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 manufacturers and printing suppliers
• Steel manufacturers and steel suppliers
• Solar manufacturers and solar suppliers

Related posts:

1. New directories for engineers and suppliers
2. Interactive Online Solar System Model
3. Printing on heat sealable foils – Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
4. A Stadium Full of Solar Power: Taiwan National Stadium Pictures
5. How do engineers and buyers currently find products and services online?

1) Backlinks:

Links to your site from other sites that are relevant to your business are the most important aspect of SEO. If there are only a few sites on the entire internet that link to your site, then search engines will likely ignore your site, or only index a few pages, meaning that most of your content will never show up in a search result that your potential customers are making. The number on thing you can do to increase traffic to your site is to get your customers, partners, distributors, and principals to link to your website. If you do this, I guarantee you will get more exposure and more customers than if you get a feature article in an industry magazine or pay for a full page ad. Additionally, you should always be submitting your site to relevant industrial directories and other online resources. Increasing the number of sites that link to your site makes your site seem more important to search engines, and means more customers will find your company via search.

Get the next 6 tips over at our industrial website development blog.

Related posts:

1. Top 10 features to get more leads from your industrial website
2. Unlimited engineering leads with our Standard Supplier Account
3. Top 10 Features of Globalspec, Good & Bad (Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part II)
4. Double the leads from your current customers: email marketing to engineers by engineers
5. Industrial Interface founder awarded top social media sales award by InsideView

1) Contact info:

Make your contact information readily available on every page of your site, and make sure it is easy to find. The most important activity a user can take on your website is to contact your highly skilled, highly paid, and competent sales force. Potential customers are looking for information and you need to make it easy for them to get answers that they can’t find on your site. Besides, unless you operate an online store, it is impossible for you to make even one dollar without a customer calling your sales team. Put your contact information at the top of every page in big bright text.

Get the next 9 tips over at our industrial website development blog.

Related posts:

1. Top 7 SEO tips to generate more engineering leads
2. Top 10 Features of Globalspec, Good & Bad (Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part II)
3. Industrial Interface founder awarded top social media sales award by InsideView
4. Unlimited engineering leads with our Standard Supplier Account
5. Double the leads from your current customers: email marketing to engineers by engineers

Editors note: This is a Case Study from our partner supplier Fastel Adhesives, and here is their Industrial Interface Supplier Profile.  Learn more about Fastel’s FASTELEK Materials.

1) How do you bond a housing together and create an EMI/RFI Shield?

EMI Shielding is a very complex subject with a lot of considerations. Whenever you are evaluating an EMI shield you need to think about galvanic reactions, frequencies you are shielding, costs, and additional functions of the EMI shielding gasket. An engineer working on a wireless transceiver contacted Fastel looking to create an EMI shielding gasket in a complex geometry.

2) What options exist for complex geometry EMI shielding gaskets?

Evaluating the options for an EMI/RFI shielding gasket you have the following well known options:

Extruded gaskets coated with conductive particles

• Upside: Inexpensive way to create large, conductive gaskets
• Downside: Only good for sealing some sort of clamshell design

Die cut gaskets filled with conductive particles or wires

• Upside: Very conformable and able to have very thin materials cut to complex shapes
• Downside: The center of the die cut gaskets wastes a lot of expensive conductive particles, which makes these gaskets extremely expensive

Form in place UV cured conductive gaskets

• Upside: Dispensable in a variety of patterns and bead sizes, with little waste of expensive conductive filler.
• Downside: Large capital equipment purchases are required.

All of these options have specific applications where they are the best solution available.

3) How do you decide which option to pursue?

This particular engineer needed a silver filled material to get the desired conductivity without a galvanic reaction. The other problem the engineer faced was the need for a very thin gasket, effectively ruling out the thick extruded materials. Because the customer’s product is a price competitive product, they were unable to use the die-cut gaskets where waste was unavoidable. This left a form in place gasket as the only option they were aware of. Dreading the purchase of hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, they continued searching for alternatives.

4) Fastelek to the rescue

Fastelek was the ideal solution because it allowed the die-cutting of the complex shapes, but since the center of the part could be re-used, the cost of the gasket was kept pretty low. The Fastelek material could be both a compression activated EMI shielding gasket or a heat activated, bonding, EMI shielding gasket, meaning this engineer now had new options previously undiscovered. Unlike most conductive adhesives, the Fastelek material can be filled so much that it can actually be used as a conductive trace, but still bond aggressively.

5) A cost effective shielding gasket

The 6″ diameter gasket was about the same price that form in place gasket material would have cost, but there was no additional capital expenditures. The engineer was able to bond his EMI Shielding material in place with a quick blast of heat. The conductive Fastelek material did not flow, so he was able to put traces extremely close to the gasket prior to curing it. Overall, the Fastelek material was a dream come true for this application.

Anytime you need a flat conductive material contact us! We can custom formulate the material to your desired thickness, fill it with whatever conductive particles you want, and then die-cut it directly to your desired shape.

About Fastel Adhesives

Find similar suppliers on Industrial Interface:

• Adhesive suppliers
• Film & Foil Suppliers
• Contract Manufacturing Suppliers

Related posts:

1. Engineering Case Study: Glue in die cut form-Fastel Adhesives
2. Printing on heat sealable foils – Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
3. Engineering Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device-COG Engineering
4. How do you spec an adhesive? Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
5. Engineering Case Study: Rapid Product Development-Entrocomponent Solutions (ECS)

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.

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:

• Adhesive suppliers
• Die Cutting Suppliers
• Lamination Suppliers

Related posts:

1. Engineering Case Study: Rapid Product Development-Entrocomponent Solutions (ECS)
2. How do you spec an adhesive? Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
3. Engineering Case Study: Glue in die cut form-Fastel Adhesives
4. Bond and EMI Shield with same part, FASTELek, an engineering case study from Fastel Adhesives
5. Engineering Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device-COG Engineering

In 2000, Tal Golesworthy, a British engineer, was told that he suffers from Marfan syndrome, a disorder of the connective tissue that often causes rupturing of the aorta. The only solution then available was the pairing of a mechanical valve and a highly risky blood thinner. To an engineer like Golesworthy, that just wasn’t good enough. So he constructed his own implant that does the job better than the existing solution–and became the first patient to try it.

The existing fix, called the Bentall surgery, requires a five-hour invasive slice-and-dice and a heart-lung bypass, after which the damaged part of the aorta is cut out and replaced with a graft and mechanical valve. But Golesworthy saw an opportunity instead of despair: Nobody had thought to use more modern technologies, namely combining MRI tests with computer-aided design tools and new rapid prototyping techniques. Golesworthy saw a chance to create an implant that would support itself and reduce the chance of blood clots, thus eliminating the need to take that dangerous blood thinner.

In two years of work, Golesworthy discovered that the hardest part of creating this new implant wasn’t the actual design or construction–it was securing reliable measurements. The movement of the heart and other organs made it so different perspectives yielded totally different measurements. Luckily, the team figured out that a scan at one specific point in the cardiac cycle gave them the dimensions they needed.

The final product is constructed of polyethylene terephthalate, a standard medical plastic, and weighs less than 5g. It can be sutured directly into place by a surgeon at relatively low cost. The results speak for themselves: Golesworthy was the first recipient of his own creation, and since then, 23 others have taken the plunge, with more on the waiting list. Golesworthy sees this as not just a victory for Marfan sufferers, but a message to the medical community: “They are all biologists and medics, and they need process engineers,” he said. Golesworthy wants a greater collaboration amongst the medical community and engineers, who could see solutions the doctors and biologists can’t. Hopefully the medical community is listening–he’s his own proof, after all.

Find plastic manufacturers for Rapid Prototyping and Additive Manufacturing.

[The Engineer via Boing Boing]

Related posts:

1. Has anyone actually seen a flying car in real life?
2. OpenThesis.org creates centralized database for academic theses
3. 8 Ways For Salespeople To Get The First Call From An Engineer Every Time
4. Top Ten Ways Being An Engineer Improves Your Daily Routine
5. Why I Love To Engineer: Curiosity, Learning, Understanding, Expression and, finally, Application

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light . Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, ‘Oh sh–!’

SKIL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle… It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.

TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes , trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside edge of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; and even if you’re careful it works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only when you’re in them, which could create another issue entirely.

SON-OF-A-BITCH TOOL: (A personal favorite!) Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling ‘Son of a BITCH!’ at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

Related posts:

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

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.

Related posts:

1. Printing, Steel & Solar directories have come online
2. Making our suppliers more accessible to engineers
3. How our suppliers get found via a detailed profile
4. Help suppliers help you by posting complete project details to Industrial Interface
5. Where is your email address? Contacting industrial suppliers sucks!

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 do you spec an adhesive?

