CONTENTS
MEP CRITERIA FOR
CENTER PERFORMANCE EXCELLENCE
Center Profile
1.0 Center Leadership
1.1 Leadership System
1.2 External Partnerships and Resources
2.0 Center Planning
2.1 Strategic Plan
2.2 Operating Plan
3.0 Center Customer Knowledge and Relationships
3.1 Market Knowledge and Analysis
3.2 Customer Relationship Management
4.0 Center Performance Information and Analysis
4.1 Performance Measurement Information
4.2 Performance Analysis
5.0 Center Workforce Practices and Work Environment
5.1 Work Practices and Organization
5.2 Employee Education, Training, and Development
5.3 Employee Well-Being and Satisfaction
6.0 Center Process Management
6.1 Service and Product Offerings
6.2 Marketing Operations
6.3 Customer Engagement and Sales
6.4 Service Delivery
6.5 Support Services
7.0 Center Performance
7.1 Customer and Regional Impact Results
7.2 Market Penetration Results
7.3 Financial Profile and Health
7.4 Customer Satisfaction
7.5 Capacity Utilization and Operational Efficiency
7.6 Employee Well-Being and Satisfaction
7.7 Other Significant Accomplishments
Center Profile
1. Organizational Characteristics: The Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a statewide center established in 1994. The Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) was formed specifically to help Nebraska manufacturers build on their strengths, identify and capitalize on opportunities, and increase competitiveness and profitability. The MEP organization is designed to capitalize on the geographic distribution of Nebraska’s community colleges, supplementing the colleges’ expertise in training with the expertise from programs under the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Food Processing Center, Nebraska Business Development Center and the Department of Economic Development.
Since 1994, the Nebraska MEP’s funding level remained constant. Exhibit CP-1 presents major center events and milestones over the period.
The Nebraska MEP’s Director reports directly to the Nebraska Industrial Competitiveness Alliance (NICA). Seven Customer Agents serve SME’s in six regional offices across the state. Exhibit CP-2 depicts this organizational structure.
2. Service Delivery Area: The Nebraska MEP is headquartered in the city of Lincoln, the state capitol in Lancaster County. The market served by the Nebraska MEP is the entire state of Nebraska. There are 2,168 manufacturers in Nebraska and they are all considered potential MEP clients. The largest numbers of manufacturers in the state are printing, followed by food processing, machinery, metal fabrication, stone/clay, wood, chemical, apparels and plastics. The geographic distribution of firms and customer agent office location is depicited in the map on Exhibit CP-3.
3. Leadership Team: The Nebraska MEP’s senior leadership consists of the Director, Dr. Darl Naumann; Mr. Dave Wright, Operations Manager, who has responsibility for key administrative areas, including contract administration; Ms. Lori Shaal who is responsible for accounting, report generation, and procurement; and, Mr. Rich Stites who has responsiblity for the Edgerton Quality Award development and maintenance. Mr. Jack Ruff Dr. Steve Taylor and Mr. Leon Milobar are responsible for lead generation activities. 100% stability of our customer agents for this contract year is responsible for developing long-term partnerships with clients.
4. FTE Staff by type and Location: As of February 1, 2000 the Nebraska MEP had 19 FTE employees. Exhibit CP-4 presents their distribution by job type.
5. Financial Summary: Exhibit CP-5 provides an overview of the Nebraska MEP’s recent and projected financial status.
6. Characteristics of Service Region: Exhibit CP-6 presents a summary overview of the SME population in the six Community College regions.
7. Products, Services, and Service Delivery Model: Exhibit CP-7 displays the general types of products and services the Nebraska MEP offers. Exhibit CP-8 presents a summary overview of the project activity to date. Exhibit CP-9 shows the growth over time of third party service provision.
8. Requirements and Constraints: The Nebraska MEP has five major stakeholder groups, each of which has its own specific set of needs and preferences. Exhibit CP-10 lists, by stakeholder, some of the general requirements each group expects the Nebraska MEP to meet. We have no overriding external requirements that significantly constrain how we operate.
9. Recent Changes: the most significant change in the Nebraska MEP’s operations over the last year has been a dramatic expansion of Lean Manufacturing activity. Principles of Lean Manufacturing 101, served as the first step to learning the basics of lean. Lean 200 courses in Set-Up Reduction, Value-Steam Mapping, and Visual Workplace are targeted to progressive firms by the Nebraska MEP. This expansion presented management with the challenge of providing service while continuing to meet growing educational needs. Alliances formed for delivery of Y2K services are the basis for expansion into e-Commerce.
