The Thomas Blog

How Much of Your Industrial Marketing Budget Should You Allocate to Print Media?

Maybe you’ve been buying print advertisements for years and you are trying to decide how much budget to allocate this year. Or perhaps you have seen your competitors running print advertisements and wonder whether you should try it. Both are common in the industrial marketing space.

In recent research, we found that for 2017, 46% of all engineering marketers plan to dedicate zero budget to print.

Video: The U.S. Army Looks To SIG Sauer For Modular Weaponry

As the U.S. Army looks for more customizable weaponry, they have turned to firearms manufacturer SIG Sauer for modular guns.

These P320/M17 guns will be tailor-made for each soldier, with only the trigger as the uniform part of the gun. All other parts can be customized, allowing soldiers to choose different pistol grip sizes, longer or shorter barrels, type of ammunition and location of the safety. 

Do College Grads Have The Right Degrees For Today's Manufacturing Workforce?

The manufacturing industry is growing increasingly complex. As a result, entry-level manufacturing employees need more than just a high school diploma. However, there is a disconnect between the educational levels of those applying for manufacturing jobs and the educational levels required by employees. 

Manufacturing Industry Jobs Update: January 2017

At Thomasnet.com, we are big champions of American manufacturing and reshoring. In fact, we work with suppliers who produce amazing products made in America every day, and we play an instrumental role in helping small- and medium-sized suppliers grow.

7 Books Every Web Designer Should Read

Anyone in the world of web design and development knows it’s a constantly changing field. From coding with mobile in mind to catching an eye with parallax scrolling, there’s always a new feature rolling out to enhance user experience. 

To stay ahead of what’s coming next, designers have to read about their industry voraciously — even when they’re off the clock. So, as a follow up to follow up Dayna's post on books for sales and Lauren's post on books for marketers, we on the Thomas design and development team wanted to share what's on our bookshelves and recommend a few of our favorites.

What Can You Do To Create More Supply Chain Transparency?

Supply chain transparency is a high priority for many organizations. However, because of the fragmented nature of supply chains, creating efficient, end-to-end monitoring systems can be a challenge. 

Top Tools For Sales & Marketing Collaboration

Love versus hate. Good versus evil. Heaven versus hell. Sales versus marketing?

If you’ve ever worked in or with a sales or marketing department, you know that the statement above might not be as ridiculous as it first seems.

Video: The Latest Engineering Innovations From January 2017

New products are being created every day, so what’s new in the marketplace? Our friends at Industrial Equipment News created a roundup of their favorite product developments so far in 2017.

Here are some of the products that topped the list: 

RIT To Lead National Consortium For Cleaner Manufacturing

The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) was recently selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to head up a national consortium that will be charged with developing sustainable manufacturing technologies.

The Reducing Embodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions Institute (REMADE) is part of the DOE’s Manufacturing USA initiative and will be housed at RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability, under the Sustainable Manufacturing Innovation Alliance.