Improving Research, Design, & Manufacturing » Online Resources

The next generation of industrial research tool has arrived.

T. Brian Jones — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 18:16:08 +0000

We’ve just launched our new research tool for the manufacturing industry. It’s called Industry Cortex.

Right now we’re testing it with information on 2,500 adhesive suppliers, their products, services, datasheets, images, and more. Check it out and leave us some feedback in the comments. Thanks for all the support from the suppliers, manufacturers, trade groups, and industry professionals that have helped us take this next step.

Here’s a bio from the site:

What is IndustryCortex.com?

Industry Cortex is a research tool for engineers, buyers, and suppliers. We index information about every sector of the manufacturing industry. We work with manufacturing companies, industry trade associations, and government agencies to bring you the most relevant, complete, and complete information available.

Industry Cortex was built and is managed by a team of manufacturing experts — engineers, designers, purchasers, and salespeople — to help you with every research, design, and manufacturing need.

What information is available?

Industry Cortex gathers information from companies, organizations, and governement agencies serving the manufacturing industry. This includes suppliers, manufacturers, OEMs, distributers, industry trade groups, and professional socities. Currently we have searchable indexes of industrial companies, datasheets, webpages, and product images.

Who should use Industry Cortex?

Industry Cortex was built for individuals, businesses, and organizations across every sectors of the manufacturing industry. If you need information about products, services, companies, certifications, industry groups, or anything else industrial, then Industry Cortex is for you.

How does Industry Cortex work?

Industry Cortex works like other major search engines, but is focussed specifically on the manufacturing industry. We gather information from relevant industrial websites and from users submitting content directly. Our system is constantly expanding and updating available data to provide relevant and complete information about every sector of the maunfacturing industry.

How do I add my information or company?

You can add your information or your company by contacting Industry Cortex directly at 858-633-8158, or emailing us at info@industrialinterface.com.

Check out a few example pages:

Printing, Steel & Solar directories have come online

T. Brian Jones — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:28:10 +0000

Check out our latest industrial directories. If you’ve got a product or service you’re eager to get to market quickly and efficiently, contact us and we can help by building a custom directory for your brand or business.

858-633-8158

Our new directories

Printing on heat sealable foils – Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions

T. Brian Jones — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:13:45 +0000

Editors note: This is a Case Study from our partner supplier Entrocomponent Solutions, and here is their sales team: Jeff Bradbury and Scott McGlasson.

1. How to print a logo and product name on a sealing foil

Many medical device companies use heat sealed foils to contain caustic substances or to maintain a seal of freshness. The functional side of these seals requires them to be inert and seal to plastics at a certain temperature. The other side of these foils is what is viewable to the end-user. This material often has a blank metallic look to it. Our customer approached ECS with the desire to print instructions and product branding information on this part of the heat sealable foil.

2. How can you print on foils that don’t accept ink?

Most of the aluminum heat seal foils that are used in the Medical Industry, can not be printed on. This particular medical device company had almost given up. They searched high and low for a printable aluminum/acrylic combination that could be printed on one side. This high volume application was about to be rewarded to a heat sealable foil provider who could not print, when the customer found Entrocomponent Solutions(ECS).

3. How do you determine how to package parts?

ECS’ customer provided a drawing of an individual part and discussed the application details with the customer. What is the desired assembly process and time? What is the resolution that you need printed on the foil? How strong of a bond does the seal need to provide? etc… After all the questions were answered, ECS’ team went to work on creating prototypes for testing. These prototypes were tested, feedback from the customer was used to iterate the design, and a final revision was made to the drawing.

4. Finished foil parts that accept ink and are easy to apply

We use a specialty coating and lamination process that allows the aluminum to be printed on. The aluminum rolls were then printed. Finally, these parts needed to be cut to the customer’s drawing. The drawing was just for one part though. Each part cut out individually made it difficult to not damage the parts during placement. The solution was to provide the parts on a roll with little nicks on the sheet to allow for easy removal from the roll.

5. Polished product with no wasted space for branding

The more opportunities a company has to get its brand and desired message in front of its customers the better. This medical device company was able to increase brand awareness and product usability simply by printing on an Aluminum seal. The additional costs for printing were outweighed by using a less expensive foil sealing material. The outcome was better priced parts with the desired performance.

ECS prides itself on knowing ways to cut costs and improve performance. Contact Us now about the application you are working on. We can help!

About Entrocomponent Solutions

Jeff Bradbury, Technical Sales

Entrocomponent Solutions (ECS) is a custom engineered die cut component solutions provider. We specialize in tight-tolerance rotary die cutting, optically registered stamping, multi-layer laminations and flexographic printing. We feature class 100 clean rooms in Azusa, CA as well as Singapore. ISO 9001 and SO 13485 certified.

Hard Disk Drive Components

Seals – Featuring adhesive free zone or full adhesive type seals such as : positional seals, screw seals and tape seals.
Dampers – Noise and vibration damping using visco-elastic adhesive treatments applied to stainless steel, copper, aluminum and polyester. Applications include label, vcm cover and helium dampers.
Filtration products – Featuring new advanced materials developed to accelerate current technology while reducing costs and enhancing performance
Gaskets – Acoustic or sealing gaskets incorporating foam, sponge and silicone rubber materials
iners – Specially designed liners to address cleanliness and ESD concerns.
Adhesives – Custom formulations developed to meet and exceed adhesive performance and cleanliness requirements.

Medical/Diagnostic Components

In Vitro Diagnostic Components
Patient Monitoring Disposables
IV Securement Products
Biomedical Devices
Wound Care Products
Microfludic Device Components
Hospital/Surgical Disposables
Custom Dressings/patches
Custom Adhesives
including skin-friendly adhesives systems and tape constructions

Electronics/Industrial Components: In addition to traditional EMI/RFI shielding, insulating, and gasketing die cut components, we now have expanded our capabilities by adding world class injection molding, metal stamping and low cost assembly capabilities to better serve the Electronics OEM Market.

Material Development/Testing Capabilities

Customer polymer based advanced materials include, performance films, rate controlling films, adhesive films, visco-elastic damping films, conductive films
Testing Capabilities Include, Environmental Testing, Aging Ovens, Constant Temperature and humidity controls, Adhesive Testing, Tack Testing, Drop Shear, Peel Strength Adhesion, Time Constant Testing (humidity chamber), Chemical Analysis Lab, GC/MS Analysis, IC Testing, TMP Testing, IR and UV Testing/ visible spectroscopy, Rheometry, Particle Size Analysis, Conductivity Analysis (thermal and electrical), DSC, TGA

Find similar suppliers on Industrial Interface:

New directories for engineers and suppliers

T. Brian Jones — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 04:20:42 +0000

We’ve listened to our users and done something awesome.

We know how annoying it is to fill in lengthy profiles for your company, so you no longer have to do that. We’ve built an industrial directory engine that visits supplier sites (like your site), crawls them, finds relevant products, services, certifications, industries, and more, and automatically creates supplier profiles. It’s very similar to Google, but focussed on manufacturing niches.

We’ve done this because we realize it’s time to move away from filling out your basic company information on a thousand industrial directories. Our profiles are complete and accurate, and will only get better as our system grows and we perfect our algorithms. Check out this profile for MG Chemicals Ltd. a supplier of shielding, epoxy, and lubricants. That’s right, no one had to create that profile. Our system did it automatically. How cool!?!

What directories have you done so far?

We’re building these slowly but surely and expect to have many more in the coming months. For not, take a minute to check out our:

adhesive directory where you can find adhesive suppliers of sealants, epoxies, films, foils…
plastic directory where you can find plastic manufacturers of raw plastic materials, resins, polymers, and plastic brands…
bearings directory where you can find bearing suppliers of ball bearings, bushings, lubricants…

What’s next?

