Through my personal experience and by working with Arena customers, I’ve come to find that this dilemma can be managed by applying two straightforward rules of thumb. These rules should be applied to every assembly that uses the component directly.

Two simple rules for making component changes

Rule #1: If the change represents a minor revision to the component, do not release a new revision of the parent assembly.

Rule #2: If the change represents a major revision to the component, decide whether it also represents a major revision to the parent assembly. If it does, release a new major revision of the parent. If it doesn’t, release a new minor revision of the parent.

The assemblies that contain a component directly are usually subassemblies with their own parents. If this is the case, apply the above rules to the subassemblies and repeat as necessary, all the way up the tree. 

Playing out the policy

Let’s say you introduce new battery chemistry into your portable electronic device—the old version used NiMH batteries, and the new version uses Li-ion. You clearly want your field service staff to keep the batteries separate, and you’ll likely want to be able to tell at a glance which battery is used in the product, even when it’s sitting on the shelf at the store. This kind of change would be a good candidate to roll all the way up to the packaging (finished goods) level.

On the flip side, let’s imagine you’ve add a new qualified source for a resistor on the main board, with no intended change to the form, fit, function or formulation of the device. Because the new resistors are functionally and cosmetically indistinguishable, it’s fine to stock them with the old resistors, and there’s no need to track the change at the assembly level.

Now, suppose you add a new mounting hole on the main circuit board that enables a new housing design, but is also backwards compatible with the existing device (which you continue to make and sell). You need to keep the new boards and board assemblies separate from the old ones so that manufacturing does not put old board assemblies into the new housing. This is clearly a major revision to the circuit board and its direct parent, the board assembly.

But, the original device itself is unaffected by the change, so there’s no need to separate the “before” and “after” stock of that product assembly. In this case, it’s good practice to release a minor revision of the original product assembly to provide a clear historical record of the change, but there is no need to release a new revision of the packaging. 

What do you think?

These recommendation are based on both personal experiences and what I’ve seen work for Arena customers—but there’s always room for discussion and disagreement on the “best” policy for releasing a new revision of an assembly when making a change to one of its components.

I’d love to hear what you think, so please share in the comments section below!

This is a harder question than it might seem, because the simplest answer just doesn’t work in the real world of manufacturing. If you always let minor changes to low-level parts trigger new revisions to your top-level product assemblies (and all the intervening sub-assemblies), you will quickly find yourself buried in a never-ending stream of meaningless documentation updates. And, with trivial updates happening all the time, you'll lose track of really important product-level changes.

On the other hand, it’s easy to think of a component or sub-assembly change, like a new motherboard or major mechanism redesign, that should be tracked at the product level. If a major redesign of an existing component inadvertently introduces a functional, reliability, or, in the worst case, safety issue, you really want to be able to distinguish which products contain the revised component and which don’t.

To roll or not to roll?

You can’t follow a policy of always releasing a new revision of your top-level assemblies when you make a component-level change, but you also shouldn’t follow a policy of never doing so.

In general, you should release a new revision of an assembly for the same reason you release a new revision of a component—when the change is significant enough that you may need a way to easily distinguish "before" from "after.”

To get more precise, let’s talk terminology.

Direct and indirect parents of components and subassemblies

If you have a component that appears on the first-level BOM of an assembly, then that assembly is using the component directly and you can therefore call it a direct parent of the component. Conversely, an indirect parent is an assembly that contains a component by way of a subassembly.

These classifications are not mutually exclusive. For heavily used components like fasteners, it’s possible for one assembly to be both a direct and indirect parent of the component.

Major and minor revisions

Major revisions are generally changes to components, subassemblies or products that alter the Form, Fit, Function or, if your product is subject to substance-based regulations like RoHS or REACH, Formulation. (Bijan Dastmalchi of Symphony Consulting introduced me to the fourth “F” a few years back.) Minor revisions are changes that affect documentation or other metadata.

If you don’t know how to classify a particular change, ask yourself this simple question—would you care if the two revisions were “mixed up” in manufacturing? If you would, meaning you want the updated component or subassembly stocked separately from its predecessor, then the change is a major revision. If not, it's a minor revision.

Another useful thought experiment is to consider whether the revision could introduce new product-level problems, such as reliability or safety issues. Even if a change is completely backward compatible to the prior revision, sometimes it’s better to treat it as a major revision so that manufacturing and field service can more easily trace the change, even though major revisions incur higher inventory and documentation costs than minor revisions.

