Development
Design. Build. Iterate.
Keep prototypes and NPI moving with rapid sourcing and order visibility before it slows down iteration.
What procurement looks like at this stage
Nobody is doing anything wrong. The setup is rational for the size of the team, right up until the first build depends on it.
Small quantities get scheduled last
Prototype work is low quantity, high mix and rarely repeats, so shops fit it around production runs. That is true whether you are a ten-person team or an NPI program inside a large manufacturer.
Everyone does their own buying
Engineers order what they need on cards and personal supplier accounts. Nobody has a view of what is on order, what it cost, or who already bought the same part last month.
What you know lives in someone's head
Which supplier is reliable, what a fair price looks like, what went wrong on the last run. None of it is written down, so when that person is heads-down or leaves, the team starts over.
What Silkline does at this stage
Import your existing data and get started using Silkline in hours. Your suppliers never have to onboard — they keep working by email exactly as they do now.
Source
One RFQ, several suppliers
The same scope goes to everyone at once, with drawings, tolerances and quality requirements attached. Quotes come back comparable instead of needing three follow-ups each to make sense of.
Procure
Engineers buy without waiting
Any engineer can raise a request carrying the context ops needs to act. Approvals run in email rather than a portal, and the median approval lands in under two hours.
Track
Critical path parts arrive on time
Automated check-ins ask suppliers for updated dates on your behalf, so the first sign of a delay is not the need-by date passing with nothing on the dock.
Comply
The paper trail starts now
Certificates of conformance and first-article documentation attach to the order as it moves. Nothing has to be reconstructed the first time a customer asks for a package.
How development teams configure Silkline
Every plan is $0 per seat. Price follows four things: the capabilities you turn on, the systems you connect, the controls your process needs and the support you want. Here is what that usually looks like at this stage.
Capabilities
Plan
Source
Procure
Track
Monitor
Comply
Sourcing parts quickly, execute procurement without manual work, and know the status of every critical path item.
Integrations
Email
ERP/Finance
MES
PLM
CLM
HRIS/IdP
Email plus whatever you use for accounting. Teams will add an MES when they need to track inventory or have work instructions define.
Controls
Basics
Ground Rules
Process control
Flight Rules
Regulated work
Controlled Airspace
Light guardrails: implement role-based access control and procurement tracability.
Support
Self-serve
Solo
Guided onboarding
Copilot
High touch
Mission Control
Self-serve. Setup takes hours, and your team and suppliers don't need special training.
Try this before you buy anything
Four steps you can run this week with the tools you already have. If they come back clean, you do not need us yet.
01
List your ten longest-lead parts. That list is your schedule, whatever the Gantt chart says.
02
For each one, write down who quoted it, on what date, and whether the purchase order was ever actually confirmed.
03
Count how many of those confirmations you had to search an inbox to find, and how many you could not find at all.
04
Ask what you would pay to hit your next milestone six months sooner. That is what procurement tooling is actually worth at this stage.