NTEA member company success stories with MEP

Guest editorial
By Mark Schmit, National Institute of Standards and Technology

This article was published in the October 2018 edition of NTEA News.

Representatives from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will present How Government, Local MEPs and National Labs are Helping the Shop Across the Street as part of the Manufacturer and Distributor Innovation Conference, held in conjunction with The Work Truck Show^® 2019. This session will overview how NTEA member companies have used NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) to establish a foundation for long-term business growth and productivity.

MEP — a public-private partnership with centers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, and more than 1,300 manufacturing experts at over 400 locations — is dedicated to serving small and medium-sized manufacturers. It has a long history (spanning more than a decade) with companies in the work truck industry. In the last three years, MEP surveyed 17 projects with these clients, with one in the pipeline. During that time, these projects, which primarily focused on workforce and lean, generated reported impacts of $530,000 in total sales, $111,000 in cost savings, $2,041,001 in total investments, 16 new or retained jobs and 541 surveyed project hours.

In the last 10 years, MEP worked on 146 projects with industry companies, with reported results of $42,595,000 in total sales, $10,710,601 in cost savings, $9,443,497 in investment, 852 created or retained jobs and 10,010 surveyed project hours. Most initiatives focused on lean and strategic/business management services as well as quality, engineering/plant layout services and workforce.

Following are success stories from NTEA member companies that have utilized MEP resources to improve processes, work environment and workforce capabilities.

Production skills
In Kansas, Mid-America Manufacturing Technology Center (MAMTC), a NIST MEP affiliate, worked with Henke Manufacturing, a designer and manufacturer of snowplows and other attachments, to fill a skills gap in production staff. MAMTC leveraged its subrecipient partnership with Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC) to provide workforce training support to Henke.

With more than 100 years in the business and about 90 employees, Henke is recognized as an industry leader. The company sells to city, county and state government agencies through a network of industrial and truck equipment dealers located throughout the U.S. Factory expansion and unique product features contributed to significant growth in recent years, and close proximity to Kansas City’s active trucking hub allows for fast and economical shipping. Anticipating future growth, Henke identified a production-staff skills need when it came to building equipment, and reached out to MAMTC for assistance.

Following initial conversations with key staff, KCKCC developed testing for Henke employees to identify baseline knowledge gaps. Based on the results, KCKCC determined production times were down because staff required additional training on how to read and interpret blueprints from the engineering department. KCKCC developed and delivered a 15-week training
program for Henke employees, and supplemented the company’s recruiting efforts by training and placing several new workers in positions at the plant. As a result of this project, 30 staff members were trained in a 15-week program, eight new jobs were created, the company identified cost savings of $1.5 million and investments of $2.5 million in plant improvements, and increased/retained $7.5 million in sales.

“We could not be more pleased with our relationship with Kansas City Kansas Community College,” said Amber Steele, Henke’s HR director. “They really came in and understood our needs and were hugely instrumental in helping us gear up to acquire new customers and develop and deliver new product offerings.”

Welding and shop training
Hillsboro Industries is a manufacturer in Hillsboro, Kansas, that produces high-end trailers and truck beds. It’s situated in a rural part of the state, not close enough to an urban area with key resources for manufacturing companies. The business has approximately 55 employees. 

To make an average truck bed on its production line, Hillsboro Industries needs aluminum, equipment and technology as well as a skilled workforce to manufacture it. Materials and equipment are relatively easy to acquire, and purchasing and maintenance departments keep these activities in check. However, aluminum is not an easy material to weld, and companies can’t afford to do a great deal of hands-on training with such a temperamental material. A trained, efficient workforce in a smaller rural community can be difficult to acquire and retain. This is where the relationship with Hutchinson Community College (HCC), and MAMTC partnership, comes in.

HCC is located in the south-central part of Kansas, approximately 60 miles from Hillsboro Industries. Today, it provides a variety of training and education to the Hillsboro community, many of whom become full-time employees with Hillsboro Industries. Often, the newly trained worker will stay in Hillsboro, countering the effect that occurs when high school graduates go to college and don’t return to the smaller towns. With some of the most recent training opportunities, HCC provided Hillsboro Industries employees and Hillsboro citizens classes in shop math, blueprint reading, safety, MIG welding and aluminum MIG welding. This initiative resulted in $900,000 in new or retained sales, seven created or retained jobs, $40,000 in cost savings and $770,000 in new investments.

“We have more sophisticated equipment now,” said Mike Gerken, Hillsboro’s chief operating officer. “Specifications can be so much closer than when we had to torch parts for assembly. Our plasma torch can cut to within a thousandth of an inch. I don’t see technology replacing people — it’s improving efficiency and quality.”  

Learn more at WTS19
For the last several years, NTEA has offered Work Truck Show sessions on shop productivity. In 2018, the educational program included Lean 101: Straightforward Approach to Lean Implementation for Truck Equipment Upfitters and Lean 201: The Kata Journey — Daily Practice for Scientific Thinking, Mindset and Culture. Both sessions featured MEP representatives. For the 2019 Show, some companies involved in the pilot session will be invited to return and overview their unique implementation experiences, and the productivity theme will take even greater precedence. Visit worktruckshow.com/specialsessions for more details. See the full Work Truck Show educational program, exhibiting companies and products, and a complete schedule of events at worktruckshow.com.