We have much more in the works. We recognize two extremely important aspects of attending trade shows, and we’re going to mimic that as best as we can on an industrial directory. We’re going to make it easier for you to visually browse products, services, and applications, and make sure that you can always contact an expert about what you need. Watch for coming additions to these directories in the coming months.

What can I do now?

Contact us to add your company to any of our directories, or suggest a new directory for us to build so that your company can be showcased. We are focussing on specific niches so that we can target the subtleties of each of those markets. Give us all your feedback. It’s more helpful than you can imagine.

What are all the components of an LCD screen?

T. Brian Jones — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:44:29 +0000

Great site from All Shore Industries, a designer and manufacturer of custom lcd screens. They run through all the layers of LCD screens and provide interesting information. Great resource for anyone working with screens.

Engineering Case Study: How to find a unique LCD screen in 48 hours or less

T. Brian Jones — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:37:38 +0000

Editors note: This is a Case Study from our trade show partner, The Del Mar Electronics and Design Show. Their online system, Virtual Trade Show is powered by the Industrial Interface Web Platform.

1) Case Study: How to find a unique LCD screen in 48 hours?

An engineer at a large electronics manufacturer had been searching for LCD manufacturers and representatives for about a month. The engineer found it difficult to find the right supplier because of the unique specs required for his LCD. Using Virtual Trade Show he typed in the title of his sourcing need “12.1″ XGA High-Bright LCD with Wide Operating Temperature” and within a few minutes had outlined all the requirements of his project. The engineer started receiving quotes for COTS and Custom solutions the very next day.

2) How do you sort through catalogs of hundreds of suppliers of XGA LCD screens?

This engineer described on Virtual Trade Show that his group is looking for LCD panel for an Aerospace application. They had extensively searched the market for LCDs that met these specs:

12.1″ diagonal size (to be used in PORTRAIT orientation)
Operating temperature of at least -30degC to +80degC
Wide viewing angle (at least 80/80/80/80)in portrait mode
Minimal colour inversion (IPS or FFS technology ideal for this)
No image retention even when displaying prolonged static images
Capable of delivering >1370cd/m2 to the user’s eye
Will be used with LED backlight
Pixel response time 20ms (nominally 40ms)
Refresh rate 50Hz
Red/green contrast ratio of at least 150:1
Large area uniformity – within 10% of any fixed point on display area
Small area uniformity – within 15% of any fixed point 10mm apart

3) Why Virtual Trade Show was the solution?

The engineer had scoured the web, having over a $100k/yr to spend on these LCD panels, and could not find a supplier to help him. Virtual Trade Show helped with this problem by flipping the way that the industry works. The Engineer posted his project at no cost and waited for suppliers to contact him. By allowing potential suppliers to view the project details and requirements, Virtual Trade Show saved the Engineer the time and hassle of researching and calling over 275 potential suppliers individually. Instead, the Engineer was able to get back to designing his application knowing that local representatives from the suppliers that sold exactly what he was looking for would be contacting him directly.

4) Why its more effective to have a community of proactive Suppliers?

Suppliers of high-tech products employ very technical salespeople, including many with engineering backgrounds, who understand the detailed features of their products and the applications they are used in. Design Engineers, on the other hand, are wearing more hats than ever and constantly encounter new applications and projects. Researching technologies takes a lot of time and money. By allowing technical salespeople to review the detailed requirements and design problems that the engineer is facing, the process of taking a product from design/concept to manufacturing can be made dramatically more efficient.

5) Overall Results of using Virtual Trade Show…

A win for all parties involved. 96% of design engineers find at least one supplier who can help with their project. The design engineer pays nothing and shortens his time of R&D and searching through directories of suppliers. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so post your project now to the large text box on http://vts.industrialinterface.com.

We guarantee that this process will save you time and money. Feel free to call or email us for more information. My name is Chris and I can be reached at 858-633-8158 or by email at powell@industrialinterface.com.

CRM choices – Zoho vs. Highrise

Chris Powell — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:22:20 +0000

I have had so many conversations with people about how to choose a CRM and which are the best. The two that people keep asking about are Zoho and Highrise. So here is my personal opinion on these two CRMs.

Zoho CRM

Zoho is more of a typical enterprise level solution to your CRM needs.

Pros: You can customize fields, move projects from Leads, to live opptys, to won business. You can move companies from prospects to customers. You can pretty much run any sort of funnel through Zoho.
Cons: It takes a long time to learn where all of the buttons are, what happens when you change status on something, customizing the fields for labeling etc.
Conclusion: This is like a mini Salesforce. Not quite as powerful, but a whole lot going on. It is great for larger companies where you need to control users capabilities within a system and make sure to standardize responses.

Highrise CRM (a 37 Signals Product)

Highrise is a different way of looking at things and what I use for my current venture.

Pros: It is simple, quick to setup and will allow you to customize it very easily using Keywords/Tags. You can organize your contacts based on this. You can run deals through it, but costs ramp up quickly.
Cons: Every user has so much freedom in how they use the system, that duplicates happen, people can duplicate efforts, and other little nuances can occur.
Conclusion: This is a much better solution for smaller sized businesses. What my company did was to have me set it up and try it out for a couple weeks. The learning curve was practically non-existent. We then got together as a company, discussed the workflows for possible scenarios and cam up with a best practices guidelines. This best practice guidelines document is constantly evolving as other people see better ways to do things.

Others

I have tried over 10 CRMs and for my internet company, which has 6 people, Highrise is the best solution imaginable. The ability to organize tasks for individuals and export them on a calendar feed to Google Calendar is a huge bonus. I now keep track of almost all of my daily activities through Highrise CRM.

What other CRMs have you tried and what has been the best for your company? Why?

*** Please include demographic information about your company (number of people using CRM and industry).

No related posts.

What happens after a engineering project is posted?

T. Brian Jones — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:20:20 +0000

The idea behind Industrial Interface is pretty simple. Engineers need stuff and suppliers sell stuff. We put the two groups together in a very efficient way. An engineer describes what she is looking for in detail, and our system puts her project in front of relevant suppliers who might be able to help. If they can help, they pay us a fee (to encourage high quality connections and keep the service running) and then they can contact her. That sure was simple. Now I’m going to give you the details.

Step 1: Engineer posts a project

The first step on our site is an engineer posting a specific application for which a solution or a supplier is needed. An engineer looking for a small heating unit is a great example of a project and you can see the level of detail that we ask for. The goal with a project is for the engineer to clearly outline what he is trying to do, the technical requirements of the application, and any other details that allow a supplier to recognize whether or not he can provide what the engineer needs (detailed description of an engineering project posting).

Step 2: System identifies relevant suppliers

Once an engineer submits a project, our system goes to work. It processes the project and identifies relevant suppliers within our system based on their detailed supplier profiles. Our system also searches outside our database and finds relevant suppliers via industrial directories and supplier websites. The goal is to find as many suppliers as we can that both sell what the engineer needs, and sell it in the engineer’s region.

Our system will often identify dozens of relevant suppliers (sometimes hundreds), and at that point, it sends an email to them all notifying them of the project. The link they get takes them to a project page that looks like this screenshot.

Step 3: Suppliers review project

At this point, a supplier can review the location of the engineer, the company size, industry, and all the technical details of the application. The supplier then makes a well informed decision about the project. If it’s a good fit for his business, then he can purchase the lead and contact the engineer. If he doesn’t have an account, he is forced to complete one before contacting any members of Industrial Interface. Both parties are then alerted of the match.

If the supplier doesn’t sell what the engineer needs, then he can simply click “Share This Lead” and send the project along to another supplier that can help. This is often how suppliers get the best leads, and we have simply streamlined the process through our system. How nice is it not to repeat your project on the phone to dozens of different salespeople?

