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Collection Building A survey of manufacturing engineering databases Nestor L. Osorio Andrew W. Otieno
Article information: To cite this document: Nestor L. Osorio Andrew W. Otieno, (2008),"A survey of manufacturing engineering databases", Collection Building, Vol. 27 Iss 1 pp. 22 - 29 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01604950810846215
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A survey of manufacturing engineering databases
Nestor L. Osorio
Founders Memorial Library 303, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA, and
Andrew W. Otieno Technology Department, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA
Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine current databases available for manufacturing engineering and summarizes their relevance. Design/methodology/approach – To promote research in manufacturing engineering, comprehensive literature should be made accessible through relevant databases. Databases not only provide information on global research but aid in assessing the impacts of research and identify promising research directions. The databases are presented in eight sections according to the type of document being sought. Findings – The manufacturing engineering literature is robust; there are excellent products available to support this highly technical field. The databases found are from many different sources: commercial publishers, professional organizations, national and international agencies, and collaborative endeavors. Research limitations/implications – Sources found originate mainly from the USA and Europe. Originality/value – This paper demonstrates the importance of literature mining in manufacturing engineering which is ingrained in the processes to designing, developing and producing goods and services. It is also a teaching tool for students, a guide to professional engineers, and a valuable resource for librarians.
Keywords Production engineering, Information retrieval, Databases, Digital libraries
Paper type Technical paper
Introduction
Organized or systematic manufacturing can be traced back
6,000 years when manual forming processes began with the
production of various articles made of wood, ceramic, stone,
and metal. The history can be examined from two
perspectives: how materials were discovered, developed and
used to make things; and how systems of production were
developed (Groover, 2001). Over the years, research in
manufacturing has concentrated on the developments in
engineering materials, as well as processes. The production
world has evolved from manual to computerized
manufacturing systems; from macro to micro- and nano-
scale manufacturing. Not only is product design automated
using computer-aided design (CAD) systems, but the control
of the manufacturing process is automated as well using
computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) systems (Benhabib,
2003). The current trends in product design and manufacturing
emphasize simultaneous engineering and the multi-
disciplinary approach in the discipline. To support this
multi-disciplinary functionality, manufacturing engineering
requires a diverse source of research information through
accessible databases. There are numerous databases available
for engineering, the most common being EI Compendex,
which is the electronic version of Engineering Index. Other
sources of information can be found directly from research
consortiums such as OhioLink. Most importantly, the
authenticity and usability of information obtained from
these databases depends on who publishes the database. Engineering literature is very diverse and plentiful;
knowledge of how searches are organized to best view
developments across disciplines will enable the researcher to
find the relevant information they need in a timely manner
(Schaible, 2001). In addition, this provides researchers with
the ability to connect their research information to applied
engineering, thus enabling shorter product design cycles.
Because scientific information is not limited to journal
publications, but rather to a wide variety of information
sources such as reports and white papers, organized databases
provide a means by which a simple keyword search would
enable information to be retrieved easily from any source. As
suggested by Kostoff (2003), technical literature is very vital
to the development of science and technology. Databases
provide the means of tracking research data, evaluating
science and technology programs and identifying promising
research. Databases also prevent duplication of research and
the costly consequences that might follow. Wenger (2002)
reports on the various situations where an organized search
prevented duplication of research by as much as 42 percent
per publication found; and saved organizations as much as
$1,000 per article read.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0160-4953.htm
Collection Building
27/1 (2008) 22–29
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0160-4953]
[DOI 10.1108/01604950810846215]
Received: August 2007 Reviewed: October 2007 Accepted: October 2007
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To date, professional organizations have taken a lead role in
publishing and maintaining such databases; for instance the
IET’s INSPEC database. Some companies, recognizing the
need for timely access to relevant engineering or scientific
literature, have developed their own databases. An example of
this is Ricardo Consulting Engineers’ POWERLINK database
(Ward, 2001). It is a database that provides information
readily to engineers at Ricardo and links them to the most
powerful sources of information in engineering worldwide. In
this paper, we shall present a variety of databases and discuss
their relevance in manufacturing engineering. We also discuss
the role of professional and private organizations in creating
and maintaining these databases. This article has grown from the book chapter Industrial and
Manufacturing Engineering written by the authors and
published in the 2007 award winning reference book Using
the Engineering Literature (Osif, 2006). Editorial arrangements
of Osif’s book did not allow for a complete discussion of
specific databases related to manufacturing engineering;
therefore. this article is a complement to the book chapter. In bringing these resources together we have envisioned the
whole manufacturing process from the initial idea of creating
a product to the final stages of having the product in the
Table I Abstracting and indexing services
Database Publisher Coverage Co Type
Aerospace & High Technology Database (CSA)
(available at: www.csa.com/factsheets/
aerospace-set-c.php)
CSA / ProQuest Aeronautics, astronautics, and space
sciences
USA S
CISTIa (available at: http://cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.
