Properly Works president and new BNMA board chair Dominic Myers spoke to Series B about the new MXP platform.
His vision for Buffalo's manufacturing sector: becoming a go-to region for practical solutions to thorny problems.
The Buffalo Niagara Manufacturing Alliance has long played the role of phone booth operator for its 200-plus membership.
When a shop needs a coder, a machiner or a fabricator, it helps straighten out the bumps in a supply chain that drives the WNY economy.
But that ad hoc networking has its limits. Now the company is leveraging AI to introduce a new tool that is designed to tie this system more closely together.
BNMA recently launched the beta version of its MXP (Manufacturing eXhange Portal), which will place a layer of generative AI over BNMA’s rich source of data and detailed member profiles.
When someone needs a CNC job, or if they’re overbooked, the platform is designed to seamlessly match those clients with vendors ready to help. It's a communications tool and paired with an AI-assisted vendor discovery mechanism.
BNMA turned to Ganson Street Innovation Station to build the first version of its app, and went public with the project at its annual meeting in March. Incoming board chair Dominic Myers, the president of Properly Works, made the announcement.
Speaking recently to Series B about MXP, Myers said it was an advanced way to the kind of service BNMA has always delivered.
But he also said there’s a bigger picture at play here. MXP is an opportunity to demonstrate the durability, quality and innovation in the Western New York manufacturing supply chain.
In that way, he hopes MXP goes from a nice-to-have tool for its members to a meaningful part of the industry’s future.
“The bigger vision I put to our members to sit on and to live in was, ‘How do we make Western New York the go-to-manufacturing corridor in the U.S.” Myers said. “How do we get people talking when something is really hard, or when people need to turn the theoretical into the practical. How do we become the region people come to when they need solutions.”
