As the clock strikes midnight and we turn the page on another year, manufacturing around the world is pursuing a future vision for business that will transform the rule of competition, how work will be performed, how companies will be organized, and how leadership must lead.

Impact Dakota is striving to work with our clients to move and innovate so that we continue to be the leading edge and not the bleeding edge.  In addition to our flagship services of:

• Lean Transformation
• LECP
• LETP
• LOE
• Strategic Planning
• Succession Planning
• Project Management

We are prepared to work with you in the following strategic areas:

The Integrated Manufacturing Enterprise

To maximize the potential of Smart Manufacturing, manufacturers of all sizes need to actively transform traditional, inhibitive functional silos to create more integrated, cross-functional, collaborative enterprise structures, both within and beyond their organizations. These structures must be supported by new digital thread technologies that stretch across the value chain from ideation, to product end of use. 

Specific Areas of Focus for 2017

• Best practice innovation processes that deliver innovative ideas and improvements across the enterprise – from the plant floor, to new products and services.
• Collaborative innovation that leverages employees, suppliers, external partners, customers, academia, and 'the crowd'.
• How manufacturing can play an active role in product and business model innovations that ultimately deliver enhanced customer experience

Transformative Technologies in Manufacturing

Manufacturers must learn how to identify, adopt, and scale the most promising Smart Manufacturing-enabling technologies in order to achieve greater agility and competitiveness and to drive innovative new business models and better customer experiences.

Specific Areas of Focus for 2017

• The latest developments in smart machines, the Internet of Things, Big Data, 3D printing technologies, plant floor analytics, modelling and simulation, mobile, cloud, and collaborative robotics.
• Smart, connected products and digital platforms that allow companies to develop and deploy new service-driven business models.
• Strategies for encouraging and implementing standards and architectures that support open, interoperable systems.

Next-Generation Manufacturing Leadership and the Changing Workforce

Smart Manufacturing requires manufacturing leaders and their teams to become more collaborative, innovative, and responsive and to make decisions based on a greater understanding of manufacturing’s role in company strategy. That means leaders must embrace new behaviors, structures, and strategies. And they must transition the talent within their organizations by identifying, attracting, developing and retaining the next generation of people and skills.

Specific Areas of Focus for 2017  

• Leadership role models, behaviours’, and mind-sets for Smart Manufacturing.
• Employee engagement strategies for a multi-generational, multi-cultural, multinational workforce.
• Identifying and developing new skills for tomorrow’s manufacturing workforce.

Cybersecurity in Manufacturing

In the face of increasing vulnerability to external cyber threats and potential internal disruption, manufacturing companies must identify the most effective cybersecurity processes and technologies and create a culture that will ensure operational continuity, data security and IP protection.  

Specific Areas of Focus for 2017

• Cyber vulnerabilities, detection methodologies, and security technologies in manufacturing operations and the supply chain.
• Bridging the gap between IT and Operations to improve manufacturing cybersecurity.
• Cybersecurity best practice policies, training, behaviors and education, including an understanding of the global cybersecurity regulatory environment.

Innovation in Manufacturing  

Manufacturers must now successfully develop and manage rapid, continuous, collaborative, and often disruptive innovation processes across the enterprise to drive growth, new products and services, operational efficiencies, and competitive success in the world of Smart Manufacturing.  

Specific Areas of Focus for 2017

• Best practice innovation processes that deliver innovative ideas and improvements across the enterprise – from the plant floor, to new products and services.
• Collaborative innovation that leverages employees, suppliers, external partners, customers, academia, and 'the crowd'.
• How manufacturing can play an active role in product and business model innovations that ultimately deliver enhanced customer experience.

We are also working with UND and NDSU for use of their labs for prototype research, which is available to our manufacturers for research and development.

We are partnering with the South Dakota MEP to offer limited robotics for your operation.

Our focus in your future!  Check us out as I think you will be surprised and well pleased at the value-added service through Impact Dakota…Your State Manufacturing Resource!