IDES Inc.

IDES Inc. is a plastics materials information management company with a vertical search engine for the plastics industry that only includes plastics-related websites in its index.

Founded in 1986, IDES manages plastic materials information in the form of technical datasheets for more than 600 global resin manufacturers. Their flagship product, Prospector, is a search engine that accesses more than 72,000 technical datasheets through a variety of proprietary search technologies designed in-house. IDES is an acronym for Integrated Design Engineering Systems.

As a first step to fulfilling that mission, IDES's founder Mike Kmetz developed a new approach to cataloging plastic materials information, which later translated to an online three dimensional database, architected to hold and display highly technical and complex raw materials information. IDES is now widely recognized as a vertical search engine for plastic materials information and data sheets. The information IDES manages is accessible on their website, The Plastics Web, and through Prospector.

The IDES StoryIDES began in 1986 when IBM needed a way to reference technical information for the plastics they were using to develop their computer products. What started out as a handbook quickly progressed from floppy disks to cd-rom and in the mid-90's, the Internet.

The company provides plastics information in books and on the web. Their polymer reference books include Pocket Specs for Injection Molding and Pocket Performance Specs for Thermoplastics. The Prospector plastics search engines help plastics professionals, specifically design engineers and plastics processors, to quickly retrieve tech data sheets from 608 global resin suppliers from one location.

The Plastics Web organizes useful information about plastic materials including supplier lists, processing guidelines and charts, chemical resistance data, features and uses lists, tools, and much more. It also incorporates the first vertical search engine for plastics related content, allowing users to search for keywords like nylon and rather than getting search results for panty-hose, they actually connect with useful information about Polyamide polymers.

IDES also provides custom resin selectors for several resin distributors and resin manufacturers including Dow Plastics, ExxonMobil, Solvay Advanced Polymers and more.

While the information presented on the IDES website is highly technical in nature, background information on these common polymers are available through Wikipedia:
Acetal, acrylic, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, liquid crystal polymer, polyamide, polycarbonate, polyethylene, polyolefin, polypropylene, polystyrene, and thermoplastic elastomer.

External links

* [http://www.ides.com The Plastics Web]
* [http://www.ides.com/plastics/A.htm Plastic Materials]
* [http://www.ides.com/generics/default.htm Plastic Generic Families]
* [http://www.ides.com/manufacturers/A.htm Polymer Manufacturers]
* [http://www.ides.com/distributors/default.htm Resin Distributors]
* [http://www.ides.com/property_descriptions/default.asp Plastic Material Properties and Test Standards]
* [http://store.ides.com/default.aspx The Plastics Store]
* [http://www.ides.com/plasticsweb/about.asp Vertical Search Engine for Plastics Professionals]
* [http://prospector.ides.com/registration/default.aspx?utm_source=wiki&utm_medium=colisting Free Plastic Material Datasheet Access]
* [http://www.ides.com/resinprice/default.asp Resin Pricing Reports]
* [http://www.ides.com/directory/default.asp Directory]
* [http://www.ides.com/articles/default.asp Technical Articles]