Step 4: Engineer finds solution and supplier

After suppliers click contact, both parties are alerted of the match and a connection is made. Our goal is to put engineers in touch with five suppliers for every project they post: the optimal number that doesn’t overwhelm engineers and buyers and keeps our suppliers excited about their chance of winning business. Usually this connection happens within a few days of a project being posted to our site, but we’ve seen it happen as quickly as a few minutes, and we’re getting better every day. Over 90% of projects posted by engineers have been contacted by relevant suppliers. Once you find what you need, simply login and close your project and no one else will be able to contact you.

Why this works so well?

Industrial Interface eliminates the hassle of finding parts and puts engineers and buyers in direct contact with local sales reps who have already screened the application and know that they sell exactly what is needed. Wow! That is so simple. How did anyone find parts before Industrial Interface?

Give it a try

Industrial Interface is always free for engineers and buyers to use, and it only takes a few minutes to create an account and post your first project. Remember to enter as much information as you can about your application so that our system can eliminate suppliers that aren’t relevant to your need. (read more about posting a complete project)

How do engineers and buyers currently find products and services online?

T. Brian Jones — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:15:28 +0000

Right now, and I mean right this second… there are thousands of engineers and technical buyers searching for industrial products, components, materials, and services across hundreds of industries and thousands of product categories. The web traffic on industrial directories alone is on the order of 500,000 visits per day.

These searches end in a page that links to hundreds of suppliers for a specific category (5,300 in adhesives on Thomasnet,1,300 on Macrae’s Blue Book, and 1,100 results on Globalspec). “Look now many suppliers we have.” This seems exciting but is an absolute nightmare for someone looking for products. What’s next? The engineer or buyer has to:

click through dozens of supplier websites
review products and guess if each company sells what he needs
call a central number and describe his application
get connected to a manager and describe his application
wait for a call from a local rep to describe his application
contact a distributor to actually purchase the product
get referred to another company because this one doesn’t have what he needs
start over!

Let suppliers find you

Industrial Interface eliminates all this mess and puts engineers and buyers in direct contact with a local sales rep who has already screened the application and knows that he sells exactly what is needed. Wow! That is so simple. Why not share your application with our community and let suppliers find you?

How do we do this

Our suppliers create incredibly detailed profiles where they input all of the products, services, and certifications for the companies that they sell products for. We use this data to match your projects with relevant suppliers both inside and outside of our system.

Our industrial search engine

If you aren’t ready to post a project to an open system, at least give our aggregated industrial search engine a try. We’ve compiled 40 of the best search sites into a custom Google search engine that makes it quicker and more efficient to find what you’re looking for. Why not search all 40 of these sites at once?

Making our suppliers more accessible to engineers

T. Brian Jones — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:50:00 +0000

When industrial salespeople sign up for our site, they complete a detailed supplier profile including their products and services. Our system stores all this information in a database, and we use it to match engineering projects to the right suppliers. To show this we built some quick links to basic search pages that list this information in an easy to read way. We’re hoping by making this data accessible, our users will gain a deeper understanding of how our system works.

Search suppliers by products they sell: Anaerobic Adhesives, Power Supplies, Solenoid Valves, Vacuum Pumps… Search by the thousands of products that suppliers have indicated they sell.
Search suppliers by services they offer: Looking for a job shop that does Rotary Die Cutting or a rep firm specializing in UV Bonding? Search suppliers by the thousands of services that they have indicated they offer.
Search suppliers by companies they represent: One of the most unique datasets that Industrial Interface maintains about it’s suppliers is a list of the companies they represent. Engineers are often looking for a product from a specific manufacturer, but don’t always know who rep’s that manufacturer in their region. Our system captures this data and makes it easy to find all the suppliers of products made by 3M, Rogers Corp., or all the companies our suppliers list.
Search suppliers by certifications they maintain: It’s often difficult to find suppliers with certain niche certifications that you need for an application. Here is a great way to find them: ISO13485, Class 100 Clean Room, ITAR Compliant…

Help suppliers help you by posting complete project details to Industrial Interface

T. Brian Jones — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:08:29 +0000

The first time engineers post a design project to Industrial Interface, they usually don’t write a book about their application. We get it. First time on some weird website… why would you waste your time filling out a long form? When we see these vague projects we reach out to get the details and welcome you to the community. It’s during that conversation that you really open up. You tell us all about your application, what you’re trying to do, what the big project is, problems you are having, things you’ve tried, etc.

This is the same conversation you have with a new supplier on the phone, we’re just making it more efficient through our website. So take a minute to read through all the sections below and learn how you can best complete a project posting to get the maximum value out of your time, and hopefully, find the exact supplier of the exact solution you are looking for. Each section below corresponds to a form field on our site when you post your sourcing need. I’ve included some real examples from our users in some sections that should help you out. First, I’ll let you see a great example of a complete project.

Descriptive Title

Type a few words (no more than one sentence) that clearly states what you are looking for or what you are trying to do. Suppliers are just as busy as you are and they need a high level picture of what your application is from this one line. Use important keywords and action terms. Here are some great examples of descriptive titles.

1) PCB Fabrication for small prototype runs
2) Miniature ultrasonic oven / heater
3) Adhesive to bond nylon 66 to PVC

Design Problem or Sourcing Need

What is your application and how are you trying to solve it? Sometimes you’ll be able to clearly articulate what you are looking for, like in the project above (Adhesive to bond nylon 66 to PVC) but other times, you may only know what you are trying to accomplish, and you won’t have a specific solution yet. Be clear about this and don’t guess.

If you know you need to seal electronic components from corrosive plant conditions, but don’t know what the best method is, then describe the size of your control box, the materials, the closing mechanism, how the box seals, the temperatures it will see and the corrosive agents involved. Suppliers have helped solve dozens of problems just like this one and will be able to quickly tell you what you need.

This is the meat of your posting. Be as detailed as you can and explain every detail no matter how mundane you think it is. All of this information helps suppliers understand your application and find the right product from their inventory. If you are vague, you may miss out on a solution that you will never find on your own, and you’ll end up talking to a bunch of suppliers who don’t sell what you need. Remember, posting your project in detail helps eliminate suppliers who aren’t relevant to your project, and saves everyone a lot of time.

Here is a great example from the project titled “Miniature ultrasonic oven / heater,” in the screenshot above:

I am looking for an “oven” or “heater” that can heat equivalently to 150C-200C. Similar to the product described on www.soniwave.com, however I need one where the oven is very small, approx. 1cm x 1cm x 1cm, which should mean that the ultrasonic delivery mechanism is small. This may need a custom engineered solution. Oven will be powered via external power supply. There is some flexibility in terms of size. I would prefer a COTS solution, but can not find anything this small.

Required Specifications

This section allows you to list technical details about your application that a supplier or product must meet to be acceptable and useful for your design. If the parts you are trying to glue together will see temperatures of 350 degrees C, then you need the adhesive to hold up to those temperatures. Put that information here. See another example below from the same heater project.

-Heating target material 150C-200C (oven is small 1cm x 1cm x 1cm)
-Temperature shall be controllable
-Overall unit size must be small, approximately hand-size

Ideal Specifications

Here you can list details that you would really like to have, but that aren’t absolutely necessary. If you’d like the adhesive above to still hold at 500 degrees C, put that here, but make sure to list the absolute minimum requirement (350C) under Required Specifications.

Required Volumes

This section gives a supplier an idea of how big your application is. Make sure to list both the current volumes you are looking to purchase right away, as well as the eventual volumes you might see in a production run. This helps suppliers of the right size find applications that are good fit for their capabilities. (eg. 100 for prototype, 1000/day in production) Some suppliers might have a great part at a great price for prototyping, but won’t be able to meet your production needs.

Project Stage

Select Research & Design if you are simply planning. Select Prototype if you are looking for low quantities for test runs. Select Manufacture if you have reached the final stage of your design and need your full volume of parts. Selecting this stage properly helps suppliers know whether you want direction and insight into your application or simply need quotes on parts for production.

