{"id":46,"date":"2010-07-13T20:13:47","date_gmt":"2010-07-14T03:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/?p=46"},"modified":"2010-07-15T20:01:02","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T03:01:02","slug":"some-help-for-u-s-manufacturers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/general\/some-help-for-u-s-manufacturers\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Help for U. S. Manufacturers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the agency that would get the least amount of funding of the three agencies mentioned in last week\u2019s blog article about the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010.\u00a0 However, it is the agency that has ongoing programs benefiting manufacturers, especially through the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), established in 1988.<\/p>\n<p>The MEP program is a national network with thousands of specialists who understand the needs of manufacturing and small businesses. The MEP program has assisted more than 200,000 firms through a network of centers across the country to assist small-and medium-sized manufacturers adopt and use the latest and most efficient technologies, process, and business practices.<\/p>\n<p>MEP is participating in <a href=\"http:\/\/trade.gov\/manufactureamerica\/\">Manufacture America<\/a> events launched by the International Trade Administration\u2019s Manufacturing and Services unit.\u00a0 The Manufacture America program is designed to help American manufacturers rethink, retool, and rebuild their operations through exploring new products, markets, processes, and sources of finance.\u00a0\u00a0 A series of Manufacture America regional conferences will convene to allow manufacturers to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Learn      how they can retool and rebuild through entering new market segments, new      industries, or new supply chains and modernize processes to become more      sustainable and efficient while lowering operations costs.<\/li>\n<li>Hear      success stories form manufacturers who have successfully retooled.<\/li>\n<li>Learn      about growing industries.<\/li>\n<li>Learn      about export opportunities as well as how to export.<\/li>\n<li>Learn      about resources and funding that are available to help rethink and retool,      including technical assistance and financing.<\/li>\n<li>Discuss      issues the manufacturers face with federal, state, and local governments<\/li>\n<li>Network      with representatives from other companies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The other events will take place between August and October in Morgantown, WV, Pittsburgh, PA, Detroit, MI, Canton, OH, and Chicago, IL.\u00a0\u00a0 These states are home to the industries that have been hit the hardest by the recession; namely the automotive and machine tool industries.\u00a0 The problem with events such as this is that they don\u2019t receive publicity so very few companies are aware of them.<\/p>\n<p>If your company isn\u2019t already involved with a MEP center or with the trade and commerce agencies of one of the states in which an event will be held, you wouldn\u2019t hear about the Manufacture America events. There are MEP programs in nearly every state from Alabama to Wisconsin.\u00a0 To locate the nearest MEP program, visit www.nist.gov\/mep.<\/p>\n<p>In California, two organizations administer the NIST MEP Program:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmtc.com\/\">California Manufacturing Technology Consulting (CMTC)<\/a><\/span> <\/span>\u2013 serving southern California from San Diego up to Fresno County in central California.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/manex.org\/\">Corporation for Manufacturing Excellence (Manex)<\/a><\/span> \u2013 serving northern California.<\/p>\n<p>Both organizations leverage NIST funds with California\u2019s Employment Training Panel (ETP) funds to reduce the costs of training to employers.\u00a0\u00a0 Companies qualify for ETP funding if they pay into the unemployment insurance fund, have a 20 percent turnover rate or less, and have a manufacturing NAICS code or can prove they face out-of-state competition.\u00a0\u00a0 Their employees are eligible for training if they are residents of California, work full time (35 hours a week or more), meet the minimum wage requirements, which vary by county, and have been employed at least 90 days prior to the first day of training.<\/p>\n<p>Both organizations provide industrial services that are divided into practice areas that specifically support manufacturers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Strategic Business<\/li>\n<li>Lean Enterprise<\/li>\n<li>Information Technology<\/li>\n<li>Energy Services<\/li>\n<li>Quality<\/li>\n<li>Supply Chain Management<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>CMTC also operates the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmtc.com\/sma.html\">Small Manufacturers Advantage<\/a> \u2122 program in which a no-fee assessment is conducted and a written report of improvement recommendations is provided.\u00a0 The report includes the assessment, a roadmap, self-implementation tools, relevant articles, and a listing of other California business resources.\u00a0 The report is designed in a format for self-implementation, but a follow-on \u201cJump Start\u201d program of consulting by CMTC professionals can be scheduled at no cost.<\/p>\n<p>When budget deficits are so high at the federal and state level, we can\u2019t waste taxpayer money with programs and events that don\u2019t reach the people that would benefit from them.\u00a0 Now is the time for agencies and organizations receiving government funding to think \u201cout of the box\u201d and use new channels of communication to make people aware of events and programs that would be beneficial to them.\u00a0 It\u2019s time for all of us to be more proactive in keeping informed about programs and events that could benefit our businesses.\u00a0 One such site is www.manufacturing.gov<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the agency that would get the least amount of funding of the three agencies mentioned in last week\u2019s blog article about the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010.\u00a0 However, it is the agency that has ongoing programs benefiting manufacturers, especially through the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}