ca/main_e.html)
National Research Council,
Canada
All fields of engineering, technology
and sciences
CA FS
Compendex (available at: www.ei.org/
databases/compendex.html)
Elsevier Engineering
Information, Inc
One of the most comprehensive
interdisciplinary databases for
engineering
USA S
CSA Materials Research Database with Metadex
(available at: www.csa.com/factsheets/
engineering-set-c.php)
CSA / ProQuest Sections: aluminum industry, ceramic/
world ceramics, Copper Data Center,
corrosion, advanced polymers,
composites industry, engineered
materials, Metadex, and
WeldaSearch.
USA S
Ergonomics Abstracts (available at: www.
informaworld.com/smpp/
title , content 5 t71485901)
Taylor & Francis Ergonomics and human factors,
biomechanics, HCI, safety, and
occupational health
UK S
INSPEC (available at: www.iee.org/publish/
inspec/)
The Institution of Engineering
and Technology
Control engineering, information
technology, manufacturing,
mechanical engineering, physics,
electrical and electronic engineering,
communications, and computer
science
UK S
Intute: Science, Engineering & Technology
(available at: www.intute.ac.uk/sciences/)
Univ. of Manchester /Heriot-
Watt Univ.
Physical sciences, engineering,
computing, geography, mathematics
and environmental sciences
UK FS and OA
PASCAL (available at: http://ingenierie.inist.fr/
article27.html)
INIST-CNRSb International multidisciplinary
bibliographic database in science,
technology and medicine
FR S
Recent Advances in Manufacturing – RAM
(available at: www.techxtra.ac.uk/ram/index.
php)
TechXtra, Heriot Watt
University
It covers all aspects of manufacturing
engineering, management, and
technology
UK FS
Referativnyi Zhurnal (available at: www2.viniti.
ru)
VINITIc Main Russian scientific and technical
abstracting service
RU S
Scirus (available at: www.scirus.com/) Elsevier Multidisciplinary scientific and
technical sources, includes some OA
digital archives
NL FS
Science Citation Index (available at: http://
portal.isiknowledge.com/portal.
cgi?Init 5 Yes&SID 5 4)
Thomson Scientific It indexes highly selective groups of
science and engineering journals
USA S
Notes: aCanada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information; bINIST-CNRS, Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; cVINITI, Russian Scientific and Technical Information Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences – Vserossiisky Institut Nauchnoi i Tekhnicheskoi Informatsii
A survey of manufacturing engineering databases
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market. The complete process is complex and expensive, and
it requires the expertise and skills of many people and
departments within an organization. We hope that this survey
would be beneficial to those involved in the learning, teaching
and practicing of the profession. Therefore, this survey has three purposes: a guide to
research resources for students, an easy ready reference
source for teaching faculty, researchers and professionals
working in the field, and a list of essential databases for
librarians not well versed with the literature of manufacturing
engineering.
