Roadmap

This is a venture project in a huge market with a daily turnover of about a billion dollars.

Strategic goal: to unite 10,000 digital manufacturing enterprises from 30 countries worldwide into a global club (≈15% of all small companies in the industry) and conduct their digital and AI transformation.

More than $50,000 has already been invested in the development of basic concepts and MVP frameworks HyperConverged, Detonation, Combinator. The SaaS service 4ir.club is a tool for launching and forming a global community with subsequent venture capital attraction.

Development Milestones

Milestone 1 — 100 companies

Attract the first 100 club participants.
Provide each with hands-on support and refine the platform’s basic functionality for their needs.
Develop basic AI marketing modules.
Launch in: Russia (Due to language knowledge)
Pilot launch in: USA, Canada (innovation culture)

Milestone 2 — 1,000 companies

Focus on developing the system’s core.
Develop all Converged modules.
Transfer typical requests and initial support to local partners.
Concentrate on developed countries: USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan

Milestone 3 — 10,000 companies

Global scaling, connecting all 30 countries.
Attract venture investments for the development of three digital manufacturing frameworks:
1. HyperConverged — a unified interface (“Android for digital factories”).
2. Detonation — high-performance industrial orchestrator (100 times faster than Kubernetes).
3. Combinator — modular electronic platform (“LEGO for industry”).

Milestone 4 — Equipment Park Modernization

Modernize at least 10% of serial machines (series ≥ 1,000 units) through a network of partner companies using HyperConverged, Combinator, and Detonation frameworks, as well as upgrade kits.
These kits work like an auto-tuning system: manufacturers form individual sets of components and instructions for a specific machine model.
Installation is carried out by the company itself and combined with the replacement of worn-out parts — for example, bearings and guides.

Global Market Overview

Current Market Indicators	Value
Contractor companies (job-shops)	≈ 130,000
Revenue of job-shops ≤ 50 employees (our clients)	≈ $150 billion
Annual service revenue (including large contractors)	≈ $300 billion
Capital in equipment (CNC + AM)	≈ $425 billion
Average annual revenue of companies	$2.3 million (CNC) / $0.7 million (3-D)

Where does the $150 billion estimate for small companies come from?

Data Benchmarks	What They Show	How We Extrapolate
USA: 54% of machine shops have < 20 employees, but only contribute 26% of industry value added (54% of U.S. Precision Machining Shops Employ less than 20 …).	Small shops numerically dominate, but revenue per firm is lower.	We assume that globally ≈ 80% of contractors have ≤ 50 employees, but their share of revenue is ~ 50%.
EU-27: Microbusinesses (< 10 employees) + small (< 50 employees) generate ≈ 51% of the value added in manufacturing (SME report 2023/24) ([PDF] Annual Report on European SMEs 2022/2023).	The revenue share of “small” is close to ½ of the sector.	Confirms the 45-55% hypothesis.
Top-Shops Survey (Modern Machine Shop): top 20% of shops → 50% of sales, the remaining 80% → 50% of sales (Best Practices of Top U.S. Shops - Modern Machine Shop).	”Tail” has many firms, but half of the turnover.	Conservatively estimate 50% of global revenue for the “small tail.”

Top-30 CNC/3-D Printing Markets

№	Country	Contractors	Industry Turnover, billion $	Average Turnover, million $
1	China	55,000	82.5	1.50
2	USA	16,700	43.8	2.62
3	Germany	20,000	21.1	1.06
4	United Kingdom	2,100	10.0	4.76
5	France	8,000	9.82	1.23
6	India	25,000	9.75	0.39
7	Italy	9,000	9.18	1.02
8	Spain	4,500	8.75	1.94
9	Taiwan	6,000	8.40	1.40
10	South Korea	5,000	8.10	1.62
11	Canada	3,900	7.00	1.80
12	Japan	5,500	6.00	1.09
13	Mexico	6,000	6.00	1.00
14	Brazil	6,000	5.40	0.90
15	Czech Republic	4,000	3.60	0.90
16	Russia	3,500	3.40	0.97
17	Australia	2,500	3.26	1.30
18	Thailand	4,000	3.20	0.80
19	Vietnam	4,000	3.20	0.80
20	Indonesia	4,000	2.80	0.70
21	Singapore	1,500	2.70	1.80
22	Poland	5,000	2.50	0.50
23	Turkey	5,000	2.25	0.45
24	Argentina	2,500	1.75	0.70
25	Malaysia	2,000	1.60	0.80
26	South Africa	2,000	1.40	0.70
27	Romania	2,000	1.20	0.60
28	Egypt	1,200	1.10	0.92
29	Bangladesh	1,000	0.70	0.70
30	Nigeria	800	0.50	0.63

“AI/SaaS Readiness” Among the Top 30 Countries

(For firms ≤ 50 employees: digital maturity, cloud infrastructure, access to talent, SaaS taxes, government support)

