Search engine locates U.S.-based suppliers; presents supplier rating for more meaningful results

Craig Landy knows how difficult it is for manufacturers to find the right suppliers.

With that in mind, Landy founded eMvoy, which offers a search engine for U.S. suppliers of plastics and sheet metal, industrial fabrication, machinery and tools, raw materials and chemicals, components and devices, and services such as testing, assembly, prototyping, and engineering. To make search results even more pertinent, there's the eMvoy Score, a rating system calculated by eMvoy's evaluation of 24 quality, reliability, and stability factors. Companies are then assigned a ranking of their competitive ability and overall presence in the marketplace.

"The number of professional purchasing agents continues to decline, which adds to the challenge of selecting reliable vendors," says Landy, pointing out that the eMvoy Score is especially helpful in narrowing down a short list of suppliers. "We condense relevant information about each company into a single icon that gives users an instant means to evaluate suppliers," he says.

Score factors are divided into four categories: basic company data including the number of years a company has been in business and the number of U.S. employees; quality and quantity of data on a company's Web site; company certifications and recognition, such as whether a supplier's manufacturing processes are registered or certified by a third-party evaluator—and industry association membership data. eMvoy staff then weighs and combines separate scores to tally the overall eMvoy Score for each company.

Unlike Yahoo! or Google, a search conducted on eMvoy.com is business-specific, and only creates a list of suppliers falling within the search parameters.

The search engine also doesn't require users to log in and create user profiles, or pay usage fees, Landy says. "It's an open, free search that enables users to get a list of suppliers and contact them directly," Landy says. "Consequently, we have users from companies as large as Boeing and 3M, as well as the mom-and-pop shops."

The overall user experience is favorable, says Jessica Learn, marketing specialist with Signal Technologies, an Erie, Pa.-based manufacturer of electric signage.

"eMvoy.com offers lots of options, as well as a quick reference to weed out companies and create a short list. The user can then pick the supplier that most closely aligns with their own company size and objectives."