Most engineers deal with adhesives at one point or another.  The mistake many make is thinking that “An adhesive tape is an adhesive tape.” Entrocomponent Solutions (ECS) received an RFQ with an adhesive spec’d in on a foam window gasket. The adhesive spec’d in was a very established, older formula that has been an industry standard for over 20 years. The age of this particular adhesive immediately brought up questions about the application, the bond requirements, and the assembly process. ECS wanted to investigate further to make sure this was the best choice for the application.

2.  What adhesive do you use for a window frame gasket?

An engineer found ECS online and submitted an RFQ for a part that was already in production because they were unhappy with the 10 week lead time they received from their current supplier. The RFQ was for a 4″ window gasket with complex geometry, made out of a Poron urethane foam.The adhesive they had spec’d on the drawing was a transfer adhesive. A transfer adhesive is an unsupported tape without any sort of rigidity. The Poron was extremely soft and had a thin wall thickness, meaning a lack of rigidity was a problem.

3.  Why was a transfer adhesive being used on this complex gasket?

ECS met with the customer to learn more about the application. The meetings revealed that they spec’d in the transfer adhesive because that is what was used in the past for foam gaskets. There were a couple of issues with how long it took to apply the gasket to the housing and with the gasket delaminating from the housing after a couple years in the field. These problems were seen as necessary evils and overlooked by the design team at the customers facility.

4.  How did ECS provide easier application and a better end product

After discussing the application and learning about the assembly process, ECS was able to recommend using a supported adhesive that would better hold the shape of the gasket during installation. A supported adhesive has a layer that gives it rigidity. Based on the operating temperature, compression force, and other performance criteria, ECS decided to produce a few sample prototypes for the customer to test. These prototypes had a different formula adhesive with a supporting layer to give the part rigidity.

5.  Better Lead Time, Better Performance, and Faster Assembly

Within the 10 week lead time that the customer had been quoted by another converter, ECS was able to re-engineer the Poron gasket. The supported adhesive led to an easy to place gasket that didn’t fall over on itself and always fit right into the housing. Also, because they used a more permanent adhesive, the products did not need to come in for re-work after a couple years. Finally, the price per gasket actually decreased by using a less expensive adhesive that ECS new would be a better fit for the job.

ECS specializes in adhesive selection and the ability to help you streamline your assembly process.  Contact us for a free consultation.

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.

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:

• Adhesive suppliers
• Die Cutting Suppliers
• Lamination Suppliers

Related posts:

1. Engineering Case Study: Rapid Product Development-Entrocomponent Solutions (ECS)
2. Printing on heat sealable foils – Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
3. Engineering Case Study: Glue in die cut form-Fastel Adhesives
4. Engineering Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device-COG Engineering
5. Bond and EMI Shield with same part, FASTELek, an engineering case study from Fastel Adhesives

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.

Related posts:

1. Engineering Case Study: How to find a unique LCD screen in 48 hours or less
2. @Help4Engineers: Useful Resources and Interesting Information for Engineers on Twitter

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) Case Study: How do I control iterative prototyping costs?

A large OEM customer was recently in development of a new hand held device requiring several custom die cut components for various cushioning, sealing, shielding applications.   The challenge was that the design of these components were was not firm, requiring many unexpected iterations along  the development path.  The company was also under a very tight time frame to get products to market for the holiday buying season. They needed to define both the materials and the functional design of each of these parts very quickly.

2) How does ECS keep pace with the time and cost demands of the project?

Rather than investing in several iterations of hard tooling, ECS was able to use their high performance plotter cutter to quickly and efficiently cut sample parts.   This not only saved the customer approximately $25,000 in unnecessary tooling costs, The plotter cutter samples allowed ECS to turn around parts in less than 48 hours. No waiting for toolmaker.  No waiting on available press time.

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.

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:

• Adhesive suppliers
• Die Cutting Suppliers
• Lamination Suppliers

Related posts:

1. Printing on heat sealable foils – Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
2. How do you spec an adhesive? Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
3. Engineering Case Study: Glue in die cut form-Fastel Adhesives
4. Engineering Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device-COG Engineering
5. Bond and EMI Shield with same part, FASTELek, an engineering case study from Fastel Adhesives

Starting a new job always brings up a wide range of emotions, running the gambit from anxiety to outright excitement.  Too often, those in technical professions do not think through the practical methods to make the transition as smooth and beneficial as possible.  What steps can a new employee take to make a positive and measurable impact with the new company?

1) Learn/Train

Learning isn’t just for new grads (although it should be obvious that there is greater emphasis for them), this applies to all new hires.  While some companies provide more accessible and plentiful training courses, new hires should always make learning a priority.

There is always a transition period, and there are always new systems, tools, software, manuals, etc. to learn.  Take this opportunity to become a student again.  Sure, maybe you are a savvy veteran in the industry, and maybe the job description really isn’t all that different from your previous post.  But in engineering, there is ALWAYS new material to learn.  This is the perfect time to dig in and learn new cutting edge design techniques, perhaps study what products this new company brings to market, or maybe even brush up on some college fundamentals.

Large companies sometimes provide scheduled classes for advanced coding techniques, circuit design, market fundamentals, etc.  Take advantage while you can, because once the design cycle heats up, there won’t be ample time to brush up on your skills.

2) Network

Meet everyone.  At most companies, who you know can be every bit as important as the quality work you produce.  I’m not suggesting that you talk your way to the top and avoid doing real work.  The goal should be to align yourself with the best, highest-producing talent in the company.  This is your opportunity to make your own ideas, contributions, and designs known amongst that group.

Finding the best people will keep you sharp, on your toes, and raise your game.  Not only that, but you will almost certainly ensure that your work is respected, appreciated, and well-known throughout the organization.  Often times, it’s not enough to simply sit in your office and do solid work.  Getting your work out in the open and respected by those who matter will certainly result in career advancement and financial benefit.

3) 1 on 1′s

Set up a recurring meeting with your manager.  Whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, it doesn’t matter.  Just some kind of regular meeting with your superior is always a good idea to stay on track.  It’s important to have clear, achievable goals for your work upon which both you and your manager agree.

The recurring meeting is the ideal time to assess your performance on each of these goals, and adjust priority if needed.  This is also your best opportunity to feedback info to your boss.  Be sure to bring up what skills you are bringing to the table, what tasks are going really well (and why), and what tasks are going poorly (and why).  Also, this is where you can find out which of your contributions are the most important for the organization.

4) Track your work

This is a good tip for new hires, existing hires, and people that have been at the same company for 25 years.  Tracking your work is paramount to successful annual reviews.  Every company does reviews differently, but most folks have to go through some kind of review process.  These are substantially easier when you have a clear work history clearly showing each of your contributions.

I use a MS Excel sheet in which I log design work, documentation contributions, and new code.  It’s important to track what challenges you run into with each of these logged accomplishments.  It will help jog your memory when reviews come around.

I also find that this work tracker comes in handy when doing future design work.  I constantly find myself wondering, “Didn’t I write a script to do this once upon a time?”  Sure enough, I look up in my work tracker doc and I see a clear history of everything I’ve done (and it’s location on the file server).

Lots of these tips apply to new and old hires alike, but I find them particularly applicable when you have a nice fresh start at a new company.

I’d love to hear what tips you guys have for starting at a new company.  What made your transition easier (or more difficult)?

Related posts:

1. Best Practices for Communication Between Technical Groups
2. Engineers are bad communicators: six ways to fix this (part 1)
3. Best Handoff Practices for Design Teams
4. Should an engineer be an expert in one thing, or ok/good at everything?

Related posts:

1. Double the leads from your current customers: email marketing to engineers by engineers
2. Best Email Practices For Engineers
3. 8 Reasons Engineers Should Spend Their Free Time In The Machine Shop
4. Where is your email address? Contacting industrial suppliers sucks!
5. Online B2B Marketing for Tech Companies – Our Recent Presentation at TechAmerica

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:

1. 12.1″ diagonal size (to be used in PORTRAIT orientation)
2. Operating temperature of at least -30degC to +80degC
3. Wide viewing angle (at least 80/80/80/80)in portrait mode
4. Minimal colour inversion (IPS or FFS technology ideal for this)
5. No image retention even when displaying prolonged static images
6. Capable of delivering >1370cd/m2 to the user’s eye
7. Will be used with LED backlight
8. Pixel response time 20ms (nominally 40ms)
9. Refresh rate 50Hz
10. Red/green contrast ratio of at least 150:1
11. Large area uniformity – within 10% of any fixed point on display area
12. 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.