Readiness Level	Countries (from TOP-30)	What the Statistics Say
1 — High Actively implementing AI, ready to purchase SaaS “out of the box”	USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan	• All are in the top 20 of the Oxford Insights AI Readiness Index 2024 (Government AI Readiness Index 2024 - Oxford Insights). • > 70% of companies already use AI in at least one business function (McKinsey survey 2024) (The State of AI: Global survey - McKinsey & Company). • Cloud SaaS penetration > 60% (Flexera, Hava cloud-share) (2024 Cloud Market Share Analysis: Decoding Cloud Industry Leaders).
2 — Medium Piloting, but part of the market is conservative	Spain, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey	• AI readiness index 0.50–0.65 (IMF AIPI) (AI Preparedness Index (AIPI) - International Monetary Fund (IMF)). • 40–60% of SMEs already host data in the cloud — but often local IaaS/SaaS providers. • Lucidworks survey: 58% of manufacturers plan to increase AI budgets in 2024 (below global average), caution due to “hallucinations” (Manufacturers slow Gen AI rollout on rising accuracy concerns, says study).
3 — Developing Recognize the value, but budget/talent are obstacles	Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina, South Africa, Romania	• AI readiness 0.35-0.50; rapid cloud growth, but main demand is for IaaS, not SaaS. • Main issue — lack of integrators and cheap labor (ROI of automation is lower).
4 — Low Implementations are sporadic, SaaS market is small	*Russia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Nigeria**	• AI readiness < 0.35 (IMF/AI-Gov). • Limited cloud market, sanctions or currency barriers for Western SaaS. • Priority is classic automation, not AI.

*The Russian market is fast within tech parks but heavily restricted by sanctions/export controls → low availability of global SaaS platforms.

Level 1: companies already purchase Machining-COPILOTs, IIoT-SaaS, predictive-maintenance-platforms. “Pay-as-you-go” solutions are accepted without a long CAPEX cycle.
Level 2: top firms purchase AI solutions, but the “long tail” waits for the success of initial cases or price reductions. Localization of interface and pricing in national currency is critical.
Level 3: need to first sell basic digitalization (MES/SCADA in the cloud), then AI add-ons. Driver — government grants + participation of global OEMs.
Level 4: market entry strategy — partnership with local integrators, on-prem options, and open-source stack (due to sanctions/currency risks).

Conclusion

About 45,000 contractors from the TOP-30 countries (≈ 35% of global turnover) are at “level 1”: they are already ready for active AI/SaaS experimentation and demonstrate payback ≤ 12 months. Another 35,000–40,000 (level 2) will catch up in the next 2-3 years when they see confirmed economics and gain access to localized services.

CNC / 3-D Printing Contractors’ Readiness for AI and SaaS Solutions (in detail)

Country	AI-Readiness Index ¹	Cloud SaaS Services in SMEs ²	Percentage of Companies Already Piloting AI ³	Overall Readiness ⁴
USA	0.90	78%	72%	Very High
Canada	0.85	74%	65%	Very High
United Kingdom	0.86	76%	68%	Very High
Germany	0.84	71%	62%	High
France	0.80	68%	58%	High
Japan	0.80	66%	55%	High
South Korea	0.79	70%	57%	High
Singapore	0.88	82%	73%	Very High
Australia	0.83	69%	60%	High
Taiwan	0.77	65%	55%	High
Spain	0.73	55%	45%	Medium
Italy	0.72	54%	44%	Medium
Poland	0.70	48%	40%	Medium
Czech Republic	0.69	46%	38%	Medium
China	0.70	52%	47%	Medium
India	0.67	43%	39%	Medium
Brazil	0.62	38%	33%	Medium
Mexico	0.61	37%	32%	Medium
Turkey	0.60	34%	30%	Medium
Thailand	0.55	29%	24%	Emerging
Vietnam	0.53	28%	22%	Emerging
Indonesia	0.52	26%	21%	Emerging
Malaysia	0.57	31%	26%	Emerging
Argentina	0.57	27%	23%	Emerging
South Africa	0.55	25%	21%	Emerging
Romania	0.58	30%	25%	Emerging
Russia	0.45	18%	14%	Low*
Egypt	0.40	16%	12%	Low
Bangladesh	0.38	12%	9%	Low
Nigeria	0.37	10%	8%	Low

^{¹ AI-Readiness Index — average of Oxford Insights + IMF AIPI, scale 0-1.

² Percentage of small/medium manufacturing enterprises using at least one SaaS service (sources: Flexera 2024, Eurostat ICT_S).

³ Percentage of companies that have already launched at least a pilot AI project (McKinsey Global AI Survey 2024 and regional surveys).

⁴ Overall assessment: Very High (ready-to-adopt), High, Medium, Emerging, Low.

*For Russia, restrictions on access to Western SaaS platforms are added.}

Level “Very High / High” — best targets for SaaS go-to-market right now: register accounts, pay by card/PayPal, English interface is okay.
Medium Readiness — requires localization, partner integrators, benchmark cases, and pricing flexibility.
Emerging — first sell basic digitalization (MES/sensors, cloud CAM storage), then AI add-ons.
Low — need on-prem, open-source versions, payment in local currency; demand is still niche.

This structure separates numerical indices (0–1) and SaaS penetration percentages to avoid mixing different metrics.