Solution Needed By

When do you absolutely need this solution by? Remember that most applications will take a minimum of a few weeks to work out even with the most responsive and knowledgable suppliers.

Delivery Outside U.S.

Select Yes only if the products or services you are looking for need to be sent outside the US. Some suppliers may sell exactly what you need, but may not have the proper licences or infrastructure to send your parts where you need them. Let them know before they waste everyone’s time contacting you about an application they ultimately can’t help with.

Required Supplier Certifications

If you need your supplier to meet any specific criteria like ISO9001, list those criteria here. This helps eliminate suppliers who sell what you need but don’t meet your company’s requirements.

Known Solutions or Alternatives

What parts or solutions have you already investigated that work? Why are you trying to replace them? These details can save time by eliminating duplicate suppliers. This also gives suppliers a good sense of what you are not trying to do for this specific design application. If you have a solution from another supplier that just isn’t right, list that part or information and supplier name. Lots of suppliers know their competitors product lines and know the exact substitute for what you are trying to do.

Stuff You’ve Tried That Doesn’t Work

If you’ve already tried things that don’t work, you don’t want a supplier contacting you with the same broken solution. List everything here that you’ve tried. Be specific about what it was, how you implemented it, and why it didn’t work.

Attach Files

Here is your chance to provide a visual aid to augment all your explanations above. Whenever possible, attach pictures and drawings of your application. Date sheets, notes, pdfs, powerpoints, and sketches are all great additions to make your project complete for anyone reviewing it.

Post a Project - Login | Create an Engineering Account

You are missing business from your current customers so try our Partnership Landing Page

Chris Powell — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:31:04 +0000

If you are a technical salesperson and have ever pinged an engineer who just spec’d in another supplier for a part you could have supplied, then this post is for you.

The problem Sales people face is two fold: (1) Figuring out who the real decision makers are, and, (2) Making sure that you are meeting with that individual when they are working on relevant projects. Even when you think you and your decision maker are best buddies and that you will get called when you are needed, you are probably missing business.

The problem with this industry is that there is no visibility on what engineers are working on, and engineers have a tough time knowing the hundreds (sometimes thousands) of products and services that any given supplier offers.

Solution: Industrial Interface Partnership Landing Pages (PLP).

What is a Partnership Landing Page (PLP)?

A PLP is a co-branded URL like the one shown below; setup for COG Engineering and hosted by Industrial Interface at http://cog.industrialinterface.com. It features information about the supplier firm and an Industrial Interface signup form. These pages can be customized to fit your needs.

How does a PLP increase visibility on your customers?

Every time that an Engineer signs up through your PLP, that engineer becomes associated with your company. This means that within Industrial Interface, that Engineer is yours. You get to see every project he posts, and you receive first right of refusal on those projects (engineering projects explained). If you can’t help him, then his project will go live for other suppliers to view. This way, you and Industrial Interface become a resource for every sourcing need that engineer has. By promoting this page to your current database of customers, you are able to see projects from customers that you would have otherwise missed.

PLP Use Case

You are working with an Engineer at Rockwell Automation. This Engineer asks if you can supply custom cable and connector assemblies. You sell EMI/RFI shielding materials and board level components, but know someone who does sell what the engineer needs. You can either (Option A) put the Engineer directly in touch with your cable and connector contact, or (Option B) you can tell the Engineer to post their design project through your PLP.

Option A Results: You may get a thank you from the cable and connector sales person. Maybe this sales person refers some EMI/RFI shielding business to you in the future.

Option B Results: Because the Rockwell engineer has gone through your PLP, you receive an email notifying you that he has posted a project. You review the project, realize it’s not for you, and indicate that this project is outside of your competencies. You then “Share This Lead” with the same sales person mentioned in Option A, and maybe the sales person refers business back to you. The Rockwell engineer finds a cable and connector supplier through your contact or another supplier using Industrial Interface.

A few months later that same Rockwell engineer posts a project that requires EMI/RFI shielding. You receive an email notifying you about this project. You know that you can provide a solution to this problem, so you indicate that you want to claim the lead and no one else will be able to view the project.

You get complete visibility and the right to claim projects coming from any engineers you refer to the Industrial Interface system through your PLP.

How does my company qualify for a PLP?

Our goal is to only allow the best suppliers to create Premium Accounts and PLPs. This means you must have a dedicated technical sales rep in the territory you are marketing to, and you must be an established firm with a history of success helping engineers with their designs.
You must be doing active email marketing to your contact database or plan to work with us to start an industrial B2B email marketing campaign. We will help you promote your PLP to your customers by assisting with email promotion, giving your salespeople custom business cards with your personal PLP address, and by redirecting the “Contact Us” section of your website to your PLP if you choose.
Your contact database should be in excess of 1k Engineers. If you do not have this many contacts in your database, we can help augment your contacts with a qualified list of engineering targets.

What are the costs associated with a PLP?

Costs are dependent upon how broad your product line is, how big your database of contacts is, and what type of company you are. We’ve created PLPs for small Rep Groups and for large OEMs. Prices can range from $500 – $25k.

Call us now to learn more

There are a lot of benefits from partnering with Industrial Interface. We have worked as Manufacturer’s Reps, Distributor Sales Managers, and OEM Outside Sales Engineers for over 25 years. Our goal is to help your company increase the number of quality business opportunities you receive. We can help you grow your business, we work quickly, and are passionate about customer satisfaction. WE GUARANTEE that your PLP will return it’s cost via new business within 6 months or your money back.

Contact me (Chris Powell) to learn more: powell@industrialinterface.com or call 858.633.8158.

Double the leads from your current customers: email marketing to engineers by engineers

Chris Powell — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:23:37 +0000

This post is meant for all the Industrial Supplier Firms thinking about e-mail marketing.

If you are in technical sales, this post is for you. This includes Manufacturing Rep Groups, Distributors, and OEMs who want to get more business from their contact database. There are a ton of reasons to Email Market and practically no reasons not to. So, why haven’t you started? Because it seems like such a big task that you don’t know where to start? Well, I’m here to tell you where to start and how we can help!

Engineers are information hungry people and your company has a ton of very valuable information to share with them. That’s how you need to look at Email Marketing. You are not promoting your company via email. You are sharing brief blurbs about topics on which you are an expert. So here are the five steps to starting a successful email marketing campaign to Engineers:

Write the content

Don’t start your email marketing campaign until you have atleast five emails ready to go. The key to writing the content ahead of time is that it allows you to consistently email your customers and targets. People like being able to count on the fact that the first Monday of every month they get an email from XYZ manufacturing.

Keep it short

Don’t write a book. Your goal is to become recognized as a resource. This means your companies newsletter needs to be concise and full of information applicable to your audience. Tell stories, give examples, and appeal to the human side of engineers.

Keep it simple

Write a sentence or two about your company. Then, write a paragraph about a product and why it is is the next wave in technology or explain how a specific process in which you specialize works. Engineers will never know your entire catalog, but they’ll remember that you are an expert on a niche application and will associate you with that product category.

Pick an email client to send your emails through

There are a ton of them like Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, and Emma. Some have better tracking that others, while some are less expensive. Others are easier to use. It’s a trade off. Call me for help getting started: Chris Powell – 858-633-8158

Allocate enough resources

Writing a good newsletter is going to take some time and some practice. Make sure that you try the marketing campaign for enough time. Enough time is about two times the sell cycle time for your product. In the electronics industry, this could be six months. In the defense or auto industry, this could be three years. Adjust accordingly. This allows you to hit every potential customer during a period when you know they need to buy.

How can Industrial Interface help

I have spoken with hundreds of supplier firms about how they can get started with email marketing, and 99% of them say that they just don’t have the time to get it off the ground. For this reason, Industrial Interface is now offering six-month email marketing campaigns for our suppliers. We evaluate your goals with the campaign, fill in the holes, and get everything set up and running for six months. We market to engineers all day long, and we know how to keep it short, and keep it simple.

