The Thomas Blog

7 Tools to Grow Your Business in 2016

New Year’s Day is fast approaching — what will your resolutions be?

The holidays are upon us, meaning that now is the perfect time to start thinking about New Year’s resolutions. This year, why not resolve to improve transparency and efficiency throughout your business by incorporating tools that will streamline your activities and boost your productivity?

How Can Your Business Become More Environmentally Friendly?

Since the Industrial Revolution, we have been a major source of stress on the planet. From deforestation to oil spills, the damage totals to the tune of $1 trillion dollars — 6.2% of national GDP. And that’s just in the U.S.

5 Reasons to Join Your Local NTMA Chapter

We’ve all read the doom and gloom headlines surrounding the U.S. manufacturing sector. Facing challenges from outsourcing, a lack of skilled labor, and rising material costs, industry has certainly been facing a bumpy road.

The National Tooling and Machining Association’s (NTMA) sole purpose is to help manufacturers overcome these issues by connecting members and sharing resources.

Here we’ve outlined 5 benefits of joining your local NTMA chapter.

Your Fourslide Supplier: Offshore vs. Local

The fourslide process offers a number of advantages over the traditional power press. As a cost-effective means of production, thefourslide process allows complicated forms to be produced at reduced costs and allows for both fast product delivery and a wide range of form modification without incurring costly penalties.

Handling Seasonal Supply & Demand

By the time a chill hits the air, I am often found at my local coffee shop buying every seasonal flavored coffee and treat they come up with that year. Nowadays, it does not really feel like winter unless I have a peppermint mocha or cinnamon swirl latte, and I suspect I am not the only one.

 In fact, Twitter was buzzing with reports of pumpkin spice latte shortages at Starbucks this past season. The flavor hit peak popularity in the fall of 2014 and continues to roll on: everything from yogurt to vodka seems to have a pumpkin spice variety on the shelves. Despite the rumors, though, it turns out that Starbucks was covered and that only a few select stores were plagued with a temporary shortage due to an increase in demand. The coffee crisis was averted.

Seven Steps to Achieving Smart Growth

Growing your business means different things to different people, and it’s all about your goals. You may just be looking to increase orders to reach maximum capacity for your equipment on hand, or you may have a five-year plan to double your business and expand your facility. Whatever your growth goals are, the key to success is to “grow smart.” Here are seven simple ways to do that.

How the Internet of Things Can Change Your Shop

Whatever you call it — the internet of things, the cloud, the “smart grid” — it’s all about connectivity, access, and efficiency. So what exactly is it? The internet of things, as we’ll refer to it, is a series of interconnected “smart devices.”

Have you heard of the Nest thermostat? That’s an example of a smart device: not only can you control it remotely, say, from your phone, but it also uses sensors to adjust the temperature based on whether you’re home or not, and from there it actually “learns” how to heat and cool your house optimally based on your schedule and other factors.

Pick-Six: Marketing Lessons From the Football Playbook

The first season of NCAA Football to end with a formal playoff system is just kicking into gear, and while we’re still settling in to see which teams look to be on top, one fact remains unchanged: NCAA Football is a marketing powerhouse. From deals with sponsors from ESPN to Coca-Cola, it’s clear that the organization has its playbook set when it comes to promotion. But what about you? If we take a look at the game itself, we can draw up a few marketing lessons that are useful to anyone — not just huge organizations:

How to Avoid “Missed Connections” in the Buying Cycle

Most people know about Craigslist “Missed Connections:” you’ve met someone interesting but didn’t follow up or exchange contact information, so you cast a line into the World Wide Web in the hopes of getting a second chance with that special someone.

The problem? The odds are largely against you, since it all depends on that other person actually finding your ad.