Databases
We have divided the databases identified in this survey into
eight groups which have been historically recognized as the
main components of technical information: abstracting and
indexing services, full-text databases, industrial standards and
specifications, patents information, products information,
technical reports, industrial and business data, and “other”
resources. This is not a complete list and its emphasis is on
databases produced in the USA and Europe. Finally, the
databases listed in the next sections are provided with an URL
address where more specific details of each of them are found. A few clarifications about the tables included in this survey
will be of help to the readers:
. Each table has five columns: the name of the database, publisher, a brief coverage, the country of the producer,
and the type of the database. For the “type” we used the following abbreviations: FS ¼ Free searching, documents may be purchased. OA ¼ Open Access,
documents are free. S ¼ Subscription based product. . In some cases the producer has a “family” of databases, as
for example: ABI Inform, LexisNexis and EBSCO. In
those cases we have only listed one of their premier databases and hope the reader will investigate other options available by using the URL posted.
. Current information is most often the key to the development of successful products, therefore, we have omitted in the “coverage” the time span of the databases.
Some databases have significant retrospective archives, but without demeritting the historical value of technology as a whole we felt that the emphasis here is currency.
Abstracting and indexing services
For many years, abstracting and indexing publications have been the most effective means of compilation and
dissemination of technical information. Their main coverage most often is articles from journals, magazines, and conference proceedings, but some also include a very select
number of other documents such as books, reports, and dissertations. The information obtained from searching
Table II Full-text databases
Database Publisher Coverage Co Type
ABI Inform (available at: http://proquest.com/
products_pq/descriptions/abi_inform.shtml)
ProQuest International coverage of business
and economic conditions, corporate
strategies, management, technology,
competitive and product information
USA S
DOE Information Bridge (available at: www.osti.
gov/bridge/)
USA, Department of Energy
(DOE)
DOE research report literature
documents
USA FS and OA
EBSCO Business Source Premier (available at:
www.epnet.com/thisTopic.
php?marketID 5 1&topicID 5 4)
EBSCO Publishing Business, management and
economics, accounting, banking,
finance, international business,
marketing, sales, and company
profiles
USA S
Emerald Engineering (available at: http://
engineering.emeraldinsight.com)
Emerald Group Publishing Advanced automation, computational
mathematics, electronics
manufacturing and packaging, and
materials science and engineering
UK S
IEEE Xplore (available at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.
org/)
IEEE, Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers
The largest publisher of electrical
engineering, computer science, and
electronics publications. It contains
1.6 million documents
UK S
ScienceDirect (available at: www.sciencedirect.
com/)
Elsevier A major publisher of scientific,
medical and technical information. It
includes 6.75 million articles
NL S
SpringerLink Springer Online Journals (available
at: www.springerlink.com/home/main.mpx)
Springer Science-business
media
A major publisher of scientific,
medical and technical information. It
includes 3.5 million documents
DE S
Wiley Interscience Journals (available at:
www3.interscience.wiley.com/)
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. It contains an extensive collection of
scientific, technical, medical and
business journals and over 1.5 million
research articles
USA S
A survey of manufacturing engineering databases
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indexes and abstracts is limited to the bibliographic information of the documents and an abstract of the contents of the documents. In today’s digital library, indexing databases are networked with full-text databases through link resolving software like SFX (ExLibris) which allows the connection of the bibliographic information in the index with the full-text document in the full-text database. For example, a citation in Compendex is linked to the full- text document in SpringerLink (or in Emerald Engineering or whoever owns the document). If the full text of the document is not available, an automatic interlibrary loan request or purchasing request can be made (see Table I).
Full-text databases
There are several types of full-text databases. Most publishers of journals have made full-text databases of their publications. Elsevier is a typical example, all of their journals can be searched using ScienceDirect. In an aggregated database, such as ABI Inform, the producer obtained permission from multiple sources to make their full-text journals available.