Related posts:

1. What are all the components of an LCD screen?
2. Engineering Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device-COG Engineering
3. Bond and EMI Shield with same part, FASTELek, an engineering case study from Fastel Adhesives
4. Engineering Case Study: Glue in die cut form-Fastel Adhesives
5. Engineering Case Study: Rapid Product Development-Entrocomponent Solutions (ECS)

Zoho CRM

Highrise CRM (a 37 Signals Product)

Others

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

No related posts.

One of the most difficult engineering processes to nail down is a complex design handoff from one team to another.  Awhile back, I discussed this briefly using a football analogy.  I want to expand on that a little today:

• What makes a handoff so difficult?
• Why does so much information get lost?
• Why do teams inherently place blame on each other when it goes poorly?

Other than the basic communication issues between engineers (that we’ve discussed ad nauseum here, here, and here), there are specific issues with an engineering handoff that make it difficult.

I think the biggest reason, and one I can certainly discuss in a separate blog entry, is the engineer’s extreme aversion to documentation.  Detailing the minutiae of an engineering process ALWAYS feels like overhead, not real work (even though we know how important it is).

Another reason for handoff difficulty is more bureaucratic:  Decisions on the details of the handoff have to occur across two teams.  You can’t have the deliverer and the deliveree disagree on what is coming and at what time.  It needs to be agreed upon, documented, and practiced.

So what can be done to ease the handoff procedure?  I have a few suggestions:

1) Document.  Document.  Document.

At the onset of my professional career, my very first boss told me that the most important, yet most overlooked task that an engineer must tackle is documentation of work.  No one ever documents anything.  When it comes to handing off a design from one group to the next, documenting exactly what is required of that design to move on to the next group is incredibly important.

What is required for the next group to begin their work seamlessly without delay?  The document should spell out any and all specifications in addition to the proposed schedule.  Many times “rolling” or phased handoffs are required for complex work.  In this case, what is required at each phase needs to be clearly laid out in the documenation.  I’m not talking about sending an email out either.  Emails get buried.  There should be a version-controlled repository for all procedural documentation.

2) Error checking

Before the handoff, the validity and completeness of said handoff should have some kind of checking procedure.  This can mean anything from measurements and calculations to custom scripts and software to check that required specs have been satisfied (by “required”, I mean “documented”).

In my experience, the best team to do the checking is the one handing off the design.  Aside from being the most familiar with the state of the design to that point, this team also is in a position to fix/enhance before wasting the time of another team.  It is maddeningly frustrating when a team relies on the future work of successive teams (down the design pipeline) to find problems.  It’s a waste of everyone’s time and defeats the whole purpose of having the handoff in the first place.  Check your work!

3) No more communication should be necessary between the teams

Obviously, this is unrealistic.  I would never suggest that teams shouldn’t talk to each other if issues arise.  But, this should be the goal of writing a handoff procedure.  If all specifications are met, and the handoff documentation is sufficient, the team taking over the design should be able to work without hindrance and without the need to loop back and communicate with the preceding team.  Or, realistically, the loop-back communication should be minimal.  If you find yourself writing a handoff procedure that looks like this:

• Team A releases design to Team B
• Team B runs engineering process X, reports results to Team A
• Team A fixes, then re-releases design to Team B

Well, there is clearly a huge problem here.  This is a horribly inefficient way for engineers to work together.  Perhaps a different handoff point should be established.  Perhaps Team A should just run engineering process X itself.  In any case, procedures like this one are common, but quite often avoidable.

4) Careful with automation

For a lot of applications and designs, there are opportunities to automate sections of the procedure.  I tend to lean towards automating everything.  But, in the context of a handoff procedure, I like to be a little more careful.  Automation is good, so long as details aren’t lost in the shuffle.

One issue I’ve seen is when there are lost design details or data points because the team handing off has automated a large portion of their work (and vice versa when loop-back data is unfortunately necessary).  It’s important that key aspects of the flow are not buried in automated procedure.  Or, at least make your code smart enough to dump out everything (and more) that might be useful to either engineering team.

5) Establish handoff “experts” on each team

If management doesn’t have the time to establish a handoff procedure, they should anoint handoff experts on each team to dig into the details.  These experts would theoretically be responsible for everything I’ve discussed thus far:  documenting specs/schedule of the handoff, developing error checking systems to assure completeness/validity, establishing a robust-enough procedure so wasted communication is minimized, and ensuring key data points and information are not lost in the automation.  This way, you don’t have entire teams fighting over what needs to be done.  Just a few people should be responsible for detailing and maintaining the procedure.

Find Business Development Consultants on Industrial Interface to help with challenges like those discussed in this post.

This was probably an especially boring post for those of you not obsessed with day-to-day procedural BS, but I’d still love to hear your thoughts.  Post a comment if you agree/disagree or have come across any creative handoff techniques.

Related posts:

1. Best Practices for Communication Between Technical Groups
2. Streamlining Design from Concept to Production
3. Best Email Practices For Engineers
4. Industrial Interface, Inc. Focuses Growth on Research, Design, and Manufacturing for the Medical Device Market
5. Why Every Design Engineer Should Have A Surface Finish Scale

Editors note: This is a Case Study from our partner supplier Fastel Adhesives, and here is their Industrial Interface Supplier Profile.

1) Glue in the form of film?

2) Custom Die-Cutting

3) Easy Rework

4) Heat Activated Bonding

About Fastel Adhesives

Find similar suppliers on Industrial Interface:

• Adhesive suppliers
• Film & Foil Suppliers
• Contract Manufacturing Suppliers

Related posts:

1. Bond and EMI Shield with same part, FASTELek, an engineering case study from Fastel Adhesives
2. Printing on heat sealable foils – Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
3. Engineering Case Study: Rapid Product Development-Entrocomponent Solutions (ECS)
4. How do you spec an adhesive? Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
5. Engineering Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device-COG Engineering

Editors note: This is a Case Study from our partner supplier COG Engineering, and here is their Industrial Interface Supplier Profile.

1) Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device?

2) How do engineers choose a technology to move forward with?

3) What to do with catalogs of UV curing equipment and materials?

4) What differentiates one supplier from another?

5) What were the overall results?

About Cog Engineering

Gregg Hallam, Principal Engineer

COG Engineering provides formulated polymers, UV materials, molding, contract manufacturing, assembly tooling and more. We have over 15 years of experience designing, manufacturing, and optimizing medical devices, retail electronics and defense technologies.

Parts & Services: Mitigate ramp up and operation risks with experienced transfer and manufacturing engineering, dynamic injection molding design and production and powerful certified inspection and reverse engineering services.

Industries & Applications: With over 15 years experience designing, manufacturing and optimizing medical devices COG Engineering can help you at any stage of development or production.

Polymers: Designers and manufacturers turn to us for a full array of engineered polymer solutions formulated by two of the country’s most versatile, respected and reliable manufacturers.

Find similar suppliers on Industrial Interface:

• Adhesive suppliers
• UV Services Suppliers
• Contract Manufacturing Suppliers

Related posts:

1. Bond and EMI Shield with same part, FASTELek, an engineering case study from Fastel Adhesives
2. Engineering Case Study: Glue in die cut form-Fastel Adhesives
3. Engineering Case Study: Rapid Product Development-Entrocomponent Solutions (ECS)
4. How do you spec an adhesive? Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
5. Engineering Case Study: How to find a unique LCD screen in 48 hours or less

This is a continuation of the previous post about how to improve communication amongst engineers, their teams, and their managers.

4) Use only one language

It is absolutely maddening when one faction of the group splits off and starts discussing in another language.  Sometimes it is just a comfort thing, other times it’s actively done so some in the room won’t understand what’s said.  It’s borderline unprofessional, in my opinion, to not keep everyone in the room in the loop.  Best rule of thumb is to stick to the most common language in the group while in the workplace, this is usually English at my company.

5) Only use data-driven status reports:

It’s not “done” or “almost done” until reports and results are clean.

“What’s the progress on <fill in the blank>?”  ”Oh, it’s done.  Just waiting for the final report.”  Nope, not done.  Not even close actually. It’s not done if something is still running.  It’s not done if something is finished but the results aren’t clean (can mean a lot of different things, depending on industry).  And, most certainly, it’s not done if engineers are still actively working on it.  I’ve been around cultures where everyone in the organization is claiming their portion is “done”.  It’s toxic.  Here are just some of the effects of not using real, quantifiable data when reporting status:

• Unpredictable schedules.  You can never accurately predict when all the T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted.  In other words, when the work is actually “done”.
• Managers will undoubtedly mis-evaluate their engineers.  How in the hell can a manager be expected to evaluate his talent when half the people are telling him “it’s done”, and the other half are giving him detailed, data analysis reports?  It’s up to the manager to clearly dictate how work status is to be reported, and it should always be strictly data-driven.
• Breeds bad temperament between your engineers.  The engineers that do things right will constantly be annoyed by the ones that vaguely report unclear status.  The ones being vague are trying to make their work look better by not giving clear detail.  The engineers doing things right can at times look worse when the manager’s expectations are unclear.

