I've always thought it would be cool to have a built in pane/window/tab within a cad program that would help designers/engineers source manufacturers or suppliers to make parts from the cad design that is currently being worked on.
i.e. An intuitive feature in the program will decide if the part being designed is machined, injection moulded, cast fabricated etc and the interactive sourcing pane will have a search function that brings up a list of potential suppliers/vendors within a sourrounding area based on your location. You can then post the model on the network and put the part up for tender to be made amoungst selected vendors on the network.
I'm 100% clear on the in's and out's of it all but I feel this concept would be pretty cool.
perhaps the vendors pay a small fee when they win tender and that goes towards keeping the price of the CAD platform low or free. This in turn could intice more users to the CAd platform which would inturn intice more vendors to the sourcing network.
maybe it is a partnership with an exisiting sourcing network like Alibaba.
that's all