Some publishers allow their titles in aggregated databases but have their more recent volumes of journals held in an “embargo” status which means that their last year of issues is not available in full-text. In this section we present full-text databases containing mainly articles from journals and conference proceedings. Full-text databases for other types of documents are included in the other sections of this article, for example, in patents and in technical reports (see Table II).
Industrial standards and specifications
Industrial standards and specifications have tremendous importance in the creation of goods and products. As indicated by Allot (1985): “Standards underpin today’s technology-based world and they are the essential common language of engineering. Without them no building, no structure, no machine could be brought into useful existence.” This statement made over twenty years ago is even more valid today. The globalization economy has made it necessary for manufacturing companies to comply with these well-established rules in order to make their products
Table III Industrial standards and specifications
Database Publisher Coverage Co Type
Australian National Measurement Institute
(available at: www.measurement.gov.au/)
National Measurement
Institute
It provides infrastructure in technical,
physical, chemical, biological and
legal measurements. It disseminates
measurement standards, and makes
available measurement reports
AU OA
British Standards Institution, BSI (available at:
www.bsi-global.com/)
BSI British Standards The BSI Library and Bookshop have
more than 500,000 standards and
reports
UK FS
Canadian Institute for National Measurement
Standards (available at: http://inms-ienm.
nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/main_e.html)
National Research Council,
Canada
Over 4,000 reports produced by NRC
metrology research group
CA FS and OA
DIN, the German Institute for Standardization
(available at: www.din.de/cmd?level 5 tpl-
home&contextid 5 din)
DIN, Deutsches Institut für
Normung e. V.
DIN is the national institute for the
development of industry norms and
standards
DE FS
IHS Global Engineering Documents (available
at: http://global.ihs.com/)
With over 800,000 it is one of the
major worldwide distributors for
industrial standards, specifications
and codes
USA FS
Japanese Industrial Standards Committee
(available at: www.jisc.go.jp/eng/index.html)
Ministry of Economy, Trade
and Industry (METI)
It develops measurement standards
and technical infrastructure for
standardization
JP FS
Table IV Patents resources
Database Publisher Coverage Co Type
US Patents and Trademark Office (available at:
www.uspto.gov/)
US Department of Commerce,
Patent and Trademark Office
Issued Patents, full-text since 1976,
full-page images since 1790
USA OA
Europe’s Network of Patent Databases
(available at: http://ep.espacenet.com/)
European Patent Office It contains millions of patent
documents from Europe, Japan, the
US and the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO)
DE OA
Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) (available
at: www.thomson.com/content/scientific/
brand_overviews/dwpi)
Thomson Scientific It contains information about over 32
million patents. Worldwide coverage
USA S and FS
A survey of manufacturing engineering databases
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successful in the market. Industrial standards are created by
national, regional and international organizations. Often,
professional organizations such and IEEE and ASME have a
very important role in the development of these standards. In
this section, we list examples of ’sets’ of standards and sources
for searching and obtaining them. Examples of standards
organizations are: AASHTO (American Association of State
Highway and Transportation Officials) Standards, ANSI
(American National Standards Institute) Standards, API
(American Petroleum Institute) Standards, ASHRAE
(American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-
Conditioning Engineers) Standards, ASME (American
Society of Mechanical Engineers) Standards, ASTM
(American Society for Testing and Materials) Standards,
AWS (American Welding Society) Standards, and ASME
(American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Boiler and
Pressure Vessel Code (see Table III).
Patents information
Patents are the engine for innovation. In the case of
manufacturing engineering, the rights granted to a person, a
company or an institution (such as for the creation of an
industrial process, the design of a machinery, or a new use or
the improvement of a material) can have significant influence
in a particular industry. The process of granting patent rights
is complicated and usually requires the support of a legal
team. In general, the use of a patent is granted by a country
for a specific length of time. To have a good grasp of how
searching for patents is a very important skill, engineers can
save a company a substantial amount of money if a good
patent search is performed before an expensive design process
begins. Patent searches are also used to determine what the
competition is doing or to determine new trends in a specific
technical field (see Table IV).
