Carr first became interested in lean manufacturing when the economy was booming and companies like Numonics were looking for ways to increase their capacity in cost-efficient ways. Carr knew that a handful of MEP centers were already running successful lean-manufacturing programs for their clients. So he contacted the Lean Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit training and research center in Brookline, Mass., to learn more. After that, Carr assembled teams from various MEP centers so that information about the lean program could be shared, picked apart, and standardized. He even appointed a "champion" to both develop lean manufacturing as a product for MEP centers and create a training curriculum. Carr's overall goal: ensure that a company in, say, California receives the same quality of assistance as one in Florida.
While manufacturers in today's tough economy still must operate efficiently, there's been a subtle change in what they need, say some in the MEP system. "Companies are stepping back and rethinking," says Ashlock of the DVIRC. "They're reevaluating their market strategy and their core competencies -- I'm seeing a lot more strategic planning." Carr says MEP is ready to respond to those changing needs. "Our approach to servicing clients is already evolving from point-to-point to enterprisewide. We're not just looking at a cell on the plant floor but the whole company."
To that end, Carr is pushing a new program called "360vu," which involves working with manufacturers on every aspect of their operations. Carr intends to actually brand the program, requiring centers to meet strict criteria before they're permitted to carry it. Already, 56 centers have submitted formal letters of intent to meet those criteria, and of those, 22 have been approved. Several companies have already benefited from the 360vu approach, even though Carr doesn't expect to officially launch the program until later this year.
Information, Please
The MEP network, often invisible to clients, is the organization's most powerful tool. That's exactly what Carr had in mind all along. Back in 1991 he spearheaded an Internet-based bulletin board for MEP center directors; the board has since evolved into a sophisticated Web site that lets individual MEP centers share information and ideas. For instance, when Brian Naylor, a field engineer at the Arkansas Manufacturing Extension Network, a MEP center, had a client who needed help selecting a document-control system, Naylor sought advice from MEP colleagues via the Web site. "It was a $25,000 to $30,000 investment, and the company had no way of evaluating the systems," Naylor says.
He posted a query asking for feedback on three or four systems, received half a dozen responses from MEP centers across the country, and passed the replies back to the client company. Gathering the data was quick, accurate, and, for Naylor, almost effortless. On its own, the client company might have needed weeks to gather the same information.
But MEP's network isn't only virtual. Among the Gaithersburg staff of 50 are half a dozen account managers who update the MEP center directors on what's happening systemwide and inform them of new products and services. MEP also holds several meetings for its staff: quarterly gatherings for the center directors; an annual networking and training conference for MEP employees nationwide that typically attracts 1,000 of the 2,000 workers; and what MEP calls small "working groups," in which specialists meet and brainstorm with their peers from other centers from two to four times a year. Also, the MEP centers have a trade association of their own named the Modernization Forum, based in Livonia, Mich., which coordinates professional development for MEP staff and sponsors an annual advocacy event called Hill Day.
At the most recent gathering, held last March, 160 people, including MEP employees and their client companies, knocked on Capitol Hill doors to plug their program and spread the gospel of manufacturing as the core of the new economy. "People tend to think that manufacturing is part of the old economy, but the opposite is true," says Forum president Mike Wojcicki. "The new economy is manufacturers who have transformed the way they do business just as much as it is Internet and IT companies. The Internet and IT are largely tools that make it easier for old-economy industries to create wealth in new ways."
But what small and midsize manufacturers now need most, perhaps, is a way to make sense of the new economic -- and political -- environment. While that requires a good bit of introspection, it also demands a constant supply of reliable information and advice from people with broad perspectives and widespread expertise -- people who can help turn a horse barn into a factory or transform a simple pipe into a high-tech wonder. It may not seem like the kind of thing an underfunded, virtually invisible government program ought to be able to do. Then again, we live in times when, for better or worse, just about anything is possible.
Donna Fenn is a contributing editor at Inc.
Please e-mail your comments to editors@inc.com.
