Article
New features in ThomasNet.com supplier directory (with related video)
Say you were looking to buy traffic cones, but didn’t know who to contact or where to start. Now imagine an online resource with all kinds of search tools that lists and fully describes 272 suppliers of traffic cones. That is ThomasNet.com, which is a free industrial supplier discovery and product-sourcing platform.
The web resource has been re-launched to better enable supply chain professionals and engineers to find trusted suppliers and solve their sourcing challenges. The platform serves procurement professionals, engineers, plant and facility management and other buyers from corporations, educational institutions, government agencies, the military and small businesses.
The platform is home to a database of North American industrial and commercial companies. Its content collection includes: 700,000 suppliers, 100 million parts, 67,000 product and service categories and 60,000 companies rated in quality and diversity. The platform includes computer-aided design models, news and more. 
About 18 percent of ThomasNet.com users work in the government or the military, including federal, state and local government agencies, says Donna Cicale, who is Director, Marketing Communications at ThomasNet.com. In addition, 93 percent of Fortune 500 companies use the web resource.
ThomasNet.com has a Supplier Discovery application that includes 700,000 companies. It allows buyers to quickly get to a shortlist of viable suppliers. The updated application now defines all qualifiers right from the start. Through the application, government procurement personnel and others can issue a one-to-many Request for Information (RFI), Cicale told GPN. The web tool’s Product Sourcing Application, which helps users locate an exact product from over 100 million items, now features 40 product selectors.
The online resource now features a Diversity application that eliminates buyers’ needs to consult several resources to find suppliers to meet diverse spend goals. The system holds a large, searchable database of minority, woman-owned, veteran-owned and other small disadvantaged businesses. ThomasNet.com enables government buyers and other users to download documents that certify supplier classifications of vendors. The system also provides links to other supporting proof of ownership.
In the past, said Cicale, government buyers and other users had to consult numerous directories of women- and minority-owned businesses, veteran-owned firms, and even directories of small businesses when attempting to source suppliers based on diversity. The ThomasNet.com setup should save time on the search process, says Cicale. “We wanted to streamline the process and give users one central place to find a supplier that meets diversity requirements,” Cicale told GPN.
A new Certification application in the system helps buyers identify suppliers that hold quality and other certifications/registrations, including ISO, ANSI, Nadcap, ITAR, FDA and C-TPAT among 80 types of certification.
ThomasNet.com logs nearly two million user sessions each month from buyers within Fortune 1000 companies, the government/military, institutions and small companies who are in a position to impact suppliers’ businesses.
ThomasNet.com got its start as the Thomas Register, a buying guide listing industrial products and services that was first published in 1898. ThomasNet.com is part of Thomas Industrial Network, Inc.
This video outlines applications on ThomasNet.com. The web resource enables users to find trusted suppliers.
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