into them and getting the right feedback for your designs, to then implement your quality checks on top of that.

Tom Raftery: 11:07

And there's been a movement lately towards Nearshoring. Is that something that, uh, you can facilitate on this or are all your manufacturers based in the, in Asia, for example?

Joel Tortolero: 11:18

Yeah, it's, uh, it's quite, especially in the recent years, it's been quite a trend to de-risk supply chains, especially when you are bound by a single location that can be hit by pandemics, uh, and other situations. So we have a mixture of manufacturers over Europe, the US and Asia. And many of our customers actually go for dual manufacturing sources, not just one. especially after there's been a good, uh, design for manufacturability discussion and you know exactly what you need to produce. So Nearshoring more than offshoring or local production is one of the, principles on which Wiki factory was based trying to serve as the conduit for that global recipe or global design that anybody can then produce locally. For example, we have a customer that works with customers end customers in South America, North America, and Europe. And uh, what he's trying to do is, to get that design into a set of manufacturers that are then tested and and kind of approved to then produce for those local regions. So any customer in South America or in the US will get their products from their more local manufacturers. And of course then the best choice depending on where your end customer is. Others, because of the type of production and, and because of the volume, may still be bound by having one manufacturer to reduce costs, but with the ability to quickly shift when there's issues, you can overcome potential situations like a massive lockdown in China as it happened earlier this year, and having to shift production to a different country. If you already have manufacturers that are used to doing things like that who can also keep the quality and the cost in a similar range, you de-risk your supply chain logistics and, and risks that we can see today.

Tom Raftery: 13:13

Sure. Sure, of course. And do you have customer examples you can speak to? Kind of use cases that you can talk about.

Joel Tortolero: 13:21

Yes, on. On the one hand, if we think a bit less about manufacturing and more on the design and the collaboration, we have a mixture of open source and proprietary customers. In the open source space, for example, there's a solar power vehicle, from a company called Sono Motors in Germany who needed to find accessories add-ons to their solar power car. For example, an ashtray that can also serve as something else, or a cup holder where you can also charge your phone. And they use Wiki factory to attract, from 140,000 users, engineers, designers that can help them produce designs that they can actually manufacture and they got 50, submissions of really interesting projects. They ran then a challenge cup, so to speak, to choose the winners in the categories that we're interested in. And actually produce those, uh, designs as part of their car. Drumcoria is another example where it's an organization that is trying to build technologies, software, and hardware to help companies and organizations globally do reforestation in hard to reach areas. So what they've done with Wiki Factory is post the, the projects themselves for various things. It could be the seed container, it could be the engine that actually disperses the seats all over the drone themselves and have, all of the organizations that are using those clone their project in an open source way to further design, further add, and use our community to build on top of the functionalities they've designed. On the other end of the spectrum, of course there's proprietary companies, so you know, Robinson House Studio in the uk or Studio Rosso in Denmark. They're furniture designers and decoration designers that can build their are very tailor made, custom made designs in a, in a much easier way through our network of manufacturers. Again, thinking about local production for global clients, saving on shipping costs, custom charges, and a lot of governance headaches. but many industries like agriculture, technology, robotics, we have inventors trying to create things for automotive industries that they serve. In a very transparent but intellectually proprietary way so that their designs remain private and they can use their entire supply chain from today on our platform. So there's a variety of industries, variety of customers from small to big that are taking advantage of it. And this is the purpose of why Wiki Factory started, you know, when we started a few years ago, we wanted to bring the internet of production to life, and that's what we call it, the Internet of production. Bringing that space, whether open or proprietary, you can actually get things made in a better way to serve the current trends. Not only better quality, but sustainable product, sustainable materials, sustainable supply chain and logistics. How to do that without impacting the end customer too much from a financial perspective, but also keeping the standards high. And what these companies are showing us is that they can do that and they can bring all of these innovations to life in a cost effective and scalable way through a very digital cloud based platform. And it's really inspiring to see what they do.

Tom Raftery: 16:55

Okay. And you mentioned sustainability. Is there any way that your platform is helping your customers achieve their sustainability goals?

Joel Tortolero: 17:04

One of the, the things that, that we want to do and we continue building is a way for a reduced CO2 emissions by using, closer, nearshore production. But also one thing that we will focus on more next year is to get more recyclable materials or recycled materials, sustainable materials onto the whole supply chain of our customers. We've had over two thirds of customers indicating that they would love to do that, and we've done some tests with, for example, particular types of plastics or resins that are recycled to do any 3D printing design you want of a particular type. But of course the industry in itself is starting to shift towards that. So we're trying to keep the balance between usability, functionality, quality of the end product. For example, if you're building something that has to be medical grade, we had a lot of customers building PPE equipment during the pandemic to produce tens of thousands of really clever designs that were used like respirators. So you have to also be mindful of the quality of the material. but it's not just materials or just logistics, is the companies that are building these products, even if you have to use a material that for any particular requirement, cannot be recycled plastic, it has to be metal. Can they source it in a more sustainable way? So some of the things that we are starting to to pay attention to in terms of choosing suppliers is certifications and, uh, proof of the source of certain materials that we can eventually start to advertise and make more transparent. It's, it's hard to do when the industry isn't yet at that level, but we're collaborating and contributing to bring that to life. And of course, customers that have their own sustainable supply chains in place and bring it onto Wiki factory, some of them have indicated I'm more than willing to share, these providers for particular things with your network. So it's a, it's an economy of scale, but also an economy in itself as a marketplace where you're not only a customer, you can be a provider, you can be a partner. So we're really looking forward to working with more sustainable companies and, and companies that are trying to achieve these sustainable development goals of the United Nations to, to really bring it into a, a mainstream of productivity and production.

