On Line Research Tools - All Free!

A great operational excellence effort inevitably involves conducting some research. Be it benchmarking, best practices, or specific inquiries on general subjects like lean manufacturing – good general research can yield a surprising amount of information. There are a number of fee-based research tools, but we feel that there are a number of excellent research tools available – free to disciplined researchers. These include:

- Search Engines, the well known majors such as www.Google.com or www.Yahoo.com
- Meta Search engines, sites that send your information request to multiple search engines simultaneously – like www.Dogpile.com or www.Science.gov
- Public Databases, such as Reference USA and Business Source Premier can be accessed via public libraries, and typically from the comfort of your own home if you have a library card.
- Government Databases, good sites for research include the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Census Bureau, and SEC Filings & Forms (EDGAR). The US government is a prolific data collector and best of all it is free – your tax dollars at work.
- Company Research Websites: www.Hoovers.com and www.annualreports.com are good for finding information on specific companies, or www.thomasnet.com to find goods and service providers.
- Research on specific people or contacts (scary, no?) www.zoominfo.com or www.LinkedIn.com. We feel every professional should join and post a profile on LinkedIn.
- Information Portals like www.ceoexpress.com consolidate content from multiple sources and many can be user customized.

These are only a few, but we feel are good sources to start a research project. Synchronous LLC is committed to maintaining a continuing dialogue on operational excellence and best practices for the process manufacturing industry. To pose a question, contribute a best practice, or otherwise add to the dialogue, send a note to RobBaldwin@SynchronousLLC.com . To subscribe to our weekly newsletter send your preferred email contact address to Webmaster@SynchronousLLC.com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.