The Thomas Blog

Boosting Manufacturing Efficiency with Kaizen Events

Experienced engineers may have heard the term “Kaizen” at some point. It’s a Japanese term meaning “continuous improvement.”

While the concept is relevant to businesses everywhere, it has caught on in the West primarily in manufacturing industries.

Optimizing Your Email Lists for Google Customer Match

Organically building a high quality email list for people in your target audience has been strategically important for decades. After all, email is one of the only channels that you have complete control over when communicating with your audience.

The Top 5 Stories from Manufacturing Day 2015

Every beginning of October, manufacturers across North America dust off their shops and open their doors to the world for Manufacturing Day. From grass root political efforts to educating students on the lifeblood of the country, the day also kicks off Manufacturing Month, which continues to celebrate everything the industry does for the country and the economy.

Where to Start with Factory Automation

 To remain competitive in an evolving industry, manufacturers are turning to automation. But where should companies begin?

Chad Blair, president of RT Engineering Corporation, compares automating a facility to writing a book. “Manufacturers need to understand what the ultimate story looks like so that as they’re writing an individual chapter, it makes sense in the context of the rest of the book. You can’t solve any one problem without a way to integrate it with the total solution.”

Engineer Q & A – Schlumberger Engineer Among Women Fueling the Future of STEM

If you were on Twitter at all this week, you may have noticed a number of posts discussing the importance of women in STEM careers. And if you were online on Tuesday specifically, you likely saw that #AdaLovelaceDay was trending across the Twittersphere. The day is meant to celebrate a woman who is largely remembered as the first computer programmer. To further commemorate the advances women have made in technology and engineering, we’ve chosen to highlight a female engineer in our next Engineer Q & A series installment.

David Allen of Shell Oil Talks Mentorship, Millennials & Supply Chain

Some of the brightest lights taking the reigns of the industry are already making a name for themselves at some notable companies, but supply chain rockstars don't always get the industry-wide recognition they deserve.

75% of Marketers Agree: Inbound Marketing is the Strategy of Choice

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that we’re big fans of inbound marketing. You’ve probably also noticed that we typically post content on Fridays to coincide with our Industrial Marketer newsletter. Today is Tuesday. Why are we messing with the flow?

Automation Improves Microbrewery Processes

Craft breweries and other small brewing companies are a growing and competitive market. Many face new challenges every day when striving for quality, consistency and increasing production demands.

Automating the measurement of various brewery processes can offer a solution to these challenges, enabling smaller breweries to achieve production and quality targets more efficiently. They don’t necessarily need large and complex system, such as those used by large commercial breweries. By automating a few key processes, small breweries can see a huge difference.

The Top 5 Marketing Resources for Manufacturers

No matter how big or small your manufacturing company is, chances are you’ve either dabbled in marketing yourself, or you hired someone else to manage the efforts for you. Regardless of which path you took, you probably realize the necessity of keeping up-to-date with the latest methods and trends.

Just like your facility requires regular auditing and re-evaluation year after year, so do your marketing campaigns.