6) Unite team culture to a single working style

This one is up to the engineering managers.  It’s imperative to have a working style that the organization or team below you willfully adopts.  I’ve been in teams where the culture is split, and in teams where the culture is united.  There is no comparison, the united teams work more efficiently.

When it comes to solving big-time problems that can take months, it’s very important that everyone has similar working styles.  And I don’t just mean what hours people work or what language they speak.  I’m talking about intricate engineering skills:  Is it preferred to write code to solve, or fix things by hand?  Is it preferred to report status with one-line summaries, or multi-paragraph rambles?  Is it preferred to stick to a strict design flow, or do everything ad-hoc?

First and foremost, from a communication perspective, the manager has to set these ground rules in place and get everyone on the same page.  Otherwise, the communication will desolve and no one will be on the same page.  I may devote an entire blog to this topic in the future.

Thoughts on these rules for communicating better?  Any additions?

Related posts:

1. Engineers are bad communicators: six ways to fix this (part 1)
2. Why Engineers Resist Change & 4 Ways To Change Their Minds
3. 10 Ways Engineers Can Improve The Machinability Of Their Parts
4. Finding Better Ways To Pour Coffee
5. Cultivate Innovation: What Companies, Managers, and Engineers Can Do

Awhile back, I posted about “Best Practices for Communicating between Engineers“.  This time around, I wanted to be a little more specific about how basic communication blunders can be avoided.  I’ve seen countless violations of these rules, and they always seem so easy to fix.

1) Don’t email if a phone call saves time

I think this applies to all industries, but I see engineers violate it the most.  Maybe it’s because engineers don’t like talking on the phone, maybe it’s because they don’t like talking period, but some will simply do whatever possible to avoid the quickest route to an answer.  I’ve seen engineers spend half an hour typing up a very complex email, attach drawings, etc, when five minutes on the phone gets a response immediately.

2) Minimize the number of key team members that are off-site

While I do support the occasional phone call, there are issues that are very difficult to tackle when everyone is in a different office.  There are times when everyone needs to be in the same room with a whiteboard.  I find this is especially important for the high-profile, high-pressure projects where everyone is working long hours.  With so much stress, phone calls every hour to try and stay sync’ed up is painstakingly difficult.  It’s also a waste of time to constantly find everyone and get them on the line all at once.

3) Drive meetings/schedules based on action items

I used to think the term “action item” was an overused buzzword that people liked to throw around to sound productive.  Now I swear by it.  If a meeting is necessary, that means work is going to result from it (or, at the very end of a cycle, results from previous work are being reviewed).  The only way to track work and progress is to have clear, actionable goals presented at each meeting.  Then, in the next meeting, you simply go one-by-one through the list, without digressing too much.  Sticking to this framework will certainly increase meeting time efficiency (making them shorter so real work can get done) and ensure that everyone stays on task.

I’m splitting this into two posts, so check for the next one soon…

Related posts:

1. Engineers are bad communicators: 6 ways to fix this, part 2
2. 10 Ways Engineers Can Improve The Machinability Of Their Parts
3. Why Engineers Resist Change & 4 Ways To Change Their Minds
4. Finding Better Ways To Pour Coffee
5. 8 Ways For Salespeople To Get The First Call From An Engineer Every Time

Are engineers good at fixing things?  Or, more specifically, do the skills acquired from en engineering degree / engineering job lend themselves to the basic household issues that always seem to pop up?  The reason I pose the question is that I’m often asked, “Why don’t you know how to fix a leaky faucet, you’re an engineer?”  Or, since many of my acquaintances know the discipline in which I received my degree (Electrical Engineering), the question might be, “Why don’t you know how to install a new overhead light?”  My responses are always short and to the point: “I don’t know because I was never taught,” and the questioner always walks away decidedly unimpressed.

I draw two main conclusions from these mock conversations:

1) The majority of folks really don’t know what engineers learn.

I once told a mutual acquaintance that I am an electrical engineer.  He asked what it was I worked on, and I told him I’m in semiconductors and I do physical silicon layout design.  He asked if I went to a trade school for that.  To him, the difference (and I am NOT judging here) between one with an electrician’s license and one who works on microchips was cloudy.  It’s not that he thinks they’re the same, it’s not that he thinks they’re different.  He simply had no idea how to differentiate the day-to-day tasks of an “electrician” and “electrical engineer”.

I’m certain mechanical engineers have run into similar conversations as well (please post them in the comments section, as I’d love to hear stories).  It doesn’t stop there though.  I’m betting chemists are confused with chemical engineers, architects with structural and civil engineers, computer repairmen confused with computer engineers, and so on and so on.  The harm I see here is that the majority of folks in US don’t have the slightest clue how technology advances, and further, what kind of education it takes to train the people responsible for this advancement.  And worse yet, I’m concerned they don’t care.

2) While there are no doubt millions of engineers who can re-wire a house or fix a leaky faucet, these skills were not acquired in college.

Again, I’ll use myself as an example.  Ask my wife. I am terrible around the house.  Our kitchen faucet was leaking for awhile before a contractor was in our house for an unrelated estimate.  He noticed the faucet, asked for a wrench, and it was done in 20 seconds.  I think we are forever destined to purchase new homes because I’m not going to be “fixing up” anything.  Is every engineer incapable of basic household work?  Of course not.  I’m not even saying that engineers are less likely to be good at this than the average person.  My only point is being an engineer, at least for me, has not increased my ability one bit to fix things around the house.  I can lecture on how a device the size of a human hair is capable of conducting and pinching off current.  (It’s based on quantum physical behavior of electrons in the semiconductor lattice.)  But, I am unlikely to do much electrical work inside my house short of resetting the circuit breaker.

Does this make me pathetic/not smart?  In some ways, definitely.  I constantly think of this as a deficiency in my personal character.  But, it doesn’t make me any worse at my job.  The counter-argument would be that if I had more “common sense”, I’d be a better problem solver at work.  The truth is, I am constantly coming up with creative ways to solve intricate, complicated issues.  I can claim that I’m very good at “fixing things”.  That’s what being an engineer is all about.  I just happen to be really bad at fixing things in my house.

I’d love to hear all your thoughts on this in the comments section.  Has anyone noticed their engineering skill lead to greater skills around the house?

Related posts:

1. Engineers are bad communicators: 6 ways to fix this, part 2
2. Cultivate Innovation: What Companies, Managers, and Engineers Can Do
3. Engineers are bad communicators: six ways to fix this (part 1)
4. Industrial trade magazines and online content for engineers and designers
5. Why purchasing agents and engineers hate each other! (Guest Post)

Hydrofoil Sailboats are one of the most impressive watersports out there!  There are not many sailboats that can go faster than the wind.  C-Class Catamarans are a very open class of Sailboat Racing with only a few limitations (same hull used on both sides, a width and length limitation).  Other than that, it is completely up to the designers.  Materials, weight, and sails are un-regulated.

It’s no wonder that the sport is ruled by Aerospace Engineers.  Engineers who sail in their spare time have become Sailors with engineering backgrounds!  These boats can go over twice the speed of the wind that is present and can cut further upwind than almost any other class of sailboat because of their fixed wing sail.  It’s not a sail the way that most people think of sails.  It’s a lightweight rigid Polymer sail.

A few more links:

• New York Yacht Club
• Gizmodo Article on C-Class Sailboats
• (pic from courtesy Foils.org.)

Tell us about the cool hobby that you do in your spare time.  When are you going to go from the Engineer who races off road to the Racer driver with an engineering background, or from the Engineer who kiteboards to the Kiteboarder with an Engineering background?  I would love to hear about you following your passions and making them a lifestyle.

Related posts:

1. Sustainable Energy: Best. Infographic. Ever.

One of the most important features of Industrial Interface is the ease with which a sourcing need can be passed around our network of suppliers and engineers.  This makes it easy for your design application to reach people with relevant experience who can help.  Why is this so important?

Sharing your project mimics what happens right now, but in a really efficient way.  When you want to talk to another engineer about your application, or a new supplier, you have to start fresh in the conversation. This means describing your application, then the technical specs, and all the special requirements that go along with it.

Manage sourcing needs

What’s nice about managing your sourcing needs through Industrial Interface is that you only have to communicate this information once. Post the details of your application and then every person who you share it with has all the information they need to help you out. No more repeating yourself on the phone, and answering the same basic questions over and over. You can even add files: drawing, pictures, spec sheets, etc… You have a complete description of what you are looking for, or what you are trying to do.