The trade-off between traceability and cost is the heart of the matter: you should only track changes to assemblies when the benefit of traceability exceeds the inventory and documentation costs. This is the change management version of the commonly accepted accounting rule that you should only measure expenses for which the benefit of knowing exceeds the cost of the measurement.

Optimizing this trade-off is a business decision that can vary from industry to industry. For example, medical device manufacturers tend to classify more changes as major revisions and roll their changes farther up the tree, due to safety and liability concerns, than their counterparts in industries that are more concerned with nimbleness and speed-to-market.

In my next post, I’ll suggest a couple of simple rules for rolling revisions up the tree. Stay tuned.

Choosing supply chain partners is one of the most important decisions you make when scaling your business, but knowing which suppliers to trust can be a risky game. Whether you’re sourcing components, semi-finished products or finished goods, it helps to have a second opinion from someone you trust.

Many businesses use large-scale supplier search engines like Alibaba to find supply partners. But running a search often yields thousands of suppliers, and without the time to do proper due diligence on each one, the risk of working with low-quality suppliers remains.

That is, until Tradesparq came along.

Tradesparq, a Shanghai based startup, is solving the supplier search problem by making the experience social. Here's how it works: you import your personal contacts into Tradesparq and use those connections to filter supplier searches. Tradesparq ranks search results based on your social network and lets you see personal supplier references—which all help lower the cost, risk and time associated with finding suppliers.

The social trade network currently connects its members with over 75,000 global suppliers and 500,000 products, and is growing by the day.

Alibaba meets LinkedIn

The concept behind Tradesparq is simple—finding suppliers through a personal or professional network encourages more trusted supplier relationships. When buyers can quickly and easily validate potential suppliers based on the experiences of their friends and colleagues, it's easier to find a partnership that works.

From the beginning, Tradesparq co-founders Brian Hager and Michael Kleist saw LinkedIn as an obvious model for improving the traditional supplier searching and vetting process.

“We noticed that more and more industries are taking advantage of new technologies, like companies adopting mobile for example, and B2B trade seemed to be the one industry falling behind,” explains Brian. “We knew it was time to start thinking about how we could leverage new technologies to help business owners lower the costs and risks associated with finding suppliers.” 

What’s the value for buyers?

Because Tradesparq's search results are ordered by connections, shared connections, references and recommendations, it's simple for a buyer to get recommendations and check references for potential suppliers.

Tradesparq members may even be able to leverage their connections to get better pricing from suppliers. The logic goes like this: if a supplier notices that a buyer is connected to several competitive suppliers in the same tier, he or she will have a strong incentive to offer the buyer competitive pricing in order to win the account.  

And for those who prefer to keep their supply partners under wraps, Tradesparq allows members to hide certain connections and monitor their levels of exposure.

How can suppliers benefit?

Social searching gives suppliers affordable exposure to prospective customers, makes communication easy with current customers and can lead to higher quality inquiries.

Suppliers can also share new product releases on their Tradesparq profiles and display customer references. And because suppliers can’t buy positive reviews, Tradesparq rewards trustworthy and well-connected suppliers rather than ones with big publicity budgets.    

Sign up, import contacts, and start connecting

If you are interested in becoming a member of Tradesparq, it’s easy! Just sign up for a free account, import your contacts from your Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or LinkedIn accounts, personal files or CSVs, and wait to see which suppliers are recommended by your social network.

As your social network grows, Tradesparq becomes even more helpful for discovering new supply partners.

Social networks aren’t just for the kids these days. Professional online communities today offer unprecedented opportunities to connect with peers, stay up-to-date on trends and best practices and find solutions for your toughest occupational challenges.  

And even if you’re in a specific field (like engineering), there are a growing number of industry-based networks that can be great resources.

Below are six engineering networking sites that we like, and think you will too.

1. The Engineering Exchange

The Engineering Exchange is a social network that connects over 11,000 engineers around the world. You can use the Engineering Exchange to view and share videos or blog posts, and participate in forum discussions about the topics that matter to you. The Engineering Exchange also lets you connect with engineers in similar positions, locations or industries and browse a resource section full of 3D CAD models, job listings and content leaderboards.