If you are interested in learning more about this, please contact me at powell@industrialinterface.com or 858-633-8158.

Engineering fundamentals, resources, tools, calculators, forums and more

T. Brian Jones — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:42:05 +0000

Every time I ask engineers about resources they use, someone mentions eFunda “Engineering Fundamentals”. I’ve been here often because the site has good SEO and shows up in searches, but I’ve never been a fan. I took another look recently and decided that the site has cleaned up it’s act a little, although I still maintain that most topics can be easily found through a Google search.

I think this site is mostly interesting for a new engineer. It’s organized pretty well these days, and the ads don’t quite get in the way as much as they used to (still annoying though). Articles delve into topics like “Bearing Types” and “Spring Design,” among hundreds of others. These are mostly practical application articles, but there are some equations and data tables throughout. Most articles leave me wanting more with the need to load another page anyway.

The articles are never much longer than a a few paragraphs, but give a quick overview. If you are a newbie, I think this would be a fun site to browse. You have to sign up for a free membership, however, after viewing the first few articles. They claim there are some benefits to this like access to advanced design resources and some mathematica stuff.

Topics on the site include, materials, design, processes, units, formulas, math, calculators, forums, and more. Eh. I don’t love eFunda, but some people seem to. The end mill graphic at the top is from their site. Pretty useful if you’ve never seen one before. Enjoy.

Industrial parts search on steroids

T. Brian Jones — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:02:41 +0000

I know a lot of people still like to browse online industrial listings even though Industrial Interface will do all that work for you, so we created a great little search engine that indexes 40 of the most popular and comprehensive listings on the web.

One of the many problems with these listings is that a specific search like “fda approved pressure sensitive adhesive” will usually only result in a listing of adhesive companies. On a few of these 40 sites, however, there will be a specific listing for fda approved adhesives. Using our aggregate search (powered by Google Custom Search), you can put in more specific searches like this and quicly identify the listing site with the most relevant / niche category to browse.

Is clicking through categories reasonable anymore?

You still get lost in a sea of suppliers once you find your desired niche, but that’s a topic for another post.

If you want to bypass all this needless searching and research, try posting your design application to our site and let suppliers find you and compete for your business. It’s much quicker and much easier. Don’t you just want to get back to working on your designs anyway? Watch our new video below to see how Industrial Interface works.

Industrial trade magazines and online content for engineers and designers

T. Brian Jones — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:48:07 +0000

When I got my first job as an manufacturing engineer, my boss immediately told me to get a subscription to Machine Design Magazine. “Awesome!” I thought to myself, followed by, “I wonder how much that’s gonna cost?”

Well, it turns out that Machine Design is a free magazine for engineers and designers. No kidding… there are hundreds of industrial trade magazines just like Machine Design that are all free. How cool?

The best part is that every magazine focusses on a specific niche of interest. Magazines are largely ad supported, but the articles really are interesting and up to date with technology. Most of these magazines have finally moved online and not only offer a digital edition, but also have all their content searchable and readable for free online as well.

Some of my personal favorites

Machine Design: Focusses on mechanical design. Articles range from technical analysis and software for mechanical systems to physical design of new mechanical design components. (subscribe to Machine Design)
Medical Design: Great articles focussed on new techniques for medical design and manufacture as well as cutting edge medical devices. Fun read even if you don’t design these types of products. (subscribe to Medical Design)
Military & Aerospace Electronics: Fun to stay up to date with the products that go into the aerospace industry. These articles typically give you a glimpse of the future of electronic components and technologies that will be affordable for your designs in a few years… unless you have the privilege of working on planes and spacecraft already! (subscribe to Military & Aerospace Electronics)

Comprehensive list of trade magazines

TradePub trade mag listing – thousands of mags in one place
Penton Media – dozens of great technical mags
Cygnus Media
Reed Business Magazines
Canon Communications – Medical, Pharma, and Manufacturing
Fabricators and Manufacturers Magazines

77,000 freely searchable engineering material datasheets

T. Brian Jones — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:41:15 +0000

MatWeb is easily the most comprehensive materials database freely available on the web. When I used to work as a deign engineer I probably went to MatWeb at least a couple times a week.

As of this post, MatWeb has over 77,000 materials in it’s searchable database, and they are all free to access, although there are advanced features (advanced search, side-by-side material comparisons, data download capabilities) that require you to register for a free account. Premium accounts cost $100 per year and give you increased search and comparison functionality and the ability to download materials right into your favorite design software.

MatWeb has an incredibly vast catalog of materials. You can usually find even the most obscure material. For plastics and other branded materials, you can usually find the datasheet for the specific branded version, meaning you know the difference between an HDPE made by Dupont, and an HDPE made by 3M (although the subtle variances are sometimes eaten up in manufacturing tolerances). For example, a search for HDPE actually yields more than 1,400 results.

A Search for HDPE

The Datasheet for a Generic Injection Molded HDPE

Below are all the search options offered on the site:

Advanced Search – MatWeb’s most powerful search tool allows users to build complex searches in an iterative process. Possible criteria are property, composition, material category, and user-input text options. (Registration Required).
Material Property Search – Find materials that meet the property value ranges that you require.
Metal Composition Search – Enter an elemental composition and find the matching alloys.
Material Type/Category Search – Select the type of material in which you are interested from a systematic list of drop-down boxes.
Manufacturer Name Search – Select a plastics manufacturer and find data sheets of their proprietary products listed in MatWeb.
Trade Name Search – Select a plastics trade name and find data sheets listed in MatWeb.
Polymer Film Search – Find film grade polymers that meet the property value ranges that you require.
Lubricant Search – Find lubricants that meet the property value ranges that you require.
Metal Alloy UNS Number – Select from the list of UNS numbers in MatWeb’s database and find the matching data sheets.

Search 30 million technical journal articles. Read any of them for $0.99.

T. Brian Jones — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:04:03 +0000

There are a lot of free trade magazines available for engineers and designers. These can be fun to read, and have lots of great pictures to flip through when you’re bored at work. How often do you actually find yourself referencing one of these free magazines, however, when you have a truly complex technical problem that needs solving? Probably never. You search google and you may search some engineering forums, but odds are what you’re looking for is tucked away in an expensive, subscription only, unsearchable academic journal. So how do you find this information? Enter DeepDyve.

DeepDyve allows you to search it’s database of over 30 million scientific, technical, and medical articles from distinguished journals. You can preview any article for free to see if it covers the topic you need. If it does, you simple rent the article for $0.99. The full text is then made available to you for 24 hours. The basic account even comes with 5 free rentals to try the system out. If you use it often, there are premium accounts that give you a certain number of articles for free every month for a reasonable subscription fee.

Anyone who has ever searched academic databases will be happy to see how simple the search technology is with DeepDyve. You don’t have to be an expert with search operators to find what you need, and you won’t get lost in disorganized and ambiguous results pages. You can search in the same way that you search on google. Of course, for more complex searches, you can access advanced search functions. See DeepDyve’s search below, compared to a LexisNexis search page.

Advanced Search on DeepDyve

LexisNexis Search Page

Many engineers may have had access to these articles and other traditional databases that index them while in school, but unless you work for a very large engineering firm, or are still in academia, these journals are probably completely inaccessible to you now. What’s so compelling about DeelDyve is that it gives every engineer at every company access to critical high tech information for their designs. You can even buy these with your own dollar, meaning you don’t need to waste time, or ‘valuable company resources’ trying to find the information you need. DeepDyve is a great site for every engineer that likes to fully understand every aspect of his or her design decisions.

OpenThesis.org creates centralized database for academic theses

T. Brian Jones — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:23:52 +0000

OpenThesis.org is a free-to-use, centralized database of academic theses where anyone can upload their completed and approved thesis. Their system typically includes details like bibliographical information, author, school, title, abstract, and date of publication, but doesn’t always have the full text available.