Network effect

The real benefit of sharing projects happens once your application is introduced to our supplier community. Now dozens of relevant suppliers can quickly review it.  If they sell what you need they can reach out and help. If they don’t, then they can easily share it with more experts who can.

The beauty of this community is the experience and knowledge that technical salespeople have regarding their products and services.  They don’t simply sell products. They are consultants to their customers, helping them apply their products in innovative ways. They know their product lines and they know their competitors’ product lines.

Who hasn’t, at one time or another, called a supplier they have worked with successfully in the past and asked them for help finding something you know they don’t sell?  Everyone has. Industrial Interface just makes this easier.

Share your project

So next time you post a project to our system, give it a kick start by sharing your need with a few suppliers that you have worked successfully with in the past.  Or if you have a few suppliers who may sell what you need, post your need once to Industrial Interface and then send them a link.  I guarantee it will save you needless calls to people who don’t have the parts you are looking for, and will get you on the phone with the right people much faster.

Related posts:

1. What happens after a engineering project is posted?
2. Share this Project! How our users are finding more efficient ways to use IndustrialInterface.com.
3. Help suppliers help you by posting complete project details to Industrial Interface
4. IndustrialInterface.com Automates Industrial Sourcing, Allows Engineers to Focus Efforts on Their Designs.
5. Making our suppliers more accessible to engineers

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

Related posts:

1. Tap the network by sharing your project
2. Help suppliers help you by posting complete project details to Industrial Interface
3. Share this Project! How our users are finding more efficient ways to use IndustrialInterface.com.
4. Unlimited engineering leads with our Standard Supplier Account
5. Engineering Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device-COG Engineering

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?

Related posts:

1. Top 10 Features of Globalspec, Good & Bad (Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part II)
2. Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part I: A Multi-Post Review
3. Industrial trade magazines and online content for engineers and designers
4. Making our suppliers more accessible to engineers
5. Industrial Interface, Inc. Launches its New Online B2B Service for Engineers and Salespeople in the Manufacturing Industry

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…

Related posts:

1. New directories for engineers and suppliers
2. How our suppliers get found via a detailed profile
3. How do engineers and buyers currently find products and services online?
4. Help suppliers help you by posting complete project details to Industrial Interface
5. Where is your email address? Contacting industrial suppliers sucks!

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

Related posts:

1. A blog for Industrial Interface
2. Where is your email address? Contacting industrial suppliers sucks!
3. Industrial Interface, Inc. Continues Growth of its Core Business, Connecting Engineers with Experienced Salespeople in the Industrial Research, Design, and Manufacturing Market
4. Making our suppliers more accessible to engineers
5. New directories for engineers and suppliers

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?

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Related posts:

1. Double the leads from your current customers: email marketing to engineers by engineers
2. Product lifecycle management (PLM) software covered by Manufacturing Business Technology Magazine
3. Industrial Interface, Inc. Continues Growth of its Core Business, Connecting Engineers with Experienced Salespeople in the Industrial Research, Design, and Manufacturing Market
4. How to leave an indelible impression on customers. Apple’s adjective-only keynote.
5. How our suppliers get found via a detailed profile

This post is meant for Technical Suppliers looking for more leads from engineers.  Data and pricing are accurate as of July 2010.  Call for details: 858-633-8158.

Industrial Interface is the number one source for qualified engineering leads posted by engineers who need to buy right now. We’ve always offered these leads at flat fee of $50 each. This is great for supplier firms or OEMs that only offer a few niche products. In contrast, Manufacturer Rep Groups, Supplier Firms, Larger OEMs and other firms that offer a broad array of products and services benefit from our monthly subscription plan offering unlimited access to leads that match their profile.

Here’s what happening

1. Over 1,500 industrial manufacturers, OEMs, and supplier firms are already represented on Industrial Interface.
2. Engineers at hundreds of manufacturing companies are using Industrial Interface to source solutions for their designs.
3. The average project posted by engineers is worth $100,000 annually for suppliers. That’s good business!

Standard Supplier Account (monthly subscription)

Our price for subscriptions is $100/month with a minimum of 3-months and no maximum (discounts are available for 6 and 12 month packages).  So what do you get with a subscription?

Unlimited access to leads: You will have the ability to see the contact information for every project in Industrial Interface.  No more thinking to yourself, “I’d like to contact that guy, but I need some more details before ponying up $50.”

Automatic notification of leads: With a completed supplier profile and a standard supplier account, our system will automatically notify you of all projects that are relevant to your business based on the information you enter into your profile.  You can also login and browse all the leads in the product categories you represent.

Ratings and review: We want suppliers to spend time working with engineers who want to work with them.  To ensure this, engineers rate their interactions with you and we track who you contact.  If you SPAM engineers or don’t sell anything close to what they are looking for, you can be kicked off of Industrial Interface.  We don’t want to waste anyone’s time, and I think we’ve all made enough cold calls in our life anyway!

Our Guarantee

We’ve been working hard to develop partnerships that bring more valuable engineering projects to our system, and we’ve seen huge success. We are so sure that you will see a favorable ROI on this investment that we are offering 6-months free if you are unsatisfied after a 6-month trial.

Get more qualified leads from Industrial Interface.  If you are new to Industrial Interface, there may be discounts available. Contact me directly to sign up: powell@industrialinterface.com or 858-633-8158.

Related posts:

1. Top 7 SEO tips to generate more engineering leads
2. Double the leads from your current customers: email marketing to engineers by engineers
3. Top 10 features to get more leads from your industrial website
4. Top 10 Features of Globalspec, Good & Bad (Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part II)
5. Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part I: A Multi-Post Review

This post is meant for all the Technical Salespeople who want more business from engineers.

The job of an engineer is to solve complex design problems.  As part of the solution, they are often tasked with finding the right supplier who has the product or service that solves a portion of the problem.  This process usually involves:  (1) Research on what technologies are available and (2) Testing different solutions that they have found from vendors.  This process is where the Engineer can save the most money and make design decisions that make or break a product.

As a salesperson, your job is to make sure that Engineers contact you at the R&D stage so that your solution is tested.  Easier said than done!  Most OEM Representatives have more products than their customers realize, and most Manufacturer’s Representatives have 5 or 10 OEM lines that they represent.  So, how do you make sure that Engineers test your products or services?  Below, I have outlined 5 ways to get more leads and more business from engineers that are looking for you right now!

Become every Engineer’s favorite Salesperson

I wrote a previous blog discussing why Engineers call salespeople before they google and it will help you maximize the business that you get from the Engineers that you meet with face to face. Once you have gained rapport with them, turn your customers into your salespeople by asking for referrals.

Have a kick ass marketing team

In order to bring in new leads, you need to have some great visibility. Engineers need to be able to find you. Sign up for a free account on every website Engineers treat as a resource, exhibit at the trade shows that have the best foot traffic, and establish good relationships with your principals. Here is a list of some of the national Engineering Resources we have found. If you know of any others, let us know by adding a comment. Don’t forget to sign up for a free supplier account on Industrial Interface too, and learn why an Industrial Interface account is important here.

Create a great website

I’m not talking about making a really pretty website with awesome Flash and graphics. I’m talking about really interesting content that Engineers enjoy and learn from. Make your site a resource about the applications your company helps solve, not just a list of product sku’s. If you do this, engineers will bookmark your website and treat you as the authoritative expert in the field.  Here are two websites that have done this really well:

- 3M Vikuiti Film: By far the best web resource out there on how LCD tvs work and why 3Ms films are so important when it comes to getting the desired display qualities.

-AQS Contract Manufacturing: The most complete glossary out there on Electronic Manufacturing acronyms.  Boy are there a ton!  It’s like learning a different language.

Post your favorite supplier websites to the comments.  We are thinking about highlighting one supplier website every month and would love your input.

Email all of your contacts

Every salesperson knows that they are not capturing 100% of the business they should from the contacts in their database.  The key here is make sure that you stay in front of your customers and targets with email marketing.  You have an extraordinary amount of knowledge that engineers are looking for.  They are not going to be upset by you teaching them something relevant about their jobs.  Check out our Email Marketing to Engineers by Engineers post for more information about how to get your email marketing efforts off the ground.

If you follow these four tips, you will increase your exposure and, consequently, the number of quality leads you get.  I am always willing to help, so please feel free to contact me with questions: powell@industrialinterface.com or 858-633-8158.

Related posts:

1. Double the leads from your current customers: email marketing to engineers by engineers
2. 5 Reasons Engineers Call Sales Reps Before They Google
3. Free Webinar Series: Email Marketing to Engineers
4. You are missing business from your current customers so try our Partnership Landing Page
5. Industrial Interface, Inc. Continues Growth of its Core Business, Connecting Engineers with Experienced Salespeople in the Industrial Research, Design, and Manufacturing Market

This post is meant for all the Technical Salespeople using Industrial Interface.

