Chicken or Egg?

If your injection molding plant capacity is sold out and you aren’t really looking for new customers, then bless you, there’s no need to read further. Feel free to turn the page. For the rest of you, Plastics Technology is launching a new service this month that might help you get some of those idle machines running.

A special message to our readers describes the new JobQuote Network found on our website. Created in cooperation with ManufacturingQuote.com of Smyrna, Ga., the JobQuote Network is designed to put OEM parts buyers in touch with custom molders they might not know about, and vice versa. It’s an online system for posting RFQs and job quotes, with handy tools to let molders select the kinds of jobs they want to quote on.

This new service can also help you to buy tooling, rapid prototyping, engineering, and finishing services. It provides the opportunity to compare pricing, delivery, etc. from a wider circle of vendors than you currently use. The JobQuote service is free to molded-parts buyers and, for an introductory period, there’s no cost to molders either. We certainly hope you will try it and find it useful.

We recognize that there’s an inevitable chicken-and-egg problem in launching such a service. If molders flock to the site and find a dearth of buyers, they may be disappointed. The same goes if buyers post jobs but don’t attract many quotes. Enough buyers and sellers have to give the service a try at the same time in order for it to work well for both of them.

We will do everything we can through this magazine and our website to draw molders’ attention to the JobQuote Network. To enlist the participation of parts buyers, we are cooperating in joint promotional efforts with other publications, such as the Thomas Register, NASA Tech Briefs, and our sister publications Modern Machine Shop, Production Machining, Automotive Design & Production, Products Finishing, and Automotive Finishing. Through these joint programs, we are trying to make the chicken and egg happen at the same time.