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.
Real GDP grew 3.2 percent in the third quarter, boosted by strength in consumer and business spending and net exports and extending the 3.1 percent gain seen in the second quarter. According to new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, manufacturing added 0.24 percentage points to top-line growth in the third quarter, with mixed results for the sector. Real value-added output grew by 2.0 percent for manufacturers in the third quarter, buoyed by a 7.5 percent growth rate for durable goods firms but weighed down by a 4.1 percent decline for nondurable goods businesses. The latter were hit hard by recent hurricanes, especially in chemical and energy markets.
The most important aspect of starting a food manufacturing operation is Food Safety. Nothing will be more important to you and your business than never having a customer become sick, or injured, or worse from consuming your product. Food Safety in the food manufacturing world is overseen by the FDA, State and Local authorities, and many times large distributors of your product. Generally this oversight will consist of on-site audits. An auditor will walk through your operation from start to finish and will conduct a paperwork review of your production records.
The second draft of the update to the National Institute of Standards and Technology's cybersecurity framework, NIST 1.1, may prove to be more impactful than the original version released in 2013, Larry Clinton, president and CEO of the Internet Security Alliance (ISA), said Wednesday.
Manufacturing remains a critical force in both advanced and developing economies. But the sector has changed, bringing new opportunities and challenges to business leaders and policy makers.
Lean Certification is an evolutionary journey where your knowledge and experience work together to create a depth of expertise upon which you can keep building. It weaves innovative ways of thinking and doing business with real-world applications and results. Lean Certification not only helps you attain the knowledge, it validates it. It is the only nationally recognized Lean Certification program; using standards developed and judged by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) in partnership with Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) and the Shingo Institute.
Every year, I take some time to look at what manufacturing clients across the MEP National NetworkTM are saying about the future and the challenges they face. It’s usually part of my New Year’s resolution to take the time to step back and consider what is happening with our manufacturing clients and their businesses. This exercise provides a peek into the hearts and minds of the CEOs who run the over two hundred thousand small manufacturers across the U.S. whom MEP supports. It always provides me with some insight into important market intelligence to guide future activity.
Bismarck, ND – Impact Dakota and the ND Trade Office, along with the support from a number of planning partners and sponsors, will be holding ExporTechTM. This proven program is designed to help North Dakota manufacturers and other interested companies who want to be proactive internationally by helping them boost their sales through profitable exports. The program will be held in the first quarter of 2018.
It's no secret that Amazon is changing the way American manufacturing works. But there's more to the issue than just the idea that retail is different. People are buying things online much more today, instead of shopping local. That's changing whether some companies can stay in business, and is a problem especially for smaller stores and shops that cannot compete with Amazon's prices or selection. Looking beyond that, though, to manufacturing, means considering much more than just the retail sector. Here are three important issues to consider when it comes to how How the "Amazon Effect" is Changing the American Manufacturing Industry Forever.
NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is pleased to announce the publication of NIST Handbook 162 "NIST MEP Cybersecurity Self-Assessment Handbook For Assessing NIST SP 800-171 Security Requirements in Response to DFARS Cybersecurity Requirements.” The Handbook provides a step-by-step guide to assessing a manufacturer’s information systems against the security requirements in NIST SP 800-171 rev 1.
These "eye" diagrams reveal how much noise is present in a digital signal. As the signal grows noisier, its characteristic shape grows distorted, shrinking the center so it resembles an eye closing. NIST's new 3-D chip-testing method passes microwaves through chip material, allowing researchers to quickly detect flaws that would create noise and make the diagram change from the open-eyed clarity of the top image to the squintier distortion on the bottom. Credit: Y. Obeng and N. Hanacek/NIST