If you’re involved with industrial B2B sales and have not earned business from an Industrial Interface lead, then you are missing out!  In this post I want to teach you how to maximize the likelihood of winning business from the hundreds of engineering and manufacturing firms using Industrial Interface.

Getting noticed

Suppliers with complete Industrial Interface profiles receive emails notifying them when relevant business opportunities have been posted to Industrial Interface.  If you have not completed your profile, you are missing out on business leads coming through our site, and we have no way to let you know.  It’s free to sign up, so if you haven’t already, sign up now and complete your profile!  Within 10 minutes you will be viewing dozens of relevant business opportunities related to the products and services you offer, and you’ll be helping our engineers do their jobs more efficiently.

See an example of a complete profile from David Stewart of Apex Machine Tool below:

Personal Bio

Think of this as the place to brag about yourself and why you are the best person to help Engineers. They view your bio as a way to relate to you on a personal level.  Use this field to quickly establish rapport with an Engineer.

Product Categories

Check all of the different major categories of products you sell.  The categories you select will help us to figure out what type of projects you are interested in seeing.  Keep the deals related to you by just selecting the categories of products and services that are home run applications for you, or where you know enough to share these projects with other suppliers who can help.

Sales Region

We know that you only receive credit for sales in your territories, but that different products often have different territories.  Choose all of the regions in which you represent at least one product.  This will ensure you don’t miss out on any potential applications.

Companies you work for or represent

If you are a direct OEM representative, you will probably only list one company here.  If you are a manufacturer’s representative, list your rep organization as well as all of the companies that you are a representative for.  Industrial Interface is the only site that tracks this information and it’s an extremely valuable aspect of your supplier profile.

Product Keywords

This is one of the most important fields.  Make this field as complete as possible, but only list the products that you directly represent.  If you represent a company that does custom cables, but sometimes you buy power sources and wire them, DO NOT put power sources here.  You will receive projects of engineers who are looking for power sources.  Keep this field directly to the keywords of products that are your specialty.

Service Keywords

Many of the projects that come through Industrial Interface require a custom service of some sort.  Die-cutting, Assembly, Design, and Injection Molding are just a few of the more popular services that Engineers look for on our site.  Once again, focus on the services that you perform internally.  Tell us what your core competencies are, not the stuff that you farm out to other manufacturers.

Certifications

Tell us all the certifications that your company has paid thousands of dollars to get.  When a big aerospace company posts a project, they require AS9100 certifications.  If you have this certification, and don’t list it here, you won’t see their project.

Website

Put your website here.  If your company does not have a website, please contact us about how we can get a partner landing page up for you: powell@industrialinterface.com or 858.633.8158

Your picture

Show off that gorgeous mug of yours and make your profile more personal by adding a photo.

Other profile information

These can be accessed at the bottom of the edit profile page.

Upload Files – The more files you upload to our site, the better your profile will be ranked by google and the more engineers will find you.  Case Studies, Product data sheets, catalogs, linecards, and other information in formats including: .doc .xls .ppt .pdf or .txt can be indexed to complete your profile.  These files can be downloaded by Engineers.

My Account – This is where you can change any of your personal information associated with your account.

What Next?

Now that you have completed your Industrial Interface supplier account, get excited to buy some leads and win some new business.  We are excited to help grow your business and are always excited to hear from our users with suggestions on how to make the supplier profile even more complete.

From time to time we write blog posts that promote suppliers with complete and detailed profiles to all of the engineers that visit Industrial Interface.  The first step to getting this honor is to complete your profile in as much detail as you can. Contact me with any questions at powell@industrialinterface.com and leave your profile link in the comments to enter the Supplier of the Year contest.

Related posts:

1. Making our suppliers more accessible to engineers
2. New directories for engineers and suppliers
3. Help suppliers help you by posting complete project details to Industrial Interface
4. Where is your email address? Contacting industrial suppliers sucks!
5. Unlimited engineering leads with our Standard Supplier Account

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.

Related posts:

1. Free Webinar Series: Email Marketing to Engineers
2. You are missing business from your current customers so try our Partnership Landing Page
3. Best Email Practices For Engineers
4. Unlimited engineering leads with our Standard Supplier Account
5. Top 10 features to get more leads from your industrial website

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.

Related posts:

1. An engineering toolbar full of useful design resources.
2. Tools explained (funny)
3. @Help4Engineers: Useful Resources and Interesting Information for Engineers on Twitter
4. Innovative Engineering–Years of Intense Study and Engineering Experience
5. Share Interesting Resources, Technologies, Websites, Blogs, Articles, News …

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.

Related posts:

1. Search 30 million technical journal articles. Read any of them for $0.99.
2. 10 Ways Engineers Can Improve The Machinability Of Their Parts
3. Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part I: A Multi-Post Review
4. Top 10 Features of Globalspec, Good & Bad (Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part II)
5. Industrial Interface, Inc. Continues Growth of its Core Business, Connecting Engineers with Experienced Salespeople in the Industrial Research, Design, and Manufacturing Market

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

Related posts:

1. Industrial Interface, Inc. Launches its New Online B2B Service for Engineers and Salespeople in the Manufacturing Industry
2. Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part I: A Multi-Post Review
3. Top 10 Features of Globalspec, Good & Bad (Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part II)
4. How do engineers and buyers currently find products and services online?
5. Industrial Interface, Inc. Continues Growth of its Core Business, Connecting Engineers with Experienced Salespeople in the Industrial Research, Design, and Manufacturing Market

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.

Related posts:

1. Engineering Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device-COG Engineering
2. Printing on heat sealable foils – Engineering case study from Entrocomponent Solutions
3. What happens after a engineering project is posted?
4. Electrical Engineering Blog – Guest Post
5. Innovative Engineering–Years of Intense Study and Engineering Experience

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.

Related posts:

1. Industrial parts search on steroids
2. Best Practices for Communication Between Technical Groups
3. Share Interesting Resources, Technologies, Websites, Blogs, Articles, News …
4. Engineering fundamentals, resources, tools, calculators, forums and more
5. Industrial trade magazines and online content for engineers and designers

During my first few months as an engineer out of college I designed an assembly that would allow me to tighten a knurled nut, increase friction between multiple surfaces, and ultimately regulate the torque applied between a motor and a shaft.  I spent weeks iterating this design and probably a few thousand dollars in machining time before I realized I could buy what I needed for a few hundred dollars from dozens of companies within 50 miles of my plant.

If this hadn’t also been a learning experience, would this have been a dumb thing to do?  I’m a little more versed in available products now, so finding a simple clutch mechanism would be a no brainer, right?  Actually, I think the answer to both of these questions is an emphatic NO.

Engineering applications are so complex and so varied that industrial products have to come in thousands of variations to satisfy even the most basic set of circumstances.  That clutch could be made of hundreds of different materials, be designed for shafts varying from 1/32″ to a few feet, need to be electrically insulating (or conductive), work in snow and ice, work in dusty environments, maintain the same torque at 1 rpm or 500,000 rpm, among hundreds of other specs.  Beyond that, the number of basic clutch designs could fill a catalog on their own.

The Problem

When engineers tackle applications that are outside their past experience, they aren’t going to know what products to use or what’s even available.  Often, they don’t even know where to start looking.  I once spent weeks searching for a machine that would let me mix water with detergent at a ratio of 1:200±5.  Once I figured out what it was called, and who sold them, it turned out there were dozens on the market.

The initial research was not useful and was hardly educational.  It was time wasted finding an obscure product that I’ll never need again.   This is common in R&D.

In both the stories above, I found myself repeating my problem over and over again-on the phone to inside sales people and outside sales engineers, to other engineers in my office and to my manager, to the maintenance guys and the machinists.  Eventually the collaboration of all these people offering their input resulted in me finding what I needed.

The Industrial Interface Solution

The effectiveness of this collaboration is one of the major reasons we built Industrial Interface.  The point is that little gets done in manufacturing without a handful (if not dozens) of minds working together–engineers, purchasers, managers, machinists, suppliers, and others.  Why continue to have the same conversation over and over again?  This is why we have created a way for engineers, purchasers, maintenance, an others to create a Sourcing Profile and easily share it with dozens of relevant suppliers.

What we didn’t realize was how much our users would be leveraging this feature themselves to communicate with colleagues.  We had thought this was mostly a buyer to supplier relationship, but it’s not, and our customers are showing us this.  Once a Sourcing Profile is created, our users are sharing it with anyone who can help move their project forward, be it colleagues or suppliers.

How Does It Work?

Industrial Interface let’s you post all the details of a sourcing need or design problem.  You can outline the problem, lay out design specs, list required supplier certifications, volumes, lead times, etc… Then you have a Sourcing Profile that you can send along to colleagues and suppliers with the click of a button.  Hit “Share this Lead” enter a few email addresses, and you’re off and running.

