Asked in the US about manufacturers and industrial suppliers, the engines read Thomasnet and Manufacturing marketplaces first. There is no manufacturing licence, so the engines lean on registers instead: the ISO or AS certificate number with its scope and its certifying body, ITAR and DDTC registration, NADCAP accreditation for aerospace processes, the ASME stamp for pressure work, and a SAM.gov CAGE code for federal supply. Publish the machine list, the tolerances, the maximum part size, the lead time in days and a from-price per part at a stated quantity.
What US buyers ask the engines about manufacturers and industrial suppliers
The metro is in the sentence, and so is the brand, the licence or the size when the trade has one. Six of the questions the report puts to the four engines for a manufacturer in the United States:
| Kind | The question, as asked |
|---|---|
| Head term | CNC machine shop in Ohio for 5-axis aluminium parts in small runs |
| Product | which US manufacturers do injection moulding with ITAR compliant handling |
| Niche | sheet metal fabricator near Detroit with AS9100 and in-house powder coating |
| Comparison | Xometry versus a local machine shop for a 200-part run |
| Comparison | reshoring a part from China to a US supplier: what it costs |
| Niche | contract manufacturer in Texas for stainless pressure vessels to ASME code |
The US sources the engines read for manufacturers and industrial suppliers
Asked without a country the engines assume the United States, so these are the pages they read by default. For manufacturers and industrial suppliers:
| Source | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Thomasnet | still the first source an American sourcing engineer and an engine both read; the category listing with the certifications and the capabilities is treated as the supplier population |
| Manufacturing marketplaces | Xometry, Protolabs, Fictiv and Hubs; the engines frequently name the marketplace instead of a shop, because the marketplace wrote the page |
| Certification and registration registers | the ISO 9001 and AS9100 certificate registers, ITAR and DDTC registration, NADCAP, and SAM.gov for anyone bidding federal work |
| NIST MEP and the state manufacturing extension partnerships | the directories and case studies, read as third-party validation of a small manufacturer |
| Trade press and association lists | IndustryWeek, Modern Machine Shop, PMA and NTMA membership; a member list is read as a vetted list |
What the engines verify before they name you
There is no manufacturing licence, so the engines lean on registers instead: the ISO or AS certificate number with its scope and its certifying body, ITAR and DDTC registration, NADCAP accreditation for aerospace processes, the ASME stamp for pressure work, and a SAM.gov CAGE code for federal supply. 'Made in the USA' is a claim the FTC polices and the engines quote carefully, so state where the plant is and what is done in it.
The same question, three Americas
The engines answer per metro, from pages that name it. How the questions differ across the country for this trade:
- The Great Lakes: Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois: automotive and industrial machining and stamping; the questions name the process, the tolerance and the state.
- The Southeast: the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia: new plants, automotive and aerospace tiers, and the questions about capacity and lead time.
- Texas and the Gulf: oil and gas fabrication, ASME code work and the energy supply chain; the questions name the code and the material.
Spanish
US industrial buying happens in English. The Spanish-language opportunity here is on the recruiting side, and on the border, where Mexican and Texan supply chains ask across it.
What to publish in dollars
Publish the machine list, the tolerances, the maximum part size, the lead time in days and a from-price per part at a stated quantity. Nobody in this trade publishes a price, which is exactly why the marketplace with an instant quote is named instead of the shop with better capability.
The names a US buyer already knows
Xometry, Protolabs, Fictiv, Hubs, Thomasnet's own top-listed shops: the names a buyer arrives with, and the ones the report's comparison questions are written against ('X alternatives', 'local versus X'). Whether the engines put them ahead of you, or in your place, is what the report measures, question by question, with the market set to the United States.
What a month of work looks like in the US
The Grow plan's goal for a manufacturer here: get named in the five capability-and-state questions where a marketplace or a directory is named and no shop is. The work starts with Thomasnet, then the pages of yours the engines quote, per metro and, where the trade needs it, in Spanish, with a rescan on the same questions at month's end. The plans are priced on the home page.
Read next
Manufacturers and industrial suppliers, everywhere · The US market · Contractors in the US · HVAC contractors in the US · Plumbers in the US
Questions
What do the engines check before naming a manufacturer in the US?
There is no manufacturing licence, so the engines lean on registers instead: the ISO or AS certificate number with its scope and its certifying body, ITAR and DDTC registration, NADCAP accreditation for aerospace processes, the ASME stamp for pressure work, and a SAM.gov CAGE code for federal supply.
Are these questions asked in Spanish?
US industrial buying happens in English. The Spanish-language opportunity here is on the recruiting side, and on the border, where Mexican and Texan supply chains ask across it.
What price should be on the page?
Publish the machine list, the tolerances, the maximum part size, the lead time in days and a from-price per part at a stated quantity. Nobody in this trade publishes a price, which is exactly why the marketplace with an instant quote is named instead of the shop with better capability.
See who the engines name in the US
Your website, region and work email. The score appears in about three minutes, and the report is a link you keep.