2. Engineering.com

Engineering.com offers a variety of free tools, an extensive engineering library and several subject-based directories—geared toward engineers of all disciplines. And recently, Engineering.com launched Electronics Design, a microsite that covers industry news and commentary specifically for electrical engineers. 

3. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is already well-known as a professional networking site where individuals can connect with peers and business partners and look for jobs. But with LinkedIn Groups, industry-focused professionals have a designated place to gather and ask questions, or share advice and articles. There are countless LinkedIn groups that appeal to engineers, but here are a few of our favorites: 

Engineers Looking for Stuff (ELFS)

This group is for engineers who share a need for, well, anything—whether it’s a whitepaper, consulting services or an engineer to help you draw up your design. ELFS was created by an electrical engineer, and it’s a great resource for getting your project back on track.

Electrical Engineers World

With over 10,000 members, Electrical Engineers World is one of the largest electrical engineering communities on LinkedIn. You can participate in discussions on topics ranging from electrical engineering ethics to the proper way to measure insulation resistance, as well as crowdsource answers to tricky electrical engineering questions.

Engineering Collaboration for PLM

This group is designed for engineers tasked with using PLM to manage CAD data. Come here to learn from other companies who are using PLM to manage and share complex CAD data.

4. Twitter

Because tweets are limited to 140 characters, Twitter is an easy way to pick up the latest engineering top news and headlines. And by following the tweets of industry leaders, you can get quick insight into what’s trending in the product design and engineering twittersphere.

Here are six Twitter profiles that tweet interesting engineering content every day:

@DesignWorld

@ArenaSolutions

@ENGINEERINGcom

@DangerousPrototypes

@Eng_Exchange

@cadcam3d 

5. Open Source Platforms

Open source sites are a great place for open collaboration and learning. The leader in open source design is Arduino, which has a website that encourages social networking through its blog, a publicly editable Wiki and a forum where you can post questions and share experiences. 

Another great open source platform is CodePlex, Microsoft's free open source project hosting site where engineers can create and share projects, collaborate with others, and download open source software.

6. Quora

Quora is an online question and answer community, where users can post and answer questions, collaborate and respond to answers posted by other users. Answers on Quora feel more like conversations, and often represent a diversity of thought on a given topic. Here are a few engineering-focused Quora boards to follow:

Engineering Board

Electrical Engineering Board

Mechanical Engineering Board

These are just a handful of the valuable resources online today that help engineers keep up with new innovation and trends in the design world. Which online communities do you use to stay connected? 

Chasing cheap labor yields temporary savings

If you’re basing your outsourcing strategy on the low wages of a particular country, be warned that you are only achieving a temporary advantage. High labor costs in Europe and the United States are what initially led to the relocation of production to low wage countries, but the emergence of a middle class and rise in skilled workers is increasing wages and overall cost of business in formerly “low-cost” places like Asia.

If you are a manufacturer who is purely focused on cheap labor, just know that you can save money for awhile—but when the quality of life increases in a particular country, your search for cheaper production locations (a time consuming, risky and disruptive process) will begin again.

How quality factors into the cost equation

Another result of being purely cost-focused is that cheap materials and unknown (or possibly unreliable) suppliers can result in lower quality products. In the past, some manufacturers reasoned that even if there was a dip in quality, the gains from cheaper inventory made up for it, but this is a risky game to play.

With increased competition in every market sector, and the emergence of social media (which allows your customers to vocalize their displeasure with shoddy products much more efficiently) it is a much riskier move to allow the quality of your product to drop. Consider what level of quality you can achieve while maintaining profitability, but remember that low-quality products ultimately cost you more in warranty fulfillment and bad press.

Social responsibility is a required part of your manufacturing outsourcing strategy

While social responsibility may always have been the “right” thing to do, the increasing focus on (and visibility into) the condition of workers across the world makes social responsibility important from a business standpoint as well. Looking for the cheapest solution—at any costs—is a dangerous strategy, and one that can blow up in your face. (Take the recent bad press for Apple regarding Foxconn—no one wants to be the next manufacturer accused of, or confronted with, human rights abuses.)

And social responsibility isn’t just about the people you employ, it’s also about the way your company uses (or abuses) the natural environment.  Pollution scandals and child labor are unacceptable to the end-user—and have been for some time—but it’s not enough to be able to defend yourself when asked, consumers expect pro-active sharing of information. You need to know where your materials come from, and commit to a lower carbon footprint and better working conditions for the people you hire across the world.

