We all know the value of networking and partnerships in business or in our everyday lives. I recently had the pleasure of visiting Adam Allard the operations manager of Autodesk’s BUILD space, the acronym for Building Innovation Learning and Design, currently under construction on Drydock Avenue in the Marine Industrial section of South Boston. I am borrowing much of my material from a well written article that appeared in the Boston Globe. It can be found by going to www.betaboston.com.
Adam was kind enough to provide me with a spirited tour and detailed overview of this unique facility. Autodesk plans to open BUILD Space in the spring of 2015. The multi-floor, 70,000 square foot facility will house approximately 200 Autodesk employees. The BUILD Space will incorporate the latest Autodesk software used by architects, engineers and contractors among others. The unique and forward partnership philosophy of Autodesk will incorporate diverse fabrication technologies as part of this exciting project. The first and second floors of the building will include a 5 axis wood router, several types of robotics, 3D printers, machining & turning centers, waterjet cutting and laser cutting. The BUILD Space will be available to practitioners, designers, entrepreneurs, students and researchers giving them access to the latest fabrication technologies.
A few weeks after the Autodesk visit, our company (Brooks Associates Inc.) met with one of our builder partners to discuss improving our mutual visibility in the New England swiss machining market. One of the proposed events discussed was a series of seminars to allow our customers and prospects the opportunity to see the latest product offerings of this particular machine tool builder. I thought back to the visit with Adam Allard, and realized we need to do a much better job of collaborating with our supplier partners to be a better resource of information to our customers so they may be able to take full advantage of the machine tools they invest in. This included a CAM software package designed for multi-axis turning and milling machines. The other is a major cutting tool manufacturer. These two supplier partners would allow us the opportunity to demonstrate the maximum performance of the machine’s cutting capability. The benefits to the customer are quicker programming, reduced set up time, and improved part throughput and part quality. I realize this is not a new concept and many builders and distributors of machine tools are currently taking advantage of partnerships to develop relationships with new prospects and improve existing customer’s processes.
The bottom line for our company is that we can always be looking for ways to do a better job of partnering with our builders and suppliers. I would appreciate any thoughts or comments as to how your shop incorporates this concept into your business.