October 2018
Manufacturing
Update
The Manufacturing Update is a bi-monthly electronic newsletter from Industry Expansion Solutions with up-to-date manufacturing news. Below you can view past issues.
Last month, North Carolina was rocked by Hurricane Florence, which caused severe flooding across the state, displacing people from their homes and grinding businesses to a halt. Our heart goes out to all those affected. If there is anything that we can do to help you and your business during this time, please let us know. We are here for you.
Related to that, we moved MFGCON 2018, and the preconference Robotics Workshop from their original dates of September 17–19, to November 12–14, and will still be held at the Durham Convention Center.
—Phil Mintz, Executive Director
NC State Industry Expansion Solutions
Lead Stories
MFGCON Rescheduled for November
Due to Hurricane Florence hitting the Carolinas last month, MFGCON 2018 and the preconference Robotics Workshop have been moved to November 12-14, 2018. The conference is still being held at the Durham Convention Center on the new dates.
If you have already registered and still plan to attend, there isn’t any action that needs to be taken. Your reservation will automatically transfer to the new dates.
Emergency Preparedness Resources
In preparation for Hurricane Florence, theNorth Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NCMEP)prepared some documents related to emergency preparedness for businesses. We understand when business is disrupted, it can cost money. Lost revenues, plus extra expenses, means reduced profits.
Learn How Your Organization Can Benefit From an Innovation Strategy
An innovation system could make your organization more profitable, with innovation being defined as commercializing a meaningfully unique idea that a customer will pay for. However, research has shown that only 10% of companies have an innovation strategy. Research also shows that Innovators have a return on sales twice as high as manufacturers that compete primarily on strategies of low cost, quality or delivery. Join IES for a workshop that will show you what it takes to put in place a process to “ideate,” test, maintain and sustain an innovation system.
NCMEP Assists Polymeric Microfiber Manufacturer Start-Up
Hear how Brevard’s Earth Renewable Technologies (ERT) introduced an innovative, bio-based polymeric microfiber into the market as quickly and efficiently as possible and how they accomplished this. They turned to the Polymer Center for Excellence (PCE), a NCMEP partner, who provided production and product development expertise, as well as access to expensive equipment to this start-up. This enabled ERT to cut product development cycle time and reduce inefficiencies, allowing them to get their products to market faster.
Manufacturing Day
Manufacturing Day sees an abundance of institutions across the country getting down to the business of educating the public on what modern manufacturing looks like! Manufacturing Day happens every year, on the first Friday in October—this year Manufacturing Day occurred on Oct 5, 2018. We’d like to thank the 40 organizations that held events around the state.
Has Your Business Been Impacted by Cuts in Federal Defense Budgets?
IES, along with the NC Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (NCDMVA), is looking for companies to participate in the implementation phase of the North Carolina Defense Industry Diversification Initiative (NC DIDI), anticipated to begin sometime in November, 2018. This follows an earlier, successful commercialization pilot project that resulted in the state’s first defense industry supply chain study and participation of ten North Carolina defense businesses at the state level.
Looking for a Few Good Companies
Smart manufacturing uses big data to improve processes—data that many companies are already collecting. Are you ready to start making your data work for you? NCMEP, through the Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII), can give you a free readiness assessment, to find out. CESMII is a regional program that works through public-private investment to improve the precision, performance and efficiency of US manufacturing.
We’d love your feedback. It’ll only take 3 minutes
What is the biggest challenge facing the manufacturing industry today? We’d like to hear from you. Please take our online survey that is designed to better understand the industry’s economic health in North Carolina, business objectives, focus areas and key challenges.
LEVERAGE OUR SOLUTIONS
We engineer success for manufacturing businesses one solution at a time by understanding our clients’ needs and then crafting meaningful and sustainable solutions to address their business requirements. Through our tailored programs and research-based, time-tested methodologies, we provide solutions to assist in strategic direction, improve performance and processes and address top line growth. We collaborate with clients to develop and implement comprehensive services and solutions across:
Upcoming Courses
Note: All our open enrollment courses listed below can be tailored for onsite training. This is the ideal choice for companies that need to train groups of employees. You get a maximum number of employees trained in a minimal amount of time for one flat fee, providing a great ROI.
Innovation Management Workshop
Oct 12 | Kannapolis, NC
This workshop will show you what it takes to put in place a process to “ideate,” test, maintain and sustain an innovation system.
Lean 300: Facilitating Continuous Improvement Activities
Oct 23–25 | Raleigh, NC
Are you looking for the best way to improve cycle time, minimize customer response time and reduce unnecessary waste?
3 Day Timer Pro Training
Oct 24–26 | Raleigh, NC
Interested in becoming an internal expert in work measurements and the latest lean and continuous improvement tools?
Resources
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