Mike Cavalieri, Sr. Vice President of Marketplace Operations
"When working with a single manufacturer, you never know how much backlog the shop that you typically work with is going to have on any given day…Xometry’s network enables our customers to get access to the manufacturer that has the capacity right now."
Meet Mike
As Senior Vice President of marketplace operations, I'm responsible for our business units that support our customers through the order fulfillment process. After the order is entered, our team reviews the order for manufacturability and works with our customers on any challenges, and then ultimately prepare it to go to our job board for our partners to pick up and fulfill the order. I also oversee our case management teams that monitor the order as it is completed. They manage the communications between the partners and the customers to make sure there's clarity of the design intent and how to manufacture each part.
I went to Virginia Tech for mechanical engineering and started my career as a manufacturing engineer in production operations. I went back to school and got my MBA from Virginia Tech a few years later. Throughout my career, I've sourced the type of components that Xometry sells to our customers, so I can see the real problems Xometry solves. Thinking back to the amount of time that I spent quoting and pricing – it would take me weeks just to get a quote – it's amazing to me to see Xometry getting parts to customers faster than I was able to get quotes earlier in my career when I needed them.
Putting Xometry’s Partners Through Their Paces
I'm also responsible for our Gaithersburg, Maryland, facility, which is where we have our own internal additive manufacturing. We also have our quality lab, rework, and assembly departments in Gaithersburg and all of our new partners that we onboard are qualified through our site in Gaithersburg. The partner submits a test sample for the process they want to be qualified to operate in, and we inspect it. That's their first pass, and if their test sample part conforms to the requirements, they're authorized to take their first few jobs. They send their first few jobs to us, and we review them. And then ultimately, if they deliver those jobs well, they get a broader capacity and capability in our default network.
Flexing the Power of Xometry’s Partner Network
We do a lot with aerospace and defense. When we get those big orders, it's an opportunity for us to really flex the power and the strength of the Xometry network. We've taken the order, which may have over 200 unique items, and we're able to quickly parse it out, assess the different design complexities of each of the different parts, and then get it out to our network to manufacture.
For a recent large order, more than 20 partners were involved in fulfilling it. I think that's one of the really unique things about Xometry—the scale of it. It doesn't choke us the way it would a typical manufacturer, so we're able to support our customers with a really quick response.
When working with a single manufacturer, you never know how much backlog the shop that you typically work with is going to have on any given day. Today their lead time might be a few days. Next week, maybe they take on a huge backlog and the lead time goes to 15 weeks or 16 weeks. Xometry’s network enables our customers to get access to the manufacturer that has the capacity right now.