Achieve efficiency and social responsibility with a short, lean supply chain

If low-cost labor isn’t the main priority when it comes to your supply chain, what should be?

One way to mitigate the increasing costs of labor is to focus on efficiency. And the best way to achieve efficiency is with a short, lean and responsive supply chain. With fewer people in the chain, it’s much easier to achieve clear communication and visibility that flows from the end-user, all the way to the original materials provider. And with a direct flow of information, you can take advantage of systems that automate the flow of communication through your supply chain, increasing your efficiency even more.

When the people making the product are effectively closer to the end-user, it’s much easier to funnel customer requests to the people building the product, and communicate information about shortages, changes in strategy, and deviations.  By streamlining the flow of product information, and setting up automatic feedback systems, you make it much easier to share information from the end-user to your manufacturing partners, and push improvements from the manufacturing partners to the end-user. This ultimately allows you to achieve better optimized inventory levels and lower inventory costs.

If you’re interested in learning more about supply chain efficiency outside the U.S., get in touch with Ard on LinkedIn.

About ProductStream

ProductStream is a Netherlands-based company that helps European businesses streamline their product development process from concept to production. 

“What you want to do will define how you get off the ground. When you make and sell physical goods, you begin to trade flexibility once you start making material purchases. It is critical to have tools that offer control and provide structure so you can avoid mistakes and conserve cash.”

- Ian McCullough, startup expert

A product development and operations consultant, Ian McCullough has given business advice to companies large and small, and regularly offers his suggestions for hardware startups on the SAP on the Cloud blog. 

But Ian isn’t just an expert on starting up—he is an expert on starting up with minimal costs. Just a few years ago, Ian and his longtime friend Jason Lentz launched their own scalable business selling Giant Cardboard Robots. Their tiny company has earned international recognition and a healthy online presence, yet it has almost zero fixed costs and runs almost exclusively on lightweight cloud-based services, online communities and social media publicity.

Ian knows the importance of using right priced, right sized tools to get a business idea off the ground—which is why he recommends cloud solutions as a great way for manufacturers to get maximum functionality at minimal cost. Below are five of his favorite cloud tools for bootstrapping a startup that makes and sells goods. 

Box

Ian loves Box for its collaborative file sharing and storage. Box stores all of your online content like documents and spreadsheets, and lets you access, manage and share your documents from any device with an Internet connection.

ProofHQ

Ian recommends ProofHQ for design management. With this service, you can get a collaborative, real time review on any piece of content with relatively little hassle. You can comment on posts and ask questions without calling a single in-person meeting, which means you won’t ever have to run around the office asking “did you sign off on this?”

MyERP

Ian recommends MyERP for managing inventory and accounting. It’s affordable, lightweight and can grow right along with you. MyERP also hosts an online community where users can start discussions and crowdsource solutions to common problems.

LegalZoom

Ian recommends LegalZoom for small companies needing to create simple legal documents for items like contracts and trademarks. LegalZoom is an online legal document preparation service that also provides a legal education center and interesting articles on the legal aspects of current events. 

Arena PartsList

Ian considers PartsList to be an essential tool for any materials-based startup looking to scale without losing control of product data and BOMs. PartsList lets you create clean, fully documented BOMs and turn that list into a purchasable BOM to share with document control, purchasing or potential vendors.

For cost-effective marketing, think socially

Social media can be one of the best tools around for reaching large audiences on a budget. Ian’s startup created a profile on Etsy, a social community where makers, curators and shoppers can buy and sell handmade and vintage goods and supplies.

It goes without saying that popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr are also great tools. Through consistent engagement, Ian has built his startup a healthy social following of over 2,500 Facebook fans and maintains active Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest profiles.

“It’s all about leveraging cost-effective resources to scale marketing efforts and get the word out about a product,” explains Ian. “Social media is great for telling people what we’re doing and finding people who like what we like.”

By using simple strategies, Ian has been able to breathe life into his own ideas and those of his clients. And there’s no reason you can’t do the same. The cloud provides all sorts of tools—from manufacturing to marketing—to support anyone’s business dream. 

Product lifecycle management tools used to be out of reach for small innovators, but that is no longer the case. With easy-to-use and affordable cloud PLM applications, guided implementation workshops and a free trial, Arena is making cloud PLM a no-brainer for small, mid-size and scaling organizations.   

