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| Home : Volume 22 : Winter 1995-96 : | |
| The Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership wins $3 million NIST grant | |
A partnership between higher education (including UW-Madison's College of Engineering), other UW-System schools and UW Extension, industry, the state of Wisconsin and labor has won a $3 million National Institute of Standards and Technology grant to help smaller Wisconsin manufacturers improve competitiveness.
Known as the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership (WMEP), the effort will use manufacturing extension agents to help bring modern production strategies to the state's nearly 10,000 small and medium-sized manufacturers, defined as up to 500 employees. The agents, working in four regional divisions of the state, will help to better coordinate the vast array of manufacturing-oriented services available to companies from public institutions and the private sector. The manufacturing extension agents will help facilitate, implement and follow-up on these interactions, as agreed upon in a comprehensive client service delivery plan.
WMEP will answer the state's problem of a potentially large number of smaller manufacturers needing access to modern methods.
"For the college, this program effectively leverages our limited staff time to provide service to the thousands of small manufacturers in Wisconsin, which would be an impossible task without this statewide network," says the college's assistant dean for research and technology transfer, Lawrence A. Casper.
Jeff Oelke, right, WMEP regional manager, and Howard Fuller, center, graduate student, consult on a manufacturing extension project with Jon Schyvinck of Freedom Plastics in Janesville, Wisconsin.
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WMEP actually began on a smaller scale in 1990 as the Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity (WCMP), a manufacturing assistance-oriented partnership between UW System engineering schools and programs, and the state vocational and technical edu-cation system. The NIST funding enables WCMP to take its efforts to a higher level, says Casper, a member of WMEP's board of directors since 1990 and currently on the WMEP transition team responsible for the startup. "This statewide manufacturing extension program has provided a unique opportunity for all of higher education to work together cooperatively across the state on this common problem. The team has also involved industry, labor and state government, each bringing to the table their own particular resources and expertise."
Casper says the college's participation in field work with Wisconsin's small manufacturers is being handled by James Houge, manufacturing extension engineer with the Office of Engineering R&D and Technology Transfer. Houge, a mechanical and electrical engineer with prior industrial experience, has been working on manufacturing extension activities for more than a year. This field work includes education, assessment and planning activities followed by devel-oping linkages with higher education resources, such as the college's Center for Quick Response Manufacturing.
The college will use participation in WMEP to further its commitment to assisting in the state's economic development, says Dean John G. Bollinger. "Wisconsin is a very important manufacturing state. This sector of our economy is one of the fastest growing in the country at a time when most states are losing manufacturing jobs," Bollinger says. "This NIST program that we have worked for years to bring to Wisconsin builds on the traditional strengths in manufacturing education and research that we have in the College of Engineering."
Funding to support the WMEP network initially will be shared by the federal, state and local partners. In all cases, federal support is matched by state or local funding, fees for services and industry contributions.
For more information on the WMEP program, please contact Lawrence A. Casper at 608/265-4104 or casper@engr.wisc.edu.
By Karen Walsh
Content by perspective@engr.wisc.edu
Date last modified: Thursday, 14-Dec-1995 12:00:00 CST
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