Products information
An essential part of having an efficient and well-managed
production process is the acquisition of proper equipment,
computer hardware and software, raw materials, and
machinery. The amount of industrial product information in
the market is significant. The key is to identify reliable sources
that will give the engineers the detailed information about a
product needed to make a purchasing decision. Another way
of exploring product information is by identifying products
and services that are not available at all (or those needing
upgrades) and that have potential in the marketplace. Product
information is available in many forms from catalogs and
Table V Products information resources
Database Publisher Coverage Co Type
The Chemical Engineering Buyers’ Guide
(available at: www.cebuyersguide.com/)
Chemical Week Associates Companies, products and sales
contacts for chemical engineering
industries. Free registration
USA OA
GlobalSpec – Engineering Search & Industrial
Supplier Catalogs (available at: www.
globalspec.com/)
GlobalSpec, Inc. It contains over 21,000 digitized
catalogs, over 2.2 million products
and over 176 million searchable
product specs. Free registration
USA OA
Grainger Industrial Supply (available at: www.
grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/start.shtml)
W.W. Grainger, Inc It includes more than 1,300 suppliers
that provides access to more than
800,000 products. Free registration
USA OA
Kompass (available at: www.kompass.com/) Kompass International
Neuenschwander S.A.
Worldwide business purchasing and
marketing directory including 2.2
million companies, their products,
services, and contacts. A free version
is available
FR S and FS
Machinery. Buyers guide of UK manufacturing
and engineering suppliers (available at: www.
machinery.co.uk/Buyers-Guide/index.aspx)
Findlay Publications Ltd It covers 39,000 suppliers for
production engineering equipment,
supplies or services
UK FS
MSC Industrial Supply Company (available at:
www1.mscdirect.com/cgi/nnsrhm)
MSC Industrial Direct Co. A distributor of industrial supplies, it
provides information for over 500,000
products from thousands of suppliers
USA OA
SME Buyers Guide (available at: www.sme.org/
cgi-bin/category-list.pl?&&PUB&&SME&)
Society of Manufacturing
Engineers
It is a directory for manufacturing
information about companies,
products and services
USA FS
ThomasNet (Thomas Register) (available at:
www.thomasnet.com/)
Thomas Publishing Company One of the most comprehensive
databases for industrial information,
products, services, and CAD drawings
USA OA
ThomasGlobal (available at: www.
thomasglobal.com/Default.asp?bhcp 5 1)
Thomas Publishing Company It is a worldwide directory for
industrial information covering over
700,000 suppliers from 28 countries
USA OA
A survey of manufacturing engineering databases
Nestor L. Osorio and Andrew W. Otieno
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Table VI Technical reports
Database Publisher Coverage Co Type
Aerospace & High Technology Database (CSA)
(available at: www.csa.com/factsheets/
aerospace-set-c.php)
CSA / ProQuest It covers basic and applied research in
aeronautics, astronautics, space
sciences, technology development
and applications in other fields
USA S
Scientific and Technical Information Network
(STINET) (available at: http://stinet.dtic.mil/)
US Defense Technical
Information Center (DTIC)
It accesses citations of unclassified
documents that have been entered
into DTIC’s Technical Reports
Collection, and the electronic full-text
of many of these documents
USA OA and FS
DOE Information Bridge (available at: www.osti.