So what’s new?

BOMControl pricing plans fit where you are now, and where you will be later

Our three new pricing plans for BOMControl—Basic, Plus and Unlimited—offer cloud PLM functionality at the price and scale that make sense for you. Whether your business consists of two guys in a garage or several products spanning the globe, our new plans make it easy to start small, and then add seats as you grow. Pricing is determined on a per-seat model, so you never have to worry that you’re getting limited functionality with our Basic or Plus plans.

And for anyone who has ever thought, “we’re too small for PLM,” we’ve developed BOMControl Basic. Basic was designed specifically for startups and small companies, and gives manufacturers full BOMControl functionality at a fraction of the cost.  (It’s just $49 a month for up to three people to use the system.)

And if you still aren’t sure if BOMControl is right for you, we’ve got a 30-day, free, no-risk trial to help you decide.

Implementation is easier with guided workshops that simplify the process  

In addition to our flexible pricing, we’ve designed three implementation workshops around the most fundamental principles of configuring a new workspace in BOMControl. These new workshops will help you tackle your most pressing To-Do’s as you get started—item numbering and categorization, data import, and change categorization and routing.

In addition to our workshops, our support consultants are always available to help you with any questions that arise—from the first day you launch your free 30-day trial of BOMControl.

 Try 30 days of free Arena BOMControl

If you know you need a better way to centralize your BOMs, collaborate with supply chain partners and manage engineering changes, try BOMControl on for size. All our plans come with a free 30-day trial, no strings attached. We don’t ask for any payment information and you are never locked in. It’s just one more way we are making PLM easy.  

After your BOMControl trial, it’s up to you to determine the next move. If you enjoyed BOMControl and want to sign up for an account, great. And if you need more time to evaluate, you can continue usage with a month-to-month account. It can be tough to know where your business will be down the road, so Arena BOMControl is designed to match your pace—not ours.   

To solve this problem, Arena teamed up with Octopart, a Google-esque search engine for components, to develop Supplier Item Lookup—a BOMControl add-on that provides current market availability, datasheets and compliance information for all your BOMs.

With information like this at your fingertips, you are better equipped to reduce component risk and design available, optimally priced parts into your BOM. You can quickly identify potential supply shortages for essential components, avoid non-compliant or high-cost components and discover new opportunities to save money.

How exactly does Supplier Item Lookup work?

Supplier Item Lookup communicates with Octopart's extensive component database to pull up-to-date supplier information on market availability, lifecycle status and regulatory or environmental compliance for the manufacturer and supplier items in your BOM.

And because Arena believes the tools that make your life easier shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg, we are encouraging our customers try Supplier Item Lookup for free until May 31^st. Just drop us a line and we’ll get you set up.  

Delivering on the advantages of cloud

As a growing number of manufacturers embrace cloud solutions, we're excited to continue pushing the frontiers of cloud capability. From integrations with cloud ERP solutions like Netsuite and Business ByDesign to building partnerships with component search engines like Octopart, we are always looking to find what's next.

Desktop Engineering’s editor-at-large Anthony Lockwood combs through dozens of new product releases each week to find the latest tool helping engineers innovate and create better designs.

Starting with the very first Pick of the Week in 2007 (the COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4), Lockwood’s “picks” have always represented the best of new innovation—from an all-in-one CAD workstation to the extension toolset that predicts and manages the fatigue life of structures and the system that supports mobile printing via wifi.

We’re excited to announce that last week Arena PartsList became the latest addition to the Desktop Engineering Pick of the Week family! We’re honored that Desktop Engineering appreciates our new application, and are happy that other industry leaders see value in our products.

Why Desktop Engineering is a fan of PartsList

With PartsList, Lockwood believes the days of “columnar piles of parts, sketchy vendor details, and links to data sheets, component information, and pricing” may finally be over. Here’s how he figures:

“It seems to me that both small and mid-size manufacturers should be able to benefit from PartsList. OEMs can use it to document and share designs with contract manufacturers earlier in the process. And small outfits can afford to use it to tame data since there are no installation charges.”

Lockwood also points out that PartsList works to simplify the BOM building and sharing process. “PartsList [turns] messy lists of parts into a clean, fully documented actionable BOM that you can share,” says Lockwood. “[It] stores your collection of data sheets, sourcing info, and part information together in context. You can map columns from your BOM to its complementary PartsList columns then import your BOM into PartsList directly.”