This is a great system that allows engineers and designers doing bleeding edge research to find the mode definitive and up to date research on a topic. Although users will typically still have to contact the school to get the full text, these are often available on the publishing university’s library website, or can be obtained by contacting the department involved in the research. (Example: search theses at my alma mater, Vanderbilt University.)

OpenThesis.org describes their system as this:

“OpenThesis.org is a searchable thesis & dissertation database, which helps increase the availability and utility of these important documents.

Historically, theses and dissertations have not been freely accessible through a powerful, centralized database. Rather, they have been available at individual College and University web sites (if at all), often via the respective school’s ETD (Electronic Thesis and Dissertation) program. While these ETD programs are very important (indeed, they provide the bulk of the data used to create OpenThesis.org), the lack of a free, centralized database means that a global search of theses and dissertations has often not been possible.

OpenThesis addresses that issue, and by creating a centralized search, encourages the reading and use of these important documents. The benefits to the schools and authors are numerous, including greater recognition in the research community, collaboration and employment opportunities, and intellectual property licensing opportunities.”

Streamlining Design from Concept to Production

Chris Powell — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:55:27 +0000

Industrial Interface co-founder, Chris Powell, presented to the local San Diego SAMPE chapter. In his presentation he discussed a variety of things that Engineers don’t normally encounter.

Chris worked as a Supplier to Electronic, Medical, Aerospace, and Automotive Industries for many years. Chris offered the SAMPE attendees a unique opportunity to see the world from the perspective of a Supplier. Topics discussed were Online Resources for the different stages in product development. He highlighted the benefits and problems with all of them and how Industrial Interface can be used to complement every one of them. The presentation is embedded below.

Online Resources For Engineers

View more presentations from Chris Powell.

This presentation occurred on Thursday February 25th, 2010 at The Butcher Shop in San Diego. We love presenting to local engineering societies. Contact Chris if you are interested.

Product lifecycle management (PLM) software covered by Manufacturing Business Technology Magazine

T. Brian Jones — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:17:11 +0000

Industrial Interface was mentioned recently in a great article in Manufacturing Business Technology magazine titled “Product Innovation: Keeping good ideas on the fast track.”

“Companies like IndustrialInterface.com take the collaborative approach a step further, offering online platforms that provide product engineers with a whole new universe of potential resources and partners.” ~Manufacturing Business Technologies Magazine

The article discusses various software and web based platforms that help companies and engineers keep their projects on track and manage the details of their projects with increased efficiency. The common theme between them all is taking action early in the design process and collaborating with outside resources and personnel that are already available all over the manufacturing industry.

To design an environmentally friendly product or cut costs down the line it’s imperative that engineers and project managers put in the necessary effort and planning right from the beginning. The article lists a number of good resources, all worth checking out, including IndustrialInterface.com.

The article was printed in the most recent issue of Manufacturing Business Technology.

Electrical Engineering Blog – Guest Post

Francois — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:33:55 +0000

This is a guest post by the moderator of the Electrical Engineering Blog. It’s a great blog going into the technical details of many interesting and useful facets of electrical engineering and design.

Electrical engineering BLOG was launched in April 2009 by a group of enthusiasts in the field of electrical installation and energy management (mainly based on IEC standards).

With these passionate people, we have created an environment for collaboration and exchange, and we wish to use this Blog to share our current experience as well as our questions about the future – to elicit reactions from others and to discover new concrete ideas, as well as technical and practical tips.

This blog is not a space to promote products and services.

We believe that we can attract and involve both designers and consultants; suppliers, customers, independent experts, and institutions.

Today there are 11 categories of articles, including 6 in energy efficiency (a major topic for everybody) but also 5 categories on more traditional issues such as electrical distribution and design software. We also feature a Web Tips category, brought to the site by a young web pro.

Our blog is open to trade links with other blogs, forums, and sites provided they are of high quality and relevant. It is an English speaking Blog, but so far we have many exchanges with Asia and Europe; all countries are more than welcome.

You can subscribe to the newsletter that is sent out every month. Go to top of the home page and click on “subscribe”. To post an article, visit our website at http://engineering.electrical-equipment.org/electrical-engineering-conditions or email me at engineering@electrical-equipment.org. Commenting on a posting is simple and can be done without any prior validation.

François B.
Moderator

What other great engineering blogs do you read?

IndustrialInterface.com Automates Industrial Sourcing, Allows Engineers to Focus Efforts on Their Designs.

T. Brian Jones — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:55:27 +0000

IndustrialInterface.com makes sourcing industrial products and services as simple as sending a single email. Engineers find solutions to their design applications in minutes instead of weeks.

San Diego, CA, November 11, 2009 — IndustrialInterface.com officially launches its new site that bypasses traditional sales channels and lets engineers instantly and anonymously share design applications with dozens of relevant suppliers. This allows engineers to quickly find multiple solutions for their designs and the right suppliers to provide them.

Salespeople who have experience with similar projects and sell exactly what an engineer needs pay to contact the engineer. This insures that engineers only receive productive and desired communication from suppliers. This is the first website for the manufacturing industry specifically designed to put engineers in direct contact with local sales representatives.

Company president, co-founder, and former manufacturing engineer, T. Brian Jones said, “Salespeople in manufacturing have deep technical application experience with their products and services. They know very quickly from an engineer’s project description if they have a solution. If they don’t sell what the engineer needs, they usually know who does, and can instantly share the project with the right colleague all within our website. IndustrialInterface.com goes beyond simply sourcing parts. It lets engineers source solutions for their designs.”

IndustrialInterface.com has reduced the sourcing process to three steps. First, an engineer posts the technical requirements of a design application to the website. Second, sourcing specialists at IndustrialInterface.com use the company’s software to identify and contact dozens of relevant suppliers while the posting engineer remains anonymous. Finally, salespeople review the details of the application and pay to contact the engineer if they can provide a solution.

Jones says, “Our technology combines human experience with an increasingly intelligent matching system. We’ve seen suppliers and engineers interacting minutes after projects have been posted to our site. A process that currently can take weeks and dozens of phone calls is now happening in a few hours on our site. As we grow we expect engineers and purchasers to source in real time.”

Engineers can get multiple quotes, find alternative components or suppliers, and even find design solutions when they know little more than the problem they are trying to solve. IndustrialInterface.com makes all of this as easy as sending a single email. The Company has accomplished this by making it quick, simple, and safe for engineers to post the technical details of their applications.

“The process is very similar to the interaction that an engineer has with salespeople at a trade show. The difference is that the engineer only needs to explain his application once, and IndustrialInterface.com can distribute it to dozens of highly targeted suppliers, all over the world, almost instantly,” said Chris Powell, co-founder and former industrial sales engineer.

IndustrialInterface.com has been perfecting its software with a select group of engineers and suppliers over the last six months. During this time, the Company has helped source an estimated three million dollars in products and services. Engineers from Fortune 500 companies in the medical, aerospace, electronics, and automotive industries, and many smaller companies across all manufacturing industries and all regions of the US, are already using IndustrialInterface.com.

About IndustrialInterface.com
IndustrialInterface.com is the quickest, easiest, and most efficient way for engineers to find industrial products and services. The website allows engineers to instantly and anonymously share design applications with dozens of relevant suppliers. It’s the first website for the manufacturing industry designed specifically to put engineers in direct contact with local sales representatives. By bringing engineers together with the right suppliers early, during the concept and design phase, IndustrialInterface.com allows the manufacturing industry to produce higher quality products at greatly reduced costs. For more information, please visit http://industrialinterface.com.

Contact
T. Brian Jones, President and Founder
Industrial Interface, Inc.
858-539-6351
Jones@industrialinterface.com
http://industrialinterface.com

Twitter Lists for Nerds – engineering, science, technology, and even NASA!