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Chapter 1 CENTER LEADERSHIP
1.1 Leadership System
Leadership for Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NMEP) is provided by an industry-dominated board, the Nebraska Industrial Competitiveness Alliance (NICA) and its actively engaged and knowledgeable chair, A.F. “Tony” Raimondo from Behlen Manufacturing. The Chair works through a senior staff leadership team which includes: the NICA/MEP Chair Mike Baldino from Kelley Klosures, MEP Director, Dr. Darl Naumann; Community College (CC) President, Dr. LaVern Franzen; Nebraska Food Processing (FPC) Director Dr. Steve Taylor; Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC) Director, Robert Bernier; Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI) President Barry Kennedy; and, Director of Existing Business Assistance for the Nebraska Department of Economic Development (NDED), Jack Ruff. This team is supported by the MEP Director of Operations, Dave Wright and Finance Manager, Lori Shaal. This team exercises day-to-day responsibility for developing and executing NMEP plans and building a high-performance organization.
1.1.1 Core Values, Expectations and Balancing Competing Objectives: Leadership and staff together have developed NMEP’s vision, mission, values and strategies.
The Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a program operated by the Nebraska Industrial Competitiveness Alliance (NICA). The mission statement reads as follows:
The Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership coordinates technical and business consulting services that will enhance the competitiveness and profitability of Nebraska’s manufacturing firms; particularly small- and medium-sized manufacturers.
Our strategy is to have every Nebraska manufacturer paired with an MEP Customer Agent (CA). This professional relationship allows the CA to link a specific client manufacturer to a specific service provider that can definitely help the manufacturer modernize and grow.
The Long-term Goals of the Nebraska MEP are as follows:
· The preferred choice of SME’s when they need manufacturing-related assistance;
· Ethics and the Protection of proprietary information as the foundation of NMEP assistance;
· NMEP as a Great partner and the best utilization of existing resources; and
· Our NMEP Benchmarked among regional MEP centers, centers of comparable size, and the top MEP centers in the country.
The Nebraska MEP is based on the following guiding principles:
· Industry-based, industry defined services—MEP services address the needs of the Nebraska Market as well as the unique needs of each company. These may include the latest technological advances. They just as likely include assistance in business planning, plant layout, marketing and new product development;
· Building upon State and local resources—MEP works closely with local state organizations including university, governments and industry to build upon existing state resources and establish or expand programs. In partnerships efforts, MEP channels individual strengths into a single goal of more reach, focus, and service for manufacturers;
· Programs built on merit-based competition—Our MEP competes equally for national MEP funding. Our MEP is evaluated and judged on industry need, market awareness, and service commitment and delivery;
· Leveraging private sector resources—The array of private sector consultants is large, but often the cost-of-sales for these consultants keeps them out of reach for smaller manufacturers. NMEP services link these customers and consultants, often acting as brokers in helping firms locate private sector experts who can help them with their unique challenges;
· A perfect resource for companies who seek modernization—Companies interested in modernization may not know how to pursue it. They must have commitment and willingness to invest wherever possible the resources necessary to initiate and implement improvements. NMEP does not seek to assist companies uninterested in helping themselves;
· Making the firm’s dollar go further—Manufacturers face a wide variety of needs that our MEP can assist them with, in such areas as environment, work force development, marketing and production technologies. Rather than creating new programs to address these topics, our MEP cooperates to develop and deliver specialized programs through our MEP network;
· Bottom-line impacts are the real measure of success—Our MEP’s success is defined not by the breadth of the services it delivers, but by the real bottom-line impacts these services bring to client companies. Our MEP rigorously and regularly evaluates these impacts, in such terms as increase in sales, jobs, and productivity; and,
· Investing in the future—Our MEP is committed to serving industry, both for today and for the future. That’s why innovative methods of extension and assistance to manufacturers are being explored and developed.
Successful alignment of State goals for job creation, retention, and investment with NMEP goals for sales increase, process improvement, human resources improvement, information system improvement, and management improvement is complete. There is recognition that even the small SME will pay for high-impact projects with an appropriate return on investment (ROI).
1.1.2 Communicating core values, expectations, key directions, and objectives
All new employees go through an intensive orientation process, including reporting and evaluation training and meetings with the Center Director, Operations Director and Financial manager. Extensive written material is made available, including the strategic plan, operating plan and marketing plan. Ongoing reinforcement of values, expectations, direction and performance is carried out by the leadership team, including:
· All professional staff involved in planning;
· Reinforcement of values, expectations, key direction and performance competed at monthly meetings;
· Seven monthly meetings of Customer Agents, moved geographically;
· Seven monthly meetings of Operating Committee;
· Monthly meetings with NICA/MEP Chair;
· Quarterly meetings with NICA/MEP Committee;
· Semi-Annual report and meeting with NICA board.
