Impact Dakota Blog is a blog dedicated to supporting North Dakota’s manufacturing community improve People, Purpose, Processes and Performance. Entries provide information on opportunities, new ideas, quick tips, celebrations of success, and well, frankly, anything to help you become a better manufacturer.
The Gulf Coast’s shipbuilding industry is a case study in resilience. Not only have the manufacturers there survived COVID-19, but during the same two-year span they have also dealt with a hurricane, rapid inflation, and a host of other calamities that would ruin most businesses. Given that they’ve bounced back, and the shipbuilding and repair industry now employs some 400,000 people nationally, it’s no surprise that America’s maritime manufacturers have some workforce lessons to teach … and we should all be listening.
Why do so few leadership improvement efforts produce the results that leaders and business sponsors want? What is in the way?
There have been four major technological trends during the past few hundred years that have revolutionized both industry and manufacturing. With Industry 4.0, communications and cybersecurity cannot be viewed as isolated processes. To take full advantage of the opportunities that Industry 4.0 has to offer, manufacturers of all sizes will need to understand its capabilities and potential risks.
To respond to the current workforce crisis, a growing movement has swept across universities, community colleges, workforce development boards and nonprofits nationwide.
Innovation comes with risk, but the benefits of being innovative can be significant. Manufacturers that build new product development into their culture often develop “intrapreneurs,” staff members with an entrepreneurial spirit who will help their companies grow. Not sure where to start? The MEP National Network is here to help manufacturers achieve growth through innovation and new product development.
The Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), a program of the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has announced the results of its fiscal year 2021 manufacturing client survey, as well as the impacts of Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) funding through January 2022.
The infographic, Strengthening U.S. Manufacturing: Manufacturing USA® and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, highlights how Manufacturing USA and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) support U.S. industry to manufacture high-quality American-made products that can compete in the global marketplace. Both are public-private partnerships headquartered at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The programs improve national manufacturing competitiveness through different models.
Improving the collaboration, cooperation and communication between MEP Centers’ workforce efforts requires two essential ingredients: data on what they’re currently doing in workforce, and information on what they want to be doing in workforce in the future. The 2022 MEP Workforce Survey conducted by America Works has two goals. First, figure out where the puck is currently, understand where it’s going, and then stay ahead of the trends with programming that supports MEP Centers on their individual workforce journeys. Second, empower the MEP Centers to connect with each other directly so they can share their best practices and lessons learned, making the Network more efficient.
Disruptions in the global supply chain have led to a new dynamic for many small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) – the need to be more strategic about “second sourcing” and reshoring. The biggest increase is in what’s referred to as second sourcing, which adds redundancies such as a second source of a supply to minimize risk while increasing options. But supply chain experts also are seeing an interest in relying long term on domestic supply sources.
In addition to building our lifesaving and world-changing products, let’s manufacture something else: inclusivity. There are hundreds of thousands of Americans with unique abilities who are either unemployed or underemployed. At a time when American manufacturing needs over two million workers, it’s time for manufacturing companies to expand their perspective.