Machine tools on line

Manufacturing Engineering, Jul 2000

Since MachineTools.com was launched in August 1999, it has acquired inventories of new and used equipment from over 500 dealers, who pay a fee for the listing. In March, it bought Tooling.net to enlarge its offering and, says Stuart Carlin, CEO and founder of the machine tools site, "bring supply-chain efficiencies to the machine tool marketplace."

Financing these on-line choices was the next step. In March of this year, First International Bank came on board. According to CEO Brett N. Silvers, First International sees on-line financing as a logical extension of the bank's long-time strategy of lending to industrial companies worldwide. In March, Silvers says, First International made similar agreements with on-line marketplaces serving steel, energy, and railroad industries, as well as machine tools.

Buyers can pick from First International's e-CreditMenu, which contains everything from basic equipment loans and leases to working capital lines, industrial mortgages, and sophisticated import/export, barter, and energy financing programs. Qualified equipment buyers can negotiate extended repayment terms, low down payments, capitalization of warranty, and loans for service and installation costs. On-line financing has usually been limited to credit-card type transactions with a $100,000 maximum, but the e-CreditMenu will handle transactions up to $5 million. Another new partner will accelerate the move to on-line financing. SierraCities.com. has a platform that offers loan approval in minutes and funds in as little as 24 hours.

A new machinery section was launched in April, giving buyers the ability to search by builder, distributor, or machine type. An onlocation auction site allows a search for auctions around the world. The section will expand to include complete machine specs and model information in the near future, says Carlin.

Equipp.com, an Internet auction site for new and used machine tools, now offers a machine tool trade-in system. In an agreement with the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association (AMTDA), the site will offer AMTDA members and their customers a way to remarket and value used machine tools. Ralph Nappi, president of AMTDA, says the alliance gives members "a powerful resource to partner with their current and future customers."

When a buyer of a new machine trades in the old one, it is usually resold locally through a used equipment dealer. Pricing may not be competitive, according to Equipp.com. Now distributors register their services, regions, and brands serviced, including installations, inspections, appraisals, and machine repairs, as part of a national resale program.

For a quick trade, distributors can send data on a potential tradein to Equipp.com for forwarding to a registered list of buyers. They place bids for the trade-in within 48 hours. The distributor can also take title to the trade-in and sell it on the Web site either at a fixed price or at auction.

A machine tool "blue book" like the automotive blue book for used cars is being developed, so that machine shops and dealers can track equipment pricing to establish the value of a trade-in.

Financial services for this site are provided by Imperial Bank (Los Angeles) (www.imperialbank.com), a subsidiary of Imperial Bancorp. Its equipment leasing division provides manufacturers, distributors, and resellers with an array of financing options. Equipp.com recently signed an agreement with Tradesafe.com, which provides on-line escrow services, to take the risk out of these on-line transactions.

ManufacturingQuote.com LLC launched a new Web site in February called Mfgquote.com to connect job shops with customers. On this site, the stockroom is filled not with machine tools but with RFQs for manufacturing services like precision CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, and rapid prototyping. Buyers can post an RFQ by completing an on-line form

.0002" or less runout at spindle nose or attaching a drawing. Job shop or vendor members of Mfgquote.com can look for RFQs that fit their expertise and capacity and fill in an on-line quote form 24 hours a day.

Then there's the Online Asset Exchange, launched in February at www.onlineassetexchange. com, with the familiar face of Lee Iacocca on its promotional materials. This marketplace claims $7 billion in what it calls "preowned" industrial assets. It's now targeting buyers of metalworking and production equipment, power generation, and aircraft equipment. Iacocca, never known for understatements, predicts the new site, by connecting users and dealers, "will be what NASDAQ is to Wall Street."