The problem
Job matching in manufacturing is broken. It’s based on who you know, who’s on Thomasnet, who picks up the phone first. None of that correlates with capability, quality, or the right machine for the job.
A shop with a brand new 5-axis mill and no marketing sits idle. A shop with a 1990s Bridgeport and great SEO gets jobs they can’t execute. The buyer doesn’t know the difference until parts arrive out of tolerance.
For buyers, it’s a crapshoot. RFQs go out to whoever they can find, quotes come back wildly different, and there’s no reliable way to verify that the quoting shop can actually hold the tolerance they’re promising.