The Thomas Blog

5 Steps To Get High-Quality Leads With CAD Assets

If you're keeping up with the latest manufacturing lead generation strategies, you may have already heard that up to 88% of businesses ultimately buy the part after downloading a CAD model. CAD files are proven to generate high-quality sales leads. But are you fully embracing them as a marketing asset or are you only sending them by request from sales? Not sure? Let's walk through the basic model of using CAD files for high-quality lead generation. 

Top 4 U.S. Manufacturing Challenges And How To Overcome Them

American manufacturing stands at a critical point in its long history — and how industry leaders view and react to the changing landscape will influence its future. As technology, demographics, and economic climate shift, manufacturers must innovate in order to stay competitive. Manufacturing in particular is positioned for domestic growth and, more than ever, industry leaders must guide their organizations strategically. Let’s take a look at some of the issues facing the industry through the lens of both challenges and opportunities.

Ways Manufacturers Are Marketing To Prospects Searching For Critical Goods (With Examples)

Businesses are finding success by shifting their sales and marketing messaging to match what is going on in the economic and social climates. These days more than ever, it’s important for businesses to keep their communication to customers and prospects clear and consistent.

Many manufacturers operating during the COVID-19 crisis have come up with creative ways to adjust their messaging to address their customers' immediate questions, needs, and concerns. Let’s see some examples of how manufacturers and industrial companies today have shifted their marketing messaging and lead generation efforts.

Continue To Promote Your Manufacturing Business During An Economic Downturn

Many companies worry about how their business will fare in bad economic conditions, but sometimes opportune outcomes stem from times of economic uncertainty — especially for manufacturers.

With seemingly difficult economic conditions on the horizon, there are plenty of indicators that can seem at odds with one another. Recently, the stock market had its worst week since 2008 while sourcing activity for North American suppliers on Thomasnet.com saw record-breaking numbers. Based on a Coronavirus Impact survey conducted this month, over half of the manufacturers surveyed are ‘likely to extremely likely’ to bring production and sourcing back to North America and 47% of U.S manufacturers report they are now seeking domestic sources of supply — likely the reasons for sourcing surge.

Challenges And Opportunities In Private Label Manufacturing

Businesses and individuals everywhere are in some way experiencing the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. For some small companies, the virus-related shortages in cleaning supplies and sanitizers have boosted private label brands sales. With more consumers concerned for their health, demand in niche brands and private labels for organic supplements have also spiked.

While there are more opportunities for growth for private label manufacturers due to recent global health concerns, what challenges are these companies generally facing and how can they continue to outperform competitors?

Optimize Safety In Industrial Operations To Drive Productivity & Revenue

Safety in the workplace is a serious matter — especially in industrial operations. In physically demanding and/or high-risk industries like many industrial operations, the implications of such injuries can be disastrous.

The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows there were more than 5,200 fatal workplace injuries across all sectors, in addition to more than 3 million total recordable cases of non-fatal work-related injuries and illnesses in 2013.

How to Innovate Without Blowing Your R&D Budget

In 1998, Steve Jobs told Fortune, “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have.” Jobs believed that throwing money at a problem should not be the answer. Creativity and genuine genius should win out. And whether you’re a pharmaceutical and software company with a large budget for research and development or a custom manufacturer with considerably less, a budget is still a budget.

So here are a few tips to help you spearhead innovation without blowing your R&D budget.

What Is Business Process Management: For Industrial Companies

Industrial processes have to be precise. Any error, from a disrupted link in a supply chain to a faulty step in the manufacturing process, could significantly drop the quality of your delivered goods or service. 

With a highly competitive environment, mistakes are intolerable. 

Mistakes and errors are rife when your industrial business does not have a set of documented steps for every business operation. This is where business process management comes in. 

In this blog, we will explore what business process management is, and how it can be used to reduce errors in all of your business procedures. This includes procedures such as using Thomasnet.com to source suppliers, to the factory floor operations, right through to the end of your supply chain with product/service delivery and marketing. 

Challenges And Opportunities In The Aerospace Industry

The aerospace and defense industry is a major source of innovation and technological advancements. It plays a critical role in national defense, enables safe and efficient air travel, increases communication and the dissemination of knowledge, and contributes to increased consumerism and the globalization of supply chains.

Since the Wright Brothers' first powered flight in 1903, the aerospace industry has had an enviable record of achievement. From transforming modern transportations to landing a man on the Moon — it's no surprise the American aerospace industry's positive track record and strength makes it one of the largest contributors of employment in manufacturing. So what are some of the challenges this group faces?