And when PartsList and PDXViewer (our cloud app for viewing, sharing and filtering PDX build packages) are used in tandem, Lockwood believes that “startups and small tech companies have some pretty good tools to get up and running quickly.”

How engineers benefit from PartsList and PDXViewer

After playing around with PartsList, Lockwood recommends two main ways engineers can use PartsList and PDXViewer to increase productivity and make their jobs easier.

With PartsList, engineers can map columns from their BOM to complementary PartsList columns in order to import the BOM directly into PartsList. Next, engineers can use the Autofill feature of PartsList to automatically capture critical component data like descriptions, data sheets and cost information for each part in the BOM—saving both time and sanity.

And because PDXViewer is a free, cloud-based application that lets engineers view and share detailed BOMs and PDX packages as well as filter build packages into supplier-specific part bundles and remove unwanted or private data, it’s ideal for engineers who want to simplify communications with suppliers and colleagues.

Don’t just take our word for it—check out Desktop Engineering’s full review of PartsList!

Additional information on Desktop Engineering

Desktop Engineering magazine, which is published monthly by Level 5 Communications, is an industry-leading media brand covering hardware and software engineering solutions for the manufacturing, medical, automotive, aerospace, consumer electronics, process, and other industries. Its readership of 60,000 is 100-percent involved in upfront design processes. Desktop Engineering’s website, deskeng.com, is a valuable resource updated regularly with breaking news from the global engineering, design, and manufacturing industries.

Because helping manufacturers build better products is an Arena core value, we’ve spent the last six months redesigning our website and blog to make our resources even easier to find and simpler to navigate. Today, I am very excited to share the finished product with you. (Check out the new Arena home page!)

Our blog now has categories that help you find resources on topics ranging from product development to innovation, business strategy, industry news and more. We’ve also included links to related articles at the bottom of each post, so you can get customized suggestions for other posts you might enjoy.

To learn how our new design helps inquisitive manufacturers access our best thought leadership and resources, I sat down with Marc Escobosa—VP of marketing and design at Arena.

Interview with Marc Escobosa, Arena’s VP of marketing and design

Redesigning a website is a huge undertaking—what was the motivation for the project?

Our old website had a library of resources that was organized by content type—such as a whitepaper, article or blog post—rather than by topic. But this isn’t very helpful for a customer who is in a bind and needs quick tips on navigating a challenge. In reality, it doesn’t really matter to customers whether we deliver advice in a whitepaper or in a blog post. It just needs to be helpful and smart information.

We reorganized our library so that readers can easily read resources on the topics that appeal to them. Our new design reflects our commitment to providing straightforward and helpful information to our customers. Whether you’re documenting your first prototype or finalizing a production ramp plan, we want to be your most valuable resource for trusted industry advice and answers.  

What’s new in the resources section of the website?

We have several new additions to the resource section—a manufacturing outsourcing dilemma series that helps you navigate challenges like “should I use multiple CMs for multiple product lines?” and two comprehensive, never out-of-date, guides on prototyping and ramping to production.

Why did you create guides that focused on the prototyping and production stages?

Our two always up-to-date guides were inspired by customers sharing stories with us about which manufacturing challenges keep them up at night. We kept hearing that manufacturers often run into questions at two particular stages of the manufacturing process—designing a prototype and ramping to production.

When deep in prototyping mode, mistakes are expensive and time is of the essence. And when ramping to production, companies are learning to navigate a tough position—acquiring new hires, new systems and managing the inevitable hiccups that crop up. Our guides offer manufacturers clear advice on these two critical, and often quite stressful, stages in manufacturing.

The guides are continually improving, and we hope to get feedback from customers about what topics we should expand upon.

How are you going to make sure Arena is always providing the best information to customers?

We know that there are thousands of questions that arise throughout the manufacturing process, and our resource section will continue growing and evolving to answer these questions and address them in a new light. The work is never done.

We hope our customers will keep sharing their questions and manufacturing challenges, so our content pertains to topics that really matter to our customer base.

And of course, we hope the design helps inspire our blog readers to engage with our posts and share interesting articles with friends.

What do you think about the new resources section and blog design? Comment below or get in touch with me to share your thoughts.