Adobe technology makes MFG.com an easier place to buy, sell goods

Founded in 2000, Atlanta-based MFG.com is the world's largest online manufacturing industry marketplace, with $15 billion worth of transactions made on the platform since its inception. MFG.com recently completed a major revamp of its commerce platform, making extensive use of Adobe Systems technology.

Buyers can use the MFG.com marketplace for free. Suppliers pay an annual membership to list their capabilities. The revamp began shortly after MFG.com's 2006 merger with SourcingParts.com, a similar marketplace based in Geneva, Switzerland.

“In SourcingParts we saw a marketplace where the designers had to think about issues that we hadn't,” says MFG.com President and CEO Mitch Free. “We were strong in North America, and they were strong in Europe. We were a site built around one language and one currency, whereas SourcingParts had to deal with multiple languages and multiple currencies. It also had strengths on the 'buy side' of the transaction, such as its approach to requests for quotes [RFQ]. The problem was, from a technology point of view, these capabilities weren't necessarily easy to use.”

A team of developers based in Edinburgh, Scotland, were given a straightforward task: create a truly global marketplace—accommodating 10 languages and 12 currencies—that both buyers and sellers would find easy to use.

The sharing of CAD data, for example, had long been a source of frustration for both MFG.com and SourcingParts members. While most buyers and sellers have CAD systems, explains Free, differing vendor-specific CAD formats make the interchange of designs difficult without additional investment in software.

To address that issue, MFG.com made Adobe Acrobat 3D its standard tool for viewing CAD data, allowing buyers and sellers to freely exchange 2D and 3D geometry together with manufacturing information. Standardizing on Adobe Acrobat 3D also eliminated concerns about protecting intellectual property as it travels across the global network.

“By leveraging Adobe's 'rights management' technology—embedded in its LiveCycle family of applications—documents effectively 'phone home' to see if the person trying to open them has permission to do so,” says Free. “Plus it adds revision control: If version two of a document has come out, you can no longer open version one.”

Adobe also dramatically improved the MFG.com user experience by using Adobe Flex technology to build a new user interface. Adobe Flex is a cross-platform development framework for creating interactive Internet-based applications that run smoothly on all major browsers and operating systems, explains Mike Morel, director of manufacturing solutions at Adobe.

“Building the user interface around Flex allows users to interact with each other and with the application in a much more meaningful way,” Morel says. “They can build RFQs by dragging-and-dropping from back-end systems, and deliver information in a way that allows it to be used far more effectively. Particularly for the smaller players in the supply chain, who struggle to use the same technology as larger players, it levels the field.”

"Protecting intellectual property is a big concern with buyers because companies don’t want their designs floating freely on the Web." —Mitch Free, CEO, MFG.com

MFG.com recently announced the receipt of $26 million in financing from a group of investors led by Fidelity Ventures and Fidelity Asia Ventures. Other MFG.com financial backers include Bezos Expeditions, the private investment firm of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.

MFG.com management says the latest cash infusion will support continued global expansion and technology development, as well as the creation of innovative new online services and potential acquisitions.

“Our continued global growth was not dependent on raising additional capital,” stresses Free. What swung the deal, he explains, was Fidelity's global reach and domain expertise—as evidenced, for example, by its successful investments in other online B2B marketplaces, including Asia's Alibaba.com.