Anyone who procures or designs components is often faced with the same questions: Which material is best suited? Which surface treatment suits the process? Such decisions require specialist knowledge and cost time. Digital procurement specialist FACTUREE has now developed the FACTUREE Navigator, a free-to-use tool that closes this knowledge gap. The new AI-supported agent answers technical questions about materials, manufacturing processes and surface treatments in a matter of seconds. It makes complex manufacturing knowledge available to everyone for the first time.
"Many questions arise when procuring components. Specialist know-how is often required. Our Navigator makes this knowledge accessible to purchasers and engineers and helps them to make the right decision for each component more quickly. It is at your side like an experienced engineering colleague. The answers are precise, practice-oriented and available at any time," explains Chantal Kasper, Head of Marketing at FACTUREE.
Specific production knowledge in a matter of seconds
The FACTUREE Navigator takes over time-consuming research tasks and provides well-founded, validated answers. Users receive further sources, can export results as a PDF, evaluate answers and, if required, submit a request for quotation directly. The tool is now available free of charge and in five languages on the FACTUREE website: www.facturee.de/facturee-navigator/ki-agent-erklaert/
As an all-in-one solution, FACTUREE has been providing fast, reliable and up-to-date procurement of drawing parts from a single source for years. The company maintains a production network of over 2,000 manufacturing partners from almost all sectors - from CNC machining, sheet metal processing and 3D printing to casting, forging and surface treatment processes.
The new AI agent saves research time, reduces queries and directly provides practical information on how a component can be designed for production. This allows better decisions to be made and unnecessary adjustment loops to be avoided - a decisive advantage for time-critical projects in mechanical engineering, for example.
Millions of data points and high security standards
The FACTUREE Navigator differs from general AI systems in that its knowledge base is focused purely on production and procurement. This is based on validated, proprietary data that FACTUREE has been systematically collecting since 2017 - now contains millions of data points on materials, procedures and processes. The system is designed for maximum data security. The FACTUREE Navigator is free of charge and can be used without a login. Incoming inquiries are therefore processed anonymously by the system. Only when the user subsequently requests a personal consultation or sends a request for quotation with contact details does he or she transmit his or her personal data.
"The strength of the Navigator lies in the combination of validated data with practical application knowledge. In this way, it provides precise, actionable answers for procurement - always in compliance with the strictest data protection guidelines," says Christopher Walzel, CPO at FACTUREE. "The FACTUREE Navigator was developed in-house: A dedicated team of eight employees managed the project alongside day-to-day business and took it from idea to successful go-live in just six months."
Study shows high acceptance of AI in procurement
A recent FACTUREE study with the market research company Caspar-Feld underlines this need. A total of 60% of respondents state that they are already using AI in the course of procurement - for material and supplier research, to speed up processes and for automated requests for quotations, among other things. At the same time, the results show that 59% of respondents already trust the answers provided by an AI-supported system, 29% are undecided and 12% have no confidence.
AI agent with human reassurance
FACTUREE positions the Navigator as a supportive tool, not as a substitute for technical testing by engineers - especially for safety-relevant components. The system provides a sound initial orientation, refers to sources and enables consultation with the usual FACTUREE contacts at any time. User feedback is actively incorporated into further development in order to continuously increase precision.
"With the FACTUREE Navigator, we are significantly simplifying the procurement of drawing parts. We are the first provider to offer a professionally trained, free tool that centralizes manufacturing knowledge, speeds up processes and improves the quality of decisions," says Chantal Kasper.
