Our Community Guidelines

Sustainment is a manufacturing market community that is designed to help buyers and suppliers of manufacturing services, and those that support them, build better relationships and work more efficiently together. Sustainment is focused on empowering and enabling the manufacturing community in the United States in particular, but welcomes everyone who is part of the global manufacturing community.

Who Can Join

  • Buyers and suppliers of manufacturing services.
  • Raw materials suppliers to the manufacturing industry.
  • Manufacturing support organizations and associations.
  • Vendors or service providers that support the manufacturing industry.

Guidelines for the Proper Use of Sustainment

These are covered in much more detail in our Terms of Use, but a summary of the key tenets of our community are:

  • Always represent yourself truthfully and transparently both in your individual identity and in the company that you work for or represent.
  • Do not engage in practices that are abusive or detrimental to the community or to Sustainment, including data mining or spamming.
  • Operate in good faith, remaining communicative and maintaining high integrity in your business dealings with other parties in the community.

Sustainment retains the right, at our discretion, to suspend or deactivate the accounts of any community members who do not adhere to these guidelines. We make every effort to also operate in good faith and transparency in any issues where this might be an outcome.

The Role of Manufacturing Support Organizations

Manufacturing support organizations, including government agencies (like NIMS and MEPs), industry associations, and educational institutions are a vital part of the manufacturing industry’s success. Sustainment invests actively to partner with these organizations and facilitate our community members’ access to their valuable resources and expertise.

Support organizations can connect and message with any community members, and their programs will be browsable in our Resources area. However, they will not be searchable on our Find Suppliers screen, as the focus there is on establishing manufacturing relationships between buyers and suppliers in order to assist in completing manufacturing projects.

The Role of Manufacturing Service Providers and Vendors

Companies who sell enabling products and services to manufacturers are important members of the manufacturing community. These vendors are encouraged to join the community, connect, and message appropriately. We only ask that any sales activity is focused and respectful. Any reports of spamming or overly aggressive sales tactics will be policed by our community managers.

Limitations on Overseas Suppliers

Sustainment, as a public benefit corporation based in the United States, is committed to our goal of supporting domestic manufacturing sector growth in the U.S. We welcome international companies who join our network to work with their U.S. customers or to find supplier partners in the U.S. International suppliers will not be searchable in our “Find Suppliers” feature, and international suppliers will not be able to access and bid on open projects posted in the community.

Sustainment’s definition of a domestic supplier is any company who owns and operates a manufacturing facility in the United States.

Feedback on our Community Guidelines

We welcome your feedback and seek to grow our community in partnership with you, so that we can best serve and balance the needs of our customers, partners, and stakeholders.

Please reach out to us if you have any questions or ideas at info@sustainment.tech.

– The Sustainment Team

Last revised: August 28th, 2023