In the mean time, Industrial Interface’s proprietary software identifies relevant suppliers and also shares your project with them… so you don’t have to.  You don’t even need to be aware that they exist.  You remain anonymous through this process until these suppliers create accounts on our system, get approved, and pay to contact you.  That’s how we ensure you only get contacted by relevant suppliers who can act as a technical resource.

Right now we’ve reduced weeks of sourcing to a few days, and are seeing engineers find the right suppliers within 10 minutes sometimes.  As our system grows, and more engineers and suppliers are using it, we hope to find our users working together in real time.  Wouldn’t that be a great change?

An Example from our System

How do you most effectively find industrial products and services?

Related posts:

1. Finding Better Ways To Pour Coffee
2. IndustrialInterface.com Automates Industrial Sourcing, Allows Engineers to Focus Efforts on Their Designs.
3. Tap the network by sharing your project
4. What happens after a engineering project is posted?
5. Efficient 3D CAD Manipulation and Improved Ergonomics

Robotbox is a site to share and collaborate on do-it-yourself robotics projects. I know there are a lot of engineers out there who have half completed projects sitting in a box in the basement or garage.

Check out the top rated projects already in the system.

Robotbox lets you manage robotics projects you are working on, parts involved with these designs, time spent working, money spent, and various other characteristics of your robotics project. You can upload pictures and videos and describe your projects in detail.  The site doesn’t yet let you track every step of your project, but allows for a great report on the project’s current status.

The site allows you to follow, and collaborate with, other engineers on their projects. You can update your status with a convenient twitter like ‘status’ bar on the home page and post blog articles (called build logs) to discuss your projects or design problems/successes you are having.

A useful and unique feature of the website is the ability to add parts to the site’s database. These can be original parts you’ve designed or parts that went into your project that you think will help others in the community. This allows the group to recommend common and obscure parts that could benefit everyone in their DIY robotics projects.

This seems like a great start to a social community for DIY robotics projects. Putting your homemade robots in a box in the basement is sad. Pull them out, dust them off, get them running again, and take some pictures. Putting your projects up on Robotbox is good for everyone. Maybe you’ll be inspired to finish up an old robot.

Related posts:

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

A few months ago, I decided to try out a little gadget that a friend had told me about called the Pulse Pen by livescribe.  Spending $150 on a pen was a little difficult to swallow, but I soon found myself wondering how I lived without it.

The pen works using micro-dot paper, a voice recorder, and a small camera at the tip of the pen.  It records up to 200hrs of writing and audio for the conversations you are taking notes on.  You can then share the video online with anyone and they can print pdf copies of the notes.

The pen is perfect for catching tidbits of information from customers and being able to have a record of exactly what was said by who in the correct context.  This has been helpful to establish customer testimonials, review how something was phrased just perfectly, and to educate people who could not attend a meeting on exactly what happened.

Once the notes are uploaded to the website, you can actually click anywhere and start listening to the conversation as it played out while the notes were being taken.  It’s really difficult to do this pen justice without being able to demo it live.

If you are an engineer, imagine being able to draw out your design with voice-over, then share it with colleagues/suppliers!  If you are a student, imagine being able to record all of your class notes and share them with others!  Anyone who has ever wondered, “What did she say before that was so insightful,” needs one of these.  It will change the way you attend meetings and will make you better at your job or school.

Related posts:

1. How to leave an indelible impression on customers. Apple’s adjective-only keynote.

These holes full of rubble would sure slow me down on the expressway, even if they are a little bit aggressive as a speed deterent.  If you hit one of these at more than a a few miles per hour, you would risk breaking an axle, or at least blowing out a few tires.

Fortunately, these pot-holes are simply 2D images, printed by engineers in Eastern Canada, and placed in areas where speeding is a problem.  Not a long term solution, but probably a good way to convince people that the highway authority is at least quick to repair damage on the roads.

This is a great implementation of simple design.

Related posts:

1. Dubai’s Technosphere is HUGE
2. Making our suppliers more accessible to engineers
3. Double the leads from your current customers: email marketing to engineers by engineers
4. @Help4Engineers: Useful Resources and Interesting Information for Engineers on Twitter
5. 10 Reasons Engineers Hate The Phone

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.”

Related posts:

1. Engineer creates own heart valve to save his life
2. Search 30 million technical journal articles. Read any of them for $0.99.

I took a trip to Houston recently for a friend’s wedding.  While there, he gave me a pretty extensive tour of NASA’s facilities.  We saw three things that really surprised me.

The first was a complete and original Saturn V rocket that was never launched.  It was housed in it’s own location where any visitor could get almost close enough to climb inside.  The immensity of this vehicle was shocking.  Seeing the various stages pulled apart, however, induced the most interesting realization.  Except for a tiny crew capsule, a little bit of wiring, pumps, and some fuel lines, the entire vehicle is just fuel tanks.

The next stop was at a full size mockup of the Space Shuttle Orbiter.  I could not believe how big the orbiter was and was shocked to see two partial full-size mockups under one roof.  The orbiter, without wings, was roughly the size of a small house, and these units are simply one piece of US astronaut training.  In total, the various orbiters have been launched into space over 130 times.  That’s like sending an entire neighborhood into orbit.

A little further down the way in the same facility, NASA houses a full size mockup of every habitable module of the International Space Station, also used for training.  This was equally impressive in scope.  The station is so large that the Space Shuttle Orbiter regularly docks there.  Additionally, it always has a Soyuz capsule as an emergency escape vehicle and can have up to two more spacecraft docked at any given time.

So I started wondering how big it really is.  The mockup at NASA didn’t have main support structures of the station and lacked any of the solar arrays.  The station is 73 meters long (240ft), 108.5 meters wide (356ft), 20 meters tall (66ft), and weighs 344,378 kg (759,224 lb).  Scale drawings nearby made it look big, and the numbers were big, but I couldn’t really visualize it.  When I realized the station was roughly the size of an NFL football field, I decided I had to make the image below.

(View Hi-Res here on Flickr)

The International Space Station is not going to be mistaken for a small moon, but seeing it hovering over a professional stadium (Lambeau Field) is still pretty damn impressive.

Related posts:

1. Ride to the Edge of Space in a U2 Spy Plane
2. Toshiba sends a chair to the edge of space to market its new Regva SV TVs

courtesy: David Yanko of Virtual Saskatchewan

This blog is about “finding better ways to pour coffee.”  At the risk of sounding like a bureaucratically-generated cliche, it’s a little like a more focused “think outside the box,” which I hate.  Allow me to explain what I mean, starting with a quick story.

A few years ago, I walked into my office break room.  It was early morning and the first pot of coffee was brewing.  The coffee pot was about one-third full, so we had a few more minutes before it was finished.  My eyes were still glazed over as my brain had not been woken up by the usual caffeine jolt that it requires.  It was then that I noticed a co-worker holding his mug underneath the coffee maker spout, directly receiving the brewed coffee.  Not a big deal, I thought, he’s just bypassing the temporary holding pot and putting the freshly brewed coffee one step closer to his stomach.  Lots of people do this.  But then, in an effort to get that caffeine nectar even more quickly, he took the one-third full coffee pot and began pouring it into his mug.

At this point, he’s filling his mug from two sources simultaneously.  This took a bit of dexterity, as it is a bit difficult to position the pot at the appropriate pouring angle while still keeping the receiving mug underneath the still-brewing spout.  My co-worker had mastered the technique, and he was sipping our cheap, crappy office coffee in no time.  I chuckled/marvelled at the maneuver, and had to ask when he got so impatient that he needed his coffee so quickly.  He laughed, and told me that a former employee at the company had shown him the trick long ago.  Whenever he got to the pot before the coffee was done brewing, he applied his learned skill and reaped the oh-so-important benefit of getting caffeine as early as humanly possible.

At the time, I thought nothing of it.  Other than replicating the technique myself, it didn’t cross my mind until recently during an interview.  While interviewing prospective candidates, I often ask simple questions just to get the ball rolling, i.e. – What have you done at your current job that you are most proud of?  For engineers, what have you implemented that has been universally adopted by the company?  Suddenly, the coffee pouring jumped into my head.  It occurred to me:  I need innovative coffee pourers.  Not only do I need innovative coffee pourers, but I need someone who most efficiently pours the coffee.

