Paperless Parts Launches Smart Sheet-Metal Fabrication Ordering, Quoting, and Collaboration Solution

Fast Detection of Manufacturing Issues, Rapid Quoting/Ordering Saves Time, Boosts Quality for Sheet Metal Fabricators

Building on its intelligent solutions for streamlining additive manufacturing and CNC machining, Paperless Parts launches sheet metal support for Paperless Parts today at FABTECH 2019, North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding, and finishing conference. The new sheet metal capabilities enable fabricators to view 2D and 3D sheet-metal designs, detect manufacturability issues, collaborate interactively with customers, and rapidly quote and process orders for simple to complex sheet metal parts and assemblies.


The new Paperless Parts Sheet Metal geometry engine works with various CAD and digital 2D and 3D formats to analyze sheet-metal component and assembly designs to identify features such as bends, holes, thickness irregularities, and other information relevant to the sheet metal fabrication process. The software recognizes both components and assemblies, unfolds each part to provide dimensions and thicknesses to define material requirements, and allows fabricators to quote both components and assemblies — including all underlying components and purchased hardware — as a single line item rather than the traditional method of quoting each part separately.

"Sheet metal capability is a great addition to Paperless Parts Quoting because it's like having a second set of eyes looking at a part or assembly in terms of catching sheet-metal production issues before we submit a quote," says Jordan Amoia, Partner and Director of Business Development at Aurora Machine. "Roughly 90 percent of sheet metal fabrication issues are fairly obvious, and we'll typically catch these right away. However, Paperless Parts enables us to set flags for different sheet metal features to quickly analyze the part geometry and pinpoint manufacturability issues that can be difficult to detect—such as hole distortions or unreachable radii. This solution helps us save time and money by quickly turning around quotes with accuracy while offering greater value to our customers."

As with milling, machining, and additive manufacturing, Paperless Parts' sheet metal capabilities quickly identify manufacturability issues saves fabricators time and money by minimizing the potential for costly mistakes. For the first time in the industry, fabricators can customize design for manufacturability (DFM) warnings to their specific shop capabilities to quickly identify issues particular to their shop. Paperless Parts can be used to communicate and collaborate about jobs, both internally and with customers, and the solution's geometric analysis can rapidly generate precise, accurate quotes via Paperless Parts Quoting.

Availability and Pricing
Support for sheet metal is currently available for the cloud-based Paperless Parts Quoting solution. The Growth version of Paperless Parts Quoting platform with viewing, unfolding, and design for manufacturability flagging support for sheet-metal parts is available $300 (US) per month. Customers can add sheet-metal support for assemblies, storage that complies with U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) cyber security requirements, and secure chat-based communication with Paperless Parts Professional, for $750 per month.

About Paperless Parts
Paperless Parts is the secure, ITAR registered and compliant cloud-based platform that is revolutionizing manufacturing. The powerful geometric analysis engine unlocks hidden insights and enables job shop manufacturers to modernize and grow their business by rapidly pinpointing manufacturability issues, creating quotes, and processing orders for additive manufacturing, sheet-metal fabrication, and milling/machining production processes. Sign up today at paperlessparts.com.

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