RDxxx

Their tech support is pretty good and they provide many opportunities to keep learning on their software.

Strengths: Solidworks seems to have become the industry standard for part and assembly modeling. Most vendors can use the files you create or at least convert them to the format they need. The company also provides training sessions to help you learn about all their available features and their training staff is excellent.

Needs to improve: Even though their software has come a long way over the years, there's still some bugs here and there. For example, some once in a while features will not resolve even though the same exact thing has resolved on a different file. Sometimes the colors go wonky when your parts get complicated.

They're good people. Great place to find all kinds of standard tubing and some special applications, but they can't do everything.

Strengths: They have a very friendly staff and seem very willing to work together on a project to prototype components.

Needs to improve: They seem to be a little limited in scope of their capabilities compared to some other suppliers in the same space. For example, they could not make a particular shape I required, even though I eventually found other vendors who could.

We've had really good results at Danco Anodizing for different lots that required matching colors and other specialty applications.

Strengths: This is one of the best places to get critical parts treated and anodized. They do really high quality work so they tend to be the choice when quality is more important than getting the absolute lowest cost.

Needs to improve: None that I'm aware of.

They have good customer service and are willing to work with you on your project instead of just being a hands-off material supplier.

Strengths: Aside from being able to supply nitinol in most any shape you may require, they also have deep in-house expertise in nitinol heat treatment and manipulation and can help consult with you on your project.

Needs to improve: Not really a complaint, but it would be nice if some of the special order sizes could be delivered more quickly so that prototyping could happen at a faster pace.

I've never seen any of their equipment go down. It's good stuff.

Strengths: Having worked on several types of catheters at several different companies, I can say Beahm is the most commonly used supplier of equipment for heat shrink and adhesive curing applications.

Needs to improve: It's not very easy to find supporting techical information on their website.

Their customer service seems to be very quick to respond to questions by email.

Strengths: Their name is really easy to remember when you need o-rings of all kinds.

Needs to improve: I think their products cost way more than their competitors. I don't have demanding enough applications to know if their o-rings are noticeably better quality to justify the price.

The machine generally does what we need but has some quirks - like shutting off the load frame intermittently. When we needed service, it was kind of disorganized and took way longer than it should have.

Strengths: Instron is like the Kleenex of mechanical testing. They're ubiquitous throughout industry.

Needs to improve: Their service could be better when it comes time to PM the machines. Too slow and disorganized. Their Bluehill software cannot be described as very intuitive to use, although the current gen is eons better than the old stuff.

No real issues. I've heard they have pretty good customer service from others.

Strengths: It seems like all the technicians like using the cutters from Excelta, so we tend to order from them.

Needs to improve: Their cutters seem extremely sharp and fine, but the trade-off is that some of them don't seem all that durable. I was cutting a wire well within the expected capabilities of the cutter, and the cutting element snapped off. Believe it was defective, as there was no deformation of the cutting edge at all.

The people running the shop are very knowledgeable about what they sell and the prices are fair for the convenience of picking up the items right away.

Strengths: It's a great place to pick up lab equipment quickly without having to order it from a catalog company and waiting for a few days. Some items are also easier to evaluate in person before buying and it's nice that most everything is on the shelf.

Needs to improve: They don't have the breadth of products in stock that a catalog company would.

No issues

Strengths: They have great quality bushings for applications where limited rotation and high loads are a factor in your design. They seem to last forever and are easier to align than comparable bearings.

Needs to improve: Custom orders may take some time.

They were very nice people willing to help me out to develop a new process for my specialized application. Their customer service is top notch.

Strengths: They are willing to help you develop new processes - in my case, they helped me pick the correct media for tumbling my parts. Although we ultimately didn't go with the process as it didn't work as well as I'd hoped for my particular application, they were more than willing to try it out for me with minimal cost.

Needs to improve: They seem a bit small and equipment limited. Not sure if they could handle a lot of jobs at the same time.

No issues to speak of.

Strengths: They have process experts on staff to help figure out specialized applications for parts cleaning and coating.

Needs to improve: If you're doing anodization, they don't have enough capacity to do any color you want quickly, but they can do it if you wait a bit.

When I need a material cert for particular off-the-shelf screws we were using, it was very easy to find out how on the Fastenal website vs all other competitor websites I searched.

Strengths: They have a very easy to search catalog and they respond to you on the phone when help is necessary.

Needs to improve: They don't stock a full range of metric sizes for certain kinds of sizes and materials.

No issues to note.

Strengths: I've worked for many companies in my career and Omega temp sensors were the de facto standard in every one of them.

Needs to improve: Their products are not very sexy in the age of iphones. Very industrial ergonomics and looks.

The make great instruments, but special orders will take a long time to fulfill.

Strengths: They make the best functioning calipers available. I can trust the results from this brand vs the cheaper knockoffs.

Needs to improve: The quality will cost you compared to others.

I was impressed with their willingness to work with the customer to provide a custom solution that they had never made before. There were some minor delays due to the difficulty of the project and the communication could have been a little better, but overall a good experience.

Strengths: Used them for prototyping a custom application. They were easy to work with and were willing to try different variations of the process to get us what we needed.

Needs to improve: N/A

Happy with the service. They're good about providing samples and information as needed.

Strengths: Wide variety of cables and can also customize cables per your needs. Lots of useful information on their website. Great customer service- they respond quickly to emails.

Needs to improve: They take a few weeks to deliver decent size orders.

Slow in getting parts, but excellent quality.

Strengths: Their parts tend to be higher quality than their competitors (i.e. Qosina).

Needs to improve: Take forever to receive order requests.

Easy to order parts from them and get parts quickly.

Strengths: Huge catalogue of medical device connectors and fittings.

Needs to improve: Their luer fittings tend to be lower quality and leak easily.

Pretty terrible experience all around. Mike seemed to be to busy to pay attention to my project and left it to his underlings to deliver, which they didn't.

Strengths: Supposedly, Mike at MPC is a genius at fabricating plastic components, melding different plastics together, etc

Needs to improve: In my entire career working with vendors, I've never experienced one that appeared to care less about meeting agreed upon timelines or responding to customer concerns in a timely manner.