All meetings are well structured, with the Customer Agent and leadership team alternating in development of the agenda. Meetings are complimented by:
· “Staff Stuff” communicated on the internet;
· “Chat room” on the internet;
· Shared calendars;
· Performance numbers posted on internet and wall;
1.1.3. Ensuring an SME driven and involved board;
The Nebraska Industrial Competitiveness Alliance (NICA) is a twenty-eight member board appointed by the governor of Nebraska to recommend public policy regarding competitiveness and to plan and oversee programs to enhance the technological capabilities of business and to provide a competitive, quality workforce.
· NICA appointed by the Governor for three-year terms.
· A minimum of 51% SMEs (industry) representation in statute.
· LB659 in statute to formally make NICA a division of NDED.
· NICA board members on working committees on the workforce, science and technology, mentoring and competitiveness issues.
The Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership was formed specifically to help Nebraska manufacturers build on their strengths, identify and capitalize on opportunities, and increase competitiveness and profitability. Governing the Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership are the NICA/MEP Directors. The overall NICA Board is appointed by the Governor and is comprised of representatives from business, government and education. The NICA/MEP Directors set program policy for our MEP, review service provider scopes of work to insure that program objectives are being reached, and serve as the final decision- makers
1.1.4 Focusing sharply on SMEs
The senior leadership team focuses on client satisfaction, new clients, penetration of the market and impact. Services are widely distributed between manufacturers who employ 1500 and less than 10. Key indicators on impact and client satisfaction are posted and monthly staff meetings are used to review progress. Yearly performance tracking indicates a majority of projects with SME’s of less than ten, followed by a focus on SME’s of less than 200. Our target market from a pool of 2100 Nebraska manufacturers is around 900 SME’s based on market research and our strategic plan. Seminars and workshops are used to provide client awareness of NMEP services.
· Four of six Customer Agents are members of American Society for Quality (ASQ);
· Jack Ruff (NDED) and the Center Director are certified Lead Auditors for ISO 9000;
· Center Director member of the National Association of Manufacturers, ASQ, NEDA, National Alliance of Business;
· Center Director has direction of all business development programs for the Nebraska Department of Economic Development.
1.1.5 Building a strong Leadership Team
Our MEP is organized under a matrix organization with representatives from each partner organization with program direction from the MEP Director. The MEP administrative support is provided by the Department of Economic Development. The MEP Program Director is hired by the NICA Board and serves as the CEO of the program. The Director is responsible for overall program management. The Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership is organized contractually through formal cooperative agreements. The Department of Economic Development is the fiscal agent. Service providers are organized into a MEP Operating Committee with the MEP Director as its Chair.
The Nebraska Manufacturing Extension Partnership Director is responsible for overall program management and operation. The Director reports to the NICA/MEP committee and the entire NICA board. The daily operations of the MEP as well as the strategic planning work are the primary functions of the Director and the Central Staff. The Central Staff are responsible for developing and delivering services, monitoring the effectiveness of the service, reporting and accounting and developing program information.
· Operations Committee meets monthly;
· Daily meetings with operations manager and financial manager;
· Weekly meetings with marketing manager
· Annual retreat.
1.1.6 Reviewing overall performance
Leadership team meets to openly discuss and systematically review center performance against plan as measured on operational metrics aligned with NMEP’s strategic plan. We post and subsequently review progress with leadership team at Weekly headquarters meetings on internal developments and business metrics. On the fourth Tuesday of each month, the leadership team meets with Customer Agents to assess any SME complaints, and discusses resolving client issues and actions necessary to prevent any similar future occurrence. NMEP’s operating and strategic plans define critical short- and long-term operating metrics designed to provide a comprehensive gauge by which to track progress against goals. The leadership team uses these plans in the following methods:
· Operating plan discussed monthly;
· Strategic plan discussed semi-annuallly
1.2 External Partnerships and Resources
Because of the importance of partnerships to NMEP’s success, the Center Director builds and maintains effective relations with external communities, including: the Nebraska Community College Association, Nebraska State Colleges, University of Nebraska, Coordinating Commission for PostSecondary Education (CCPE), Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD), Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), Economic Development Corporations, Nebraska Economic Developers Association (NEDA), Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI), AFL-CIO, Nebraska Food Industry Association (NFIA), Nebraska Departments of Agriculture, Environmental Quality (NDEQ), Education (NDE), Labor (NDOL), Revenue, Nebraska Rural Development Commission, Nebraska Information and Technology Commission, Nebraska County Officials Association (NACO), and the Nebraska League of Municipalities.