T. Brian Jones — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:54:08 +0000

I’ve created a host of useful Twitter lists for followers of @Help4Engineers (and everyone else too).

My Favorites

Engineering / Science / Technology Favorites: This is my personal list of the most interesting tweeters I follow. I go here for almost all my Twitter news. This list is the best of the best.
All NASA Twitter Feeds: Over 50 unique NASA twitter streams. These are absolutely awesome, and many of them have tens of thousands of followers on their own. NASA is doing an amazing job sharing the incredible information they collect.
Industrial Suppliers on Twitter: I’m constantly adding new suppliers as I find them. Let me know of any I’m missing in the comments. These tweets are way more interesting than I expected when I first made this list.

My Other Useful Lists

Manufacturing / Engineering Trade Magazines and Journals: This is a list of journalists, and twitter streams for magazines and journals in the sci-tech arena.
Engineering / Manufacturing Groups and Organizations: These tweeters represent groups or organizations that various engineers might want to be part of.
Engineering Departments at Universities
Manufacturing Shows and Promotion Groups
General Sci-Tech: All the tweeters that I find interesting that don’t fall into any of my other lists.

What other lists should I start or do you know about?

Why purchasing agents and engineers hate each other! (Guest Post)

Al Gamble — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:12:12 +0000

In general, purchasing agents have a good deal of disdain for engineers (and probably vice-versa). This doesn’t have to be the case, but it generally is. Below is a list of reasons why this often happens. These two groups rarely work together in harmony, but with a little effort they probably can.

In my experience as a finder of hard to find metals, I get inquiries from buyers on a daily basis for metals, forms, sizes and quantities that are simply not available from US metal suppliers. Typically, the buyer has received a print from a client for a new widget designed by an engineer who has searched high and low to find “the perfect material” for his or her new design.

In the web age, material property data is easily available from sites like www.matweb.com and others. Unfortunately, these sites offer almost zero information about a key property: availability. The perfect material is not so perfect if you can’t buy it and unfortunately, many engineers make their material selection decisions with blinders on. We have a name for this type of metal – “unobtainium“.

Whenever I mention that term, both buyers and engineers rarely fail to chuckle. Problem is, unobtainium represents a major problem in many ways.

First, it creates a further wedge between buyers and engineers. Buyers often think that their engineering counterparts are “eggheads” to begin with. But when a print comes down for unobtainium, it forces the buyer to waste time trying to run it down – frustrating to say the least.

Second, even if the metal can be located, the suppliers know that they have something pretty rare and will charge a king’s ransom for it.

Third, if the metal just can’t be had at all, the print has to go back upstream, ending up on the engineers desk weeks if not months after his or her work has been done and they have to start all over again, analyzing the part, stresses, environmental issues, applications, etc……to find a metal that will work AND is available. The cost of required engineering changes can be enormous and it never had to happen IF the engineer had taken the time to check availability before the material went onto the print in the first place.

Finally and possibly the most dangerous outcome of this problem is, that some machine shops/ fabricators will take matters into their own hands and make a substitution. Whether or not the metal they choose actually ends up working for the application is meaningless – the fact remains that the part will not have the mechanical properties, or chemistry of the material originally specified. Nobody might find out about this, but maybe they will – like when the component fails in an Apollo fuel cell and three astronauts almost die as a result (check out these other posts on machinability and why to work with your machinists).

These are all situations that arise at my job where I try to help engineers and purchasing agents find the right materials for their jobs, but they are common to all sorts of sourcing issues. Engineers and purchasing agents need to work together early in projects, and finding the right components during concept and design is critical. These issues can usually be avoided with a little planning up front.

Alan Gamble
Metal Suppliers Online

An engineering toolbar full of useful design resources.

T. Brian Jones — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:53:28 +0000

We’ve recently created a toolbar for engineers that is full of useful design resources. This is a great way to keep these resources handy. I used http://www.conduit.com to make it.

The really cool part is that after you install it, it will automatically stay up to date as we add new resources to it. How cool?

If you’re curious what’s included, I added all our recommended design resources from our blog.

What other resources would you like to see added to this toolbar?

8 Reasons Magnets Are The Most Amazing Thing In Your House

T. Brian Jones — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:00:49 +0000

(Earth’s Magnetic field courtesy of Nasa’s AStronomy Picture of the Day)

Magnetism is as magical as any every day phenomenon gets. There is mystery surrounding them from the first instant you bring them together. Pick up two magnets and slowly move them towards each other. Unless there are markings, you only have a 50/50 chance of knowing what’s going to happen.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, they are going to snap ferociously together, often pinching your fingers in the process. Other times they will resist all the force you can muster and remain just millimeters from contact. Every so often, you will loose your grip and one of the magnets will spin out of control and slam into the opposing side of the other magnet to literally join forces.

Below are the 8 reasons I think magnets are literally fantastic.

8. Magnetism is all around us. Pull out your compass and watch the needle spin. What the hell?

7. Rubbing magnets on certain objects lets you transfer the magic of magnetism.

6. Magnets work when they are cold, hot, wet, greasy, dirty, new and old.

5. Magnetism appears to be a transitory and finicky characteristic. You can pick up a steel fishing hook, but not an aluminum can. They work on some refrigerators and not others. They’re attracted to chrome plated steel, but not brass, aluminum, or nickel.

4. Some are so strong you can’t even get them apart without a pair of pliers, yet they are hardly bigger than a dime.

3. Magnets present the perfect contradiction. Sometimes they repel each other with an exponentially increasing force as they get closer, and other times they do the exact opposite and come together.

2. Magnets maintain a force you can’t see or feel, and which, in general, you cannot change. That force seems to linger forever, unwavering.

1. Magnets are used to hold pictures of friends to the fridge in your house and to accelerate particles to the speed of light to study Einstienian predictions. They make the flap on a purse or money clip stay closed, and are pivotal in great containment vessels that hold plasma that’s hotter than the sun in experimental nuclear fusion reactors.

There’s nothing else in the world that’s so common and at the same time so fantastically complex .

Order magnets for work here: www.magnetsource.com
Order magnets for fun here: www.kjmagnetics.com
NASA levitates mice with magnets.
Check out the viewing paper that lets you see field lines.
Ferrofluid Sculpture (below)

What engineering applications have you used magnets for?

@Help4Engineers: Useful Resources and Interesting Information for Engineers on Twitter

T. Brian Jones — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:00:35 +0000

I maintain a twitter feed (@Help4Engineers) where I share useful resources and interesting information for engineers. I generally tweet a few times a day and have found a large and very engaged engineering following. I’m always available as a resource, and will help you with any application you have.

Industrial Interface is a website to help engineers use suppliers as a resource early in their projects, and I can help you find the right suppliers for your designs. Message me about your applications, or signup for an account and post your projects directly to our site.

What other engineering or scientific twitter feeds do you follow?

Top 10 Features of Globalspec, Good & Bad (Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part II)

T. Brian Jones — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:03:19 +0000

Globalspec is probably the most popular of all the industrial supplier listings for engineers and designers. They boast 5 Million registered users, including engineers, purchasing agents, technicians, etc. They have a huge supplier database, and are branded as the Engineering Search Engine. Most other sites cater specifically to purchasing departments, although Globalspec’s offerings don’t differ much from the norm.

Highlights for Engineers and Designers

The Good

Globalspec has one of the largest supplier databases on the web, along with Thomasnet and Macrae’s Blue Book, and is one of the easiest supplier listing sites to navigate.
Globalspec maintains one of the largest engineering forums on the web. There’s an active community of engineers helping each other with simple to very technical problems.

Users can create a highly customizable home page, much like Google’s or Yahoo’s homeages where you can embed widgets and move them around. Globalspec can be used as your main portal to the internet at work.
Bold companies in search results are paying customers and there is generally a lot of good info about their products and services.
A new offering is a private area for users to manage projects and suppliers. It’s a simple interface, reminiscent of a PC file system, that let’s you track project details, suppliers you are working with, and any associated research or notes.
Newsletters, product alerts, & product announcements are constant and very detailed. There are dozens to choose from.

