eMachineShop
Opened in 2004, New Jersey based eMachineShop solidly puts the power of design and manufacturing into the hands of individual creators (formerly known as consumers). eMachineShop is perfect for aspiring craftsmen who want to design anything from a saxophone mouthpiece or a balcony railing, to parts for an experimental airplane. In eMachineShop's words: "You design and we fabricate the custom parts you need via the web, easily and conveniently."
The process is straightforward: consumers download free, user-friendly (if not dummy proof) computer-aided design (CAD) software which they use to design their product. Once the drawing is submitted and approved, the customer receives a quote, and after giving the green light, the design is sent to a real machine shop. The product is manufactured and delivered to the customer.
As the software performs many functions normally performed by people, and no valuable time is lost over price negotiations, prices are reasonable. The system is speedy as well, taking around 30 days for the whole process.
Opportunities
Now, in addition to creating digital content such as movies and music tracks, GENERATION C can also take a stab at designing 'real world' products. eMachineshop is landing hundreds of orders per month and facing no competition as of yet.
The CAD software is real nice, but if you need a single piece ( or just a few ) their service is very expensive compared to a machine shop down the road. I made a few parts with their software and in the end I used a software tool called ems2obj ( http://www.geocities.com/ems2obj/ ) to export my designs. I took those designs to a local machine shop and got my parts for a fraction of the price...