Why One-Stop Shops?
Besides the relative simplicity and convenience of dealing with a single vendor rather than many, there are other reasons for the appeal of one-stop shopping. For one thing, the production schedule becomes more predictable when a single contract manufacturer handles an entire project in-house, says Mike Kartsonis, president of Dynamic Fabrication Inc., a small metal fabrication and machining firm in Santa Ana, CA. Unlike manufacturers that farm out parts of a job to different firms, the one-stop shop “doesn’t have to rely on anyone else,” he notes. “So they can say, ‘This product is scheduled for this date.'” One-stop shops also offer “seamless transitions” from one project phase to another, says Josh Rose, director of marketing for TriVirix (Durham, NC), a full-service contract firm for the medical and life sciences industries. At TriVirix, Rose notes, products proceed smoothly from design to manufacturing because development teams include the company’s factory personnel, who ensure t