The point here, and I think this applies not only to engineers but to all professions, high-skill jobs demand complex problem solving.  Finding the most creative problem solvers is paramount to leveraging the most competitive advantage in the marketplace.  Back in college at the quarterly job fairs, a very successful software company was a frequent visitor.  They were looking for the best and brightest programmers, but you would never have guessed it from their 1-on-1 evaluations.  They handed each prospective candidate a packet that closely resembled an IQ test.  There wasn’t one question about C++ syntax, or any questions on algorithms, or even your quintessential programming problems (write a function to evaluate factorials using recursion).  Each question was a brain teaser, riddle, or trick question (three men are on one side of the river, and they all need to get across).  The goal was to find the candidates that came up with the best, most innovative solutions.  Year after year, this company pulled the brightest kids out of my school.

Now, I would never advocate that you simply hand a candidate some riddles and choose based on the responses alone.  The example is well-suited for fresh hires right out of college where the employer can evaluate GPAs, professor recommendations, graduate research, publications, etc.  And, I’m certain the follow-up interviews would be purely technical.  What I am saying is that hiring managers should place a lot of emphasis on how candidates attack and ultimately solve technical problems.  You may just find someone that pours coffee better than everyone else.

What kinds of unusual solutions have you run into in your day-to-day work?  I’m really interested in hearing the fun, mundane office-life innovations that people have discovered.  I’d love to hear more “coffee pot” stories!

Related posts:

1. Share this Project! How our users are finding more efficient ways to use IndustrialInterface.com.
2. Engineers are bad communicators: six ways to fix this (part 1)
3. Top Ten Ways Being An Engineer Improves Your Daily Routine
4. Engineers are bad communicators: 6 ways to fix this, part 2
5. 8 Ways For Salespeople To Get The First Call From An Engineer Every Time

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.

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.

Related posts:

1. Industrial Interface, Inc. Focuses Growth on Research, Design, and Manufacturing for the Medical Device Market
2. Industrial Interface, Inc. Continues Growth of its Core Business, Connecting Engineers with Experienced Salespeople in the Industrial Research, Design, and Manufacturing Market
3. Best Handoff Practices for Design Teams
4. An engineering toolbar full of useful design resources.
5. Why Every Design Engineer Should Have A Surface Finish Scale

Working with others is easy for some, difficult for others.  Engineers, in particular, often have a difficult time communicating clearly.  For many firms, the end goal (a finished product) isn’t finished until many, many engineers get their hands on the design.  Naturally, in the corporate world, this mandates that teams of technical gurus are created under the glorious umbrella of hierarchical chain of command.

Aside:  The standard corporate structure is assessed and subsequently destroyed by Paul Graham here.

How these groups of engineers interact with one another has a direct impact on the success of the design.  Schedules are either hit or missed.  Product features are achieved or abandoned.  New design techniques are developed or left by the wayside.  Companies that smoothly navigate the group to group design flow are the most successful in driving products to market quickly and efficiently.

So, what can engineers and managers do to avoid the usual pitfalls and ensure an efficient, clean design process?

1. Play Nice!
This seems so simple, but it can be difficult for some under pressure and stress.  In my experience, most people are friendly and polite within their own teams.  It’s the communication with other teams that becomes strained.  Most often – and this is a theme throughout this blog – the nasty attitudes occur when teams blame one another for mistakes and schedule slips.

The solution is as simple as the problem:  Be honest and direct with a nice attitude when working with other teams.  It goes a long way, particularly when upper management is deciding which teams should be around for the next project.  A history of working well together is good for everyone involved.

2. Honesty is the Best Policy
Front-line managers will rarely accept blame on their teams when designs go awry.  Protecting the team’s best interest is part of the job description for managers.  But, as updates filter up and down the chain of command, rumors swirl, and engineers doing the lion’s share of the technical work naturally get nervous.  The defensive tactics of front-line managers, coupled with inefficient (borderline faulty) communication between managers and executives, indirectly leads to angst between the engineering groups.  Needless to say, this is toxic.

The lifeblood of the company depends squarely on products getting out the door.  When groups don’t trust each other, work suffers.  The solution to this depends on two groups:  the front-line managers and the upper management to which they report.

It is imperative that honesty – even the bad news – is demanded up the chain of command.  For VP’s who know their stuff, this isn’t as big an issue.  Their “BS” meters go nuts when managers are less than truthful.  Nevertheless, the company will never iteratively improve it’s design flow if the problems are not clearly reported.  Promoting from within and maintaining a low-level of management turnover really helps here.

3. What Time is it Over There?
There are definitely advantages to having multiple engineering sites.  Most importantly, you tap different talent bases around the world.  Other advantages include reducing cost in less expensive regions, new business relationships to foster, and getting access to the world’s top research universities.  For these reasons, it is inevitable that large firms will distribute their technical expertise all over the world.  Further, modern networking techniques can make 3000 miles seem like a few feet.

However, there is no substitute for working in the same office with others.  There is nothing easier than walking over to someone’s cube and drawing on a whiteboard to solve complex issues.  Email and conference calls are decidedly less effective.  Time differences can cause massive headaches communicating between sites as well.  For these reasons, it is much better to keep entire design cycles in the same building.  Teams learn what is needed from each other to get things done.  Most importantly, though, is the sense of camaraderie that the engineers share in the same building.  Everyone feels like they’re in the same boat, fighting the same fight.  This will absolutely reduce schedule slips and design mistakes.

4. Handoff that Pigskin!
Allow me to digress with a brief football analogy.  Let’s consider a very simple football play:  the quarterback hands the ball to the running back for a rush up the middle.  For this play to occur without a hitch, the quarterback must successfully hand the ball to the running back without dropping the ball, and without the running back breaking stride.  From the earliest of pee-wee football leagues, it is taught that the quarterback is responsible for securely placing the ball where it needs to go.  In other words, the person handing off the responsibility to the next must make sure everything is perfect, where it needs to be.

That’s not to say the person receiving the ball does not have responsibilities.  Football strategics have preached a “design flow” for these plays.  The running back must have his shoulders even with his knees, his inside arm at his shoulder level parallel to the ground, and his outside arm below this at his mid-section – this forms a perfect pocket for which the handoff can occur.  If the running back does not have this pocket well-defined, the handoff will be a failure.  If the quarterback doesn’t put the ball where it needs to be, the handoff will be a failure.  And remember, this is just the start of the play.  The running back has to worry about 300-lb defenders ready to tackle him to the ground the second he receives that football.  If the handoff is unsuccessful, the play is dead before it even got started.

It should be semi-clear how this applies to engineering groups, even for those readers not familiar with football minutiae.  Handoff points are the most important aspect of any interaction between design groups.  First of all, it must be very well-defined what is required from the team that is doing the “handing off”.  Whether it is a design spec, constraints, drawings for manufacturing, marketing requirements for future design, parts and services that must be acquired, shipping addresses, etc etc.  It is up to company management to clearly define WHAT is required, WHO requires it, and WHEN it must be delivered.

Companies that have what I call “gray area” handoffs suffer.  Schedules will slip, and the folks at the end of the design flow (when product must be available to market) will suffer greatly.  This is equivalent to a running back having his arms in the perfect location, ready to accept the ball, except the quarterback has tripped and the ball drops to the ground.  If the handoff fails, the design cycle fails.

What are your tips for working with other groups?  What worked best?  What didn’t work at all?  Managers, really looking for your feedback here.

Related posts:

1. Best Handoff Practices for Design Teams
2. Search 30 million technical journal articles. Read any of them for $0.99.
3. Best Email Practices For Engineers
4. Engineers are bad communicators: 6 ways to fix this, part 2
5. Cultivate Innovation: What Companies, Managers, and Engineers Can Do

Play more online physics games at PhysicsGames.net.

Related posts:

1. Assembler 3 Game: Creatively stack objects to solve these puzzles.

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.

Related posts:

1. Industrial Interface, Inc. Continues Growth of its Core Business, Connecting Engineers with Experienced Salespeople in the Industrial Research, Design, and Manufacturing Market
2. Industrial Interface, Inc. Focuses Growth on Research, Design, and Manufacturing for the Medical Device Market
3. Industrial Interface, Inc. Launches its New Online B2B Service for Engineers and Salespeople in the Manufacturing Industry
4. What To Consider When Purchasing A New Tool, Product, or Service
5. Twitter Lists for Nerds – engineering, science, technology, and even NASA!

Arrange objects on the screen to stack colored objects inside their outlined spaces. Great spacial orientation game. Game embedded below.

More versions of this same game and other physics based games available at Online Physics Games.

Related posts:

1. Demolition City Game: Strategically place dynamite to bring buildings down.

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?

Related posts:

1. Why purchasing agents and engineers hate each other! (Guest Post)
2. A blog for Industrial Interface
3. Online Industrial Supplier Listings Part I: A Multi-Post Review
4. Engineering Case Study: How do you waterproof a GPS device-COG Engineering
5. Innovative Engineering–Years of Intense Study and Engineering Experience