Next Generation Manufacturing


Test how prepared your company is to succeed in a rapidly growing, highly competitive global economy!


While recession challenges the resiliency of American manufacturers, the impending recovery will soon test the preparedness of U.S. firm's ability to compete in and capture a share of the global market. Manufacturers who are faster and more flexible, executing new strategies, developing people with different skills and backgrounds, engaging their people, suppliers and local service organizations in fundamentally different ways will be the future of the industy. Those manufacturers are the Next Generation Manufacturing (NGM) firms.

In 2009, the American Small Manufacturers Coalition (ASMC) and Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) centers1 commissioned the Manufacturing Performance Institute to conduct a comprehensive study of U.S. manufacturers. More than 2,500 executives participated in the survey to determine the manufacturer's awareness of the six NGM Success Attributes, their progress in implementing best practices to support NGM strategies, and success in achieving NGM operational and financial performances.

The six NGM Success Attributes are: 

  • Customer-focused innovation: To develop, make, and market new products and services that meet customers’ needs at a pace faster than the competition.

  • Engaged people/human capital acquisition, development and retention: To secure a competitive performance advantage by having superior systems in place to recruit, hire, develop, and retain talent.

  • Superior processes/improvement focus: To record annual productivity and quality gains that exceed the competition through a companywide commitment to continuous improvement.

  • Supply-chain management and collaboration: To develop and manage supply chains and partnerships that provide flexibility, response time, and delivery performance that exceeds the competition.

  • Green/sustainability: To design and implement waste and energy-use reductions at a level that provides superior cost performance and recognizable customer value.

  • Global engagement: To secure business advantages by having people, partnerships, and systems in place capable of engaging globalmarkets and talents better than the competition.2 

So how do you compare?

Click here to view a pdf of the results.

 

 

 


 

  

1Participating MEP Centers: Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
2Information from the Next Generation Manufacturing Study Overview and Findings, June, 2009.