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.
Impact Dakota is supporting our North Dakota manufacturers by helping communities and companies host tours and career expos as part of Manufacturing Day.
Manufacturing trends in the roughrider state mirror those seen nationwide: small manufacturers are on the rise. In 2014, North Dakota manufacturers exported more than $2.24 billion worth of goods, 80% of which stemmed from small businesses.
Upcoming Lean Enterprise Certification Programs (LECP) in September
The goal of any business is to become more efficient while continuing to improve its bottom line. Competition in the business world is fiercer due to factors such as rising costs of energy and ever increasing salaries. In response to this pressure, the natural inclination of most business owners is to concentrate on streamlining and containing production costs.
A production floor can be loud, busy, and oftentimes messy, with leftover materials and debris piling up everywhere. This disorganization can lead to inefficiencies, slower turnaround times, and higher production costs.
Manufacturing is vital to our U.S. economy. However, the word ‘manufacturing’ sometimes isn’t enough to catch the general public’s eye, which is why innovation has become the new buzzword for our industry.
The U.S. can feel like a rather big place—50 states, combining virtually every kind of climate and consumer available—but we’re not as big as we like to make ourselves out to be. In total, the U.S. only accounts for 5 percent of the world’s total potential customers. 95 percent of the world’s consumers, who are potentially looking for your products and parts, live outside the U.S. If you aren’t exporting, you’re missing out on the opportunity to broaden your customer base and increase sales.
What comes to mind when you hear the word, ‘manufacturing’? The industry is critical to North Dakota’s economy, so manufacturing should be synonymous with progress and growth!. Did you know that every $1.00 spent in manufacturing creates $1.32 for the U.S. economy? Did you also know that manufacturing supports 17.4 million U.S. jobs and that the industry comprises 12.5 percent of our GDP? Simply put, manufacturing matters.
The following post was written by one of Impact Dakota's Business Partners, BNC National Bank.