The Bad

Niche Categories? – Categories are well organized, but generally aren’t niche enough, leaving you with hundreds or thousands of companies to choose from in each sub category. Other sites like ThomasNet maintain more sub categories and make it easier to select companies to source from. Major companies that you already know about typically dominate the top of result pages.
The Engineering Search Engine is different but not noticeably better or more relevant than Google for general search. Globalspec does offer very specific search engines for material properties, patents, engineering standards, etc.
Search by Specs or Part Numbers – Users have a limited ability to search for parts and components by spec or part number, but only paying suppliers can add these detailed listings (and even that is severely limited by cost and time). This is great if you can buy from 1 of the 10 or so companies in any given category that is paying to list their products. Otherwise, this is limiting. Surprisingly, I’ve never found this useful as an engineer.
Privacy Concerns – Engineers and Buyers are required to register in quite a bit of detail to view company listings. Clear in their privacy policy, but rarely known by users, is that every time you click on a company that is paying for an account with Globalspec, that company receives a detailed report including your name, contact information, company and what you’ve been up to on Globalspec.

If you could add one feature to Globalpec, what would it be?

Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part I: A Multi-Post Review

T. Brian Jones — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:39:53 +0000

A comprehensive feature on Industrial Supplier Listings

Because of the need for these listings, I am going to do a series of reviews on many of the most established ones. There are literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of these listings scattered around the internet, but a handful have developed incredibly detailed categories, seemingly endless suppliers for each niche, and many have their own features that make them unique.

What are they?

Engineers have been using supplier listings for almost as long as the term “engineer” has been used to describe the profession. Some of these listings began their life over 100 years ago in print form, but despite their age, have scarcely evolved since they were digitized into searchable online listings about a decade ago.

The basic interface provides engineers with increasingly specific categories that they can click through to eventually find suppliers of very niche products and services. Some of these listings boast hundreds of thousands of categories and millions of suppliers worldwide.

How are they used?

Searchable supplier listings, however un-useful when an engineer is first tackling a new problem, are incredibly useful when searching for common components, known materials, replacement or supplementary parts, a new supplier for the same thing, etc., and are widely used by purchasing departments satisfying well developed BOMs.

There will always be a need for directories where engineers and procurement specialists can quickly find suppliers for specific products and services that have already been specified (That’s why we think of these listings more as complimentary services to Industrial Interface rather than competitors.)

Who are they?

The sites that I’ve identified as some of the largest and most useful are the ones I’m going to review. They are listed below.

Globalspec
Alibaba
Direct Industry
ThomasNet
Macrae’s Blue Book
Global Sources
Medical Device Link
Kellysearch

Are there similar or related resources that you use?

Have you found any of the smaller or more niche listings particularly useful?

Have I missed any major listings or related resources?

What is your professional opinion of these listings?

Suggest others to check out or review in the comments. Company linkbacks welcomed!

Share Interesting Resources, Technologies, Websites, Blogs, Articles, News …

T. Brian Jones — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:29:04 +0000

All of us at Industrial Interface are techies at heart. Most of us are also engineers. We love to hear and read about the same things you do. If you’ve got something that you think other engineers, designers, and industrial suppliers will enjoy reading about or seeing, share it with us! We’ll try to share it with our readers.

You can also share with us via our Twitter feeds. Help4Engineers is our feed for engineers and designer and TechSalesLeads is our feed for industrial suppliers and salespeople.

Contact me at (brian@industrialinterface.com) about anything you want.

Online Unit Conversions for The Common, The Complex, and The Unexpected

T. Brian Jones — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:44:55 +0000

One website I used almost every day as a design engineer (and continue to use often) is OnlineConversion.com. If you can think of an engineering or scientific application with unique units, this website will probably convert them. It’s free to use and doesn’t require any registration. The site claims “5,000 units and 50,000 conversions” and receives over half a million unique visitors a month based on Compete.com.

OnlineConversions.com has all the standard conversions you will need like Energy with 100 different units, Mass Flow Rate with 38, Force with 37, Acceleration, Density, Power, Pressure, Viscosity, etc.

The site also maintains many more obscure conversions and calculations like Radioactivity & Radioactive Decay, Sheet Metal & Wire Gauge, and even Sieve Density, as well as some less useful but generally interesting conversions like Astronomical Units, Weights on Other Planets, International Clothing Sizes, and other Fun Stuff.

For those engineers without the benefit of a a high end graphing calculator, the site even has an Algebraic Equation Solver.

If you can’t find a conversion that you need, the site has a forum where other engineers can help with your application. The site admins scan this forum to discover new conversions to add to the main site. There is even detailed information on how many of these conversions are calculated so you can see the math working behind the scenes. This is great for students.

If you have a really complex application or problem, the site’s admins provide an email where you can contact them directly. They claim to respond within a few days.

The site makes most calculations to seven decimal places (no one really remembers significant figures anyway) but suggests you double check everything for critical or safety related projects.

What other online resources do you use often at work? Product Sourcing? Engineering or Scientific Research? Design References? CAD Libraries?

Industrial Interface’s Presence on the Web

T. Brian Jones — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:56:53 +0000

Industrial Interface: This is our online community for engineers, designers, and suppliers in manufacturing. Engineers can discuss their design problems and get innovative solutions from knowledgeable technical suppliers. We represent every industry segment and every product category within the Industrial Research, Design, and Manufacturing market.

Our Blog: You are reading it right now! We write about useful resources, review products and software, share interesting information with our users, and keep everyone up to date with Industrial Interface as a company.

Help4Engineers*: This is our Twitter feed for engineers and designers where we share useful resources and interesting information. Always feel free to contact me directly here

TechSalesLeads*: This is our Twitter Feed for industrial suppliers and salespeople. We typically share resources and interesting information as well as many of the live engineering leads coming through our site.

*Our Twitter accounts are a great way to interact with us, ask about Industrial Interface, make suggestions, or tap into our network of engineers and suppliers.

LinkedIn “Industrial Interface R&D Network”: This is another medium we provide to our users to interact with other engineers and suppliers and network in the social setting of LinkedIn.

Facebook (Industrial Interface): Join other professionals in a less formal setting where you can share interests outside of work.

How are you promoting your Industrial Company online? What websites and resources do you think are the most useful?

A blog for Industrial Interface

T. Brian Jones — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:55:47 +0000

We’ve been debating starting a blog for quite some time at Industrial Interface. So why have we started one now?

Three reasons:

Working as engineers and suppliers in the manufacturing industry and researching and building Industrial Interface has provided us with a lot of information about how engineers and suppliers use the internet to do their jobs. We’ve always shared some of this information on our main site but we want to do more with it. Why not share it in a more dynamic environment where we can all collaborate.
We’ve been using Twitter to share some of this information for the past few months via an account called Help4Engineers (a feed for engineers) and an account called TechSalesLeads (a feed for suppliers). We have had a really good response from our followers and have found that we often want to share more information than you can in a tweet.
This blog will hopefully help spread the word about Industrial Interface and help grow the site into the powerful tool we want it to be for Engineers, Designers, and Suppliers.

Through this blog, we plan to share all sorts of knowledge about the online world for the manufacturing industry. We want to talk about the vast collection of online tools that engineers and suppliers use to do their jobs better. We also plan to keep you up to date with our company, Industrial Interface. We look forward to sharing with our community, and we hope this blog will be a great resource for everyone who reads it.

Learn More:
How Industrial Interface is helping Engineers and Designers.
How Suppliers are benefiting from Industrial Interface.

T. Brian Jones
President & Founder
http://IndustrialInterface.com
http://twitter.com/help4engineers
http://www.linkedin.com/in/tbrianjones