Tom Raftery: 20:09

Interesting. And I'm just curious, you're a cloud delivered solution. Is your cloud provider low carbon?

Joel Tortolero: 20:17

So cloud providers today for example AWS, Microsoft Azure, and others are trying and struggling to get into a super low carbon footprint. It's somewhere where we, for example, using our current providers are pushing to get more either, for example, efforts in contributing and counterbalancing the CO2 emissions they provide, but also more than their providers, that our providers, our solution itself, making it less impactful and resource hungry. So one thing that we always keep in mind when designing a cloud-based tool and the solutions we came up with for example last year with CADs, how to use the latest technology and architecture so that the impact on the processing speed or the storage, facilities that we need, and the energy that those super power-hungry servers require is lessened. So in a way, we are bound by global data providers and networks. But we can do our bit to use that a lot less intensively than we would have even two years ago because the technology has been shifting quite a lot and software design as well. And that's what we're focused on today, what we can actually impact. If there are of course, providers that in certain regions because we want to localize the distribution of these, cloud-based tools are less resource hungry or have sustainability projects in mind we'd be more than happy to work with them. but at least from our side, we really try to use less intensive and better designed architecture to, to be able to, contribute less to CO2 emissions globally.

Tom Raftery: 22:00

Cool. Cool. And where to from here? What's next for you guys?

Joel Tortolero: 22:04

I think, what we're seeing in industry and in in global trends is that companies and individuals as well want to talk directly to their providers and their manufacturers in a way that they can design products with the end goal in mind, including sustainability. So we see ourselves as a potential middle, not middleman, but middle ground, where that conversation can take place. And secondly, in terms of technologies that are coming to the forefront, you know, web three, how can we contribute to a more decentralized manufacturing internet of production? How can we contribute with our network and with our users to a better way of doing things? And I think that economy of partnerships, economy of marketplaces is where a lot of the current effort can be focused on, and that's what we definitely want to focus on. We have 140,000 users, for example, that are working in industry who collaborate, who are intermediaries, who can help companies design things better. So if we can be part of your journey, or if we can be part of a particular industry that needs to digitize or that needs to automate. That's what we see our value, that middle collaboration ground where we can bring all the players together. And, and I think our niche and, and our industry is so broad, so to speak, it's quite an exciting space to be. I think next year we'll see a lot more of really global design, local manufacturing happening. It's already changing the way that we do things, that we ship things. And also logistics partners are starting to become a lot more interested in this space because then the big, logistics companies like Maersk are already seeing a shift in demand, lower demand for global logistics and the shift to more last mile local logistics, sort space. So if we can bring the likes of companies that have, really revolutionized the local mindset. You know, even if you think about Uber, for example, how they've expanded globally regardless of controversies in certain countries and regulations. It is the democratization really of, of these sort of technologies and how to expand them to places where anybody can really be part of this. Even if you are in Ecuador or Canada or Denmark, it doesn't really matter. Going where talent is going, where the source of your customer demand is, is where we see the the future of manufacturing and collaboration.

Tom Raftery: 24:51

We're coming towards the. Now, Joel, is there any question that I haven't asked you that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?

Joel Tortolero: 25:02

I think one of the, the things that we're seeing today and, and we will continue to see apart from the collaboration is also how are we able to innovate faster and bring that agile mindset that software developers have implemented, especially over the last decade to product design. And I think the big revolution in designing products today is becoming more agile, friendly, less waterfall to use software terms. And, and my question would be how can other companies be part of this? There are many associations in various countries. For example, the Additive Manufacturing Association in Denmark, bringing companies into, in their case, 3D printing. But also companies that are part of a very traditional manufacturing, stable way and, and non-digital way of, of doing things. How to make the jump in a way that is a little bit less scary, uh, scalable and fits into your own processes, into your own ways of doing things. And I think it, it all starts with the employees, the people that are involved using those agile tools and, and making sure they can be useful in your own adaptability and transformation for a digital manufacturing change that is coming. And I think this is the time for manufacturing to, have their web moment, have their internet 4.0 and an industry 4.0 moment truly. Uh, and I think a lot of the global industry events that we see today are all about these topics, so we're very excited to see that everybody's jumping onto this wagon and we're really looking forward to helping overcome some of the obstacles and barriers to entry, for companies to really jump with both feet into this.

Tom Raftery: 26:53

Nice, Nice. Joel, if people would like to know more about yourself or a Wiki factory or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Joel Tortolero: 27:03

They can go to our website, wiki factory.com, and I can share with you also on social media, so you can put it in the description of the podcast in case anybody's interested in what our companies as well are doing or our customers and projects, but also to get in touch yourself. So very happy to show you a demo and to try the solution for yourself and get your views on how this can implement your digitalization strategies better.

Tom Raftery: 27:26

Phenomenal. Joel, that's been really interesting. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Joel Tortolero: 27:31

Thank you so much for the invite, Tom, and looking forward to seeing you again. Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about digital supply chains, simply drop me an email to TomRaftery@outlook.com If you like the show, please don't forget to click Follow on it in your podcast application of choice to be sure to get new episodes as soon as they're published Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find a show. Thanks, catch you all next time.