gov/bridge/)
US Department of Energy
(DOE)
It provides access to documents and
bibliographic citations of the DOE
research report literature
USA OA
Energy Citations Database, ECD (available at:
www.osti.gov/energycitations/)
US Office of Scientific and
Technical Information
It provides access to over 2.0 million
science research citations included in
scientific and technical research
disciplines
USA FS
Energyfiles (available at: www.osti.gov/
energyfiles/)
US Department of Energy –
OSTIa This portal provides access to over
500 databases and web sites with
science and technology coverage
USA FS and OA
EPA – NSCEPb (available at: www.epa.gov/
ncepihom/)
US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA)
A collection of environmental
documents produced by the EPA
USA OA and FS
FIREDOC. Fire Research Information Services
(FRIS) (available at: www.bfrl.nist.gov/fris/
firedoc_info.htm)
US National Institute of
Standards and Technology
It contains 70,000 records of reports,
journal articles, conference
proceedings, books, and audiovisual
items related to fire research
USA FS
GrayLit Network (available at: www.osti.gov/
graylit/)
US Department of Energy –
OSTI
This is a web portal for information
generated through federally funded
research and development projects in
the form of technical reports. It covers
the DTIC Report Collection, NASA Jet
Propulsion Lab Reports, the DOE
Information Bridge, the NASA
Technical Reports, and EPA Reports
USA FS and OA
NASA Technical Reports Server, NTRSc (available
at: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp)
NASA Scientific and Technical
Information Program
It provides access to nearly 500,000
aerospace related citations, 90,000
full-text documents, and 111,000
images and videos
USA FS and OA
NCSTRLd (available at: www.ncstrl.org/) Old Dominion University It is a repository of technical reports
and preprints of computer science
technical research and its applications
USA OA and FS
NTIS, National Technical Information Service
(available at: www.ntis.gov/search/advanced.
aspx)
US Department of Commerce
– NTIS
It is a central resource for USA
government-funded scientific,
technical, engineering, and business
related information. A free version is
available
USA FS and S
Virtual Technical Reports Center (available at:
www.lib.umd.edu/ENGIN/TechReports/
Virtual-TechReports.html)
University of Maryland
Libraries
The institutions included provide
either full-text reports, or abstracts of
their technical reports. It contains
links to technical reports, preprints,
reprints, dissertations, and research
reports
USA OA and FS
Notes: aOffice of Scientific and Technical Information; bNational Service Center for Environmental Publications; cNetworked Computer Science Technical Reference Library; dNational Aeronautics and Space Administration
A survey of manufacturing engineering databases
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Table VII Industrial and business data
Database Publisher Coverage Co Type
Global market information database
(available at: www1.euromonitor.com/
GMID.aspx)
Euromonitor International It is a resource for providing business
intelligence on industries, countries and
consumers. It has over 4.0 million statistical
data items on industries, countries and
consumers
UK S
HooverOnline (available at: www.
hoovers.com/free/)
Hoover’s, Inc. A database of over 14,000 company profiles,
news, stock quotes and competitors. There is
a free version available
USA S and OA
MergentOnline (available at: www.
mergentonline.com/)
Mergent It covers over 27,000 USA and international
companies. It has information on company
profiles, annual reports, and business data
USA S
Statistical Universe (available at: www.
lexisnexis.com/academic/1univ/stat/
default.asp)
Elsevier It includes statistical data produced by the
U.S. government, major international
intergovernmental organizations,
professional and trade organizations,
commercial publishers, independent research
organizations, state government agencies,
and universities
NL S
Table VIII Other resources
Database Publisher Coverage Co Type
Industry Week (available at: www.
industryweek.com/)
Penton Media Management, news, operations, economics
and public policy, technology and innovations
USA OA
FindLaw: Cases and Codes: Supreme
Court Opinions (available at: www.
findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html)
Thomson FindLaw US Supreme Court Decisions since 1999 USA OA
LegalTrac (available at: www.gale.com/
tlist/sb5088.html)
Thomson Gale 1.3 million citations from major law reviews,
legal newspapers, and other specialty law
publications
USA S
Academic Universe (available at: www.
lexisnexis.com/academic/1univ/default.
asp)
LexisNexis International coverage of legal, business
information. Newspaper articles, and
information about people
USA S
MatWeb Material Property Data
(available at: www.matweb.com/)
MatWeb Data sheets for over 64,000 metals, plastics,
ceramics, and composites. Free registration
USA OA
National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health (available at: www.
