Q) How has business been for Fractory’s online platform connecting engineers with production capacity? What has been driving growth and are you surprised about the rate it has grown?
Martin: We keep on growing and it is still a surprise to me that something we dreamed of some years ago now has proved so useful to so many companies and so many people. We started small, without huge resources. And we built frugally. We’ve grown alongside lots of those early customers, their volumes growing with us. And we’ve grown thanks to big, new customers too.
But of course, it’s my job to expect more and to provide our service to ever more customers. I want to drive service capacity and see our service quality keep on getting better. I ask, why not better, why not more? And so, we seek more!
Q) How has demand been across series manufacturing, project manufacturing and prototyping?
Martin: Demand increases across all three areas, but the biggest growth is in the larger projects. Certainly, we’re ideal for prototyping and we work to get unit price down on even small, single orders.
But really, because of our capacity and wide selection of supply partners, it’s across the larger orders that customers enjoy the most benefits. Where a project is sizable or tricky, customers find that we are able to deliver short lead times, serious quality and supply chain security.
And that all the manufacturing methods they might require for a complex piece of work can be accessed from a single source is appealing because it simplifies their workflows and lets them focus on their core business.
Q) Fractory was recently named 32nd in the latest Financial Times ranking of Europe’s 1,000 fastest growing companies. How pleased were you about this along with being named as the fastest growing in the UK?
Martin: What can I say? Yes. Very pleased! The years considered in the FT’s research included the years where we went from something small to something significant. They also included the pandemic years where our supply-chain know-how made us invaluable to many customers. So, we knew we were experiencing meaningful growth but it’s satisfying to see it quantified like this!
