Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Drura Parrish, President of Xometry (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What are the new things that are getting designed and manufactured in America today?

Drura Parrish: We’re still at the cutting edge of automotive and automotive components in electronics, hardware, and mechanical aerospace and all the supply chain that’s going into that.

A lot of the meat still occurs here, and a lot of the labor force and automation still goes in to support that tier. But what’s fascinating that I’ve seen in the past five to eight years is hardware-based startups. We’re going into a very interesting phase within startups where software can answer a lot.

But a lot of the older industries are being given the opportunity to update thanks to its brilliant thinkers coming out in every university. The typical candidates are anything that’s autonomous. You see a lot of that being produced.

Sramana Mitra: Big time robotics trend, right?

Drura Parrish: Yes, huge robotics and autonomous vehicles. Anything with automation is huge. A beautiful and fascinating trend is occurring. There’s a revolution in desktop manufacturing. So that’s brought along the need to build even more complex and larger assembly machines.

You’re seeing a lot of that specifically in the heartland. You’re seeing medical device companies enabling humans to do things that they’ve never been able to do before such as things that help posture and people lift things. Prosthetics are huge, but agriculture tech is absolutely enormous.

We’ve got autonomous vehicles plowing corn fields in Western Kentucky right now. They’re being supported by drones that are looking for heat maps. What’s interesting is, they’re all fighting for a very limited supply chain. They’re all fighting for the ability to scale. They’re all coming in with the promise of scale.

But no major contract manufacturer is going to take a new, unproven robotics company with the same seriousness as a time-tested automotive producer. So once again, you need a production system that matches the financial and scalability restraints of this younger technology, specifically in America.

When you think about it, since the 1950s, the American supply chain hasn’t
really updated. We’re still very much in a post-war mentality – build a line to make things for 30 years and make widgets. But the demand is for the drone company that tries iteration one and gets customer feedback to make a major revision. That assembly line needs to be able to respond and change to it – all the part-making components or all the components that go into part making.

These companies have a very tough time. This is the sliver that we operate in. We know how our partners or our suppliers operate and the things that they make best, how to best shift, give them the things, and itemize it to the point where they can do this stuff profitably.

We can enable them by giving them the material that they desperately need at the dimensions that they need it, versus forcing them to take a burden for another guest. It’s all about trying to minimize both risk on their supply side and simultaneously maximize their abilities to do what they do well.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Drura Parrish, President of Xometry
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