cdc.gov/niosh/homepage.html)
USA Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention
It contains an extensive library of reports
about industrial safety, hazards, emergencies,
and statistical data
USA OA
Occupational Safety & Health
Administration (available at: www.osha.
gov/)
USA Department of Labor It includes an extensive library of laws and
regulations, standards, interpretations, and
Federal Registers
USA OA
ThermoDex (available at: www.lib.
utexas.edu/thermodex/)
University of Texas Libraries,
Austin
It provides a list of sources where information
about thermochemical and thermophysical
data for chemical compounds and other
substances can be found
USA FS
TRIS Online (available at: http://
ntlsearch.bts.gov/tris/index.do)
Bureau of Transportation
Statistics (BTS) and the
Transportation Research
Board
It contains over 450,000 records of published
research on all modes and disciplines of
transportation. Hosted by the National
Transportation Library (http://ntl.bts.gov)
USA FS and S
A survey of manufacturing engineering databases
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industrial directories on paper to sophisticated online services (see Table V).
Technical reports
A technical report is a document produced with a specific goal: to report the findings of a project. For Auger (1985), the main areas usually presented in a report are research results, development, testing, and evaluation. “Typically, engineering reports will contain experimental details and production data which are then consolidated into definitive information such as statistics, materials properties and processed test results.” The major producers of technical reports are research government agencies, international organizations, research institutions, and private companies (see Table VI).
Industrial and business data
In this section we included databases that are of supplementary value for manufacturing industries. It includes data on industrial statistics, market reports, company profiles, stock quotes, market positions, and strategies for major economic events (e.g. energy, technology) as well as statistical data related to consumers. These databases provide both national and international coverage. This is a representative list (see Table VII).
Other resources
Materials properties, energy supply, transportation logistics, safety, storage of products and materials, and legal problems are just a few of the other important areas in which manufacturing personnel routinely make decisions. Access to reliable data and information can be essential for the successful generation of a product. Some examples are presented in this section (see Table VIII).
Conclusion
The results of this survey show that there is a robust body of technical information for manufacturing engineering. We have demonstrated the importance of literature mining in the manufacturing process. We have also identified a significant
number of resources that can be utilized in industry as well as
in research. This compilation of sources is not universal; for
practical reasons we have limited our survey to mainly English
speaking sources, mostly produced in the USA or in
European countries. With the emerging industrial and
manufacturing economies of China, India, Brazil, and
Eastern Europe (as well as some well-established ones such
as Japan and South Korea), further identification of sources
covering additional geographical areas would be the next
logical step.
References
Allot, A.M. (1985), “Standards and engineering”,
in Anthony, L.J. (Ed.), Information Sources for Engineering, 2nd ed., Butterworths, London, p. 35.
Auger, C.P. (1985), “Reports”, in Anthony, L.J. (Ed.),
Information Sources in Engineering, 2nd ed., Butterworths, London, pp. 20-34.
Benhabib, B. (2003), Manufacturing: Design, Production, Automation and Integration, Marcel Dekker, New York, NY.
Groover, M.P. (2001), Automation Production Systems, and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Kostoff, R.N. (2003), “Role of technical literature in science
and technology development and exploitation”, Journal of Information Science, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 223-8.
Osif, B.A. (Ed) (2006), Using the Engineering Literature, Routledge, London.
Schaible, M. (2001), “Searching scientific databases for
guides to experiment and theory”, Journal of Information Science, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 30-9.
Ward, M. (2001), “A survey of engineers in their information
world”, Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 168-76.
Wenger, C.B. (2002), “The value of multiple databases
searching to scholarly research productivity”, Science and Technology Libraries, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 17-29.
Corresponding author
Nestor L. Osorio can be contacted at: [email protected]
A survey of manufacturing engineering databases
Nestor L. Osorio and Andrew W. Otieno
Collection Building
Volume 27 · Number 1 · 2008 · 22–29
29
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