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Nigel Southway of the Toronto Chapter of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers

February 1, 2013 By 2 Comments
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Nigel Southway, Chair of the Toronto Chapter of Society of Manufacturing Engineers

[If you are reading this on email, click here to listen to the episode!]

When you are at War, You Change the Rules to Win

We are excited to announce our very first repeat guest on Manufacturing Revival Radio.  A big thanks to Nigel Southway, Chair of the Toronto Chapter of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, for sharing his time and insights with us.  Lately we have been hearing a lot about Reshoring and the optimism that surrounds it for American Manufacturing.  As Nigel informed us, our neighbors to the North are sharing the same optimism for Canadian Manufacturing.  Today’s conversation was focused specifically on the gap that currently exist in the skilled workforce necessary to fully bring Manufacturing back.

We Capitalize Equipment, Why not Education

Nigel walked us through his concept of a “Fully Integrated Apprenticeship Program.”  As an individual who went through a similar program in the 1960′s, Nigel is a living example of the success that such a program can offer.  During our discussion we cover the who, what, why, and how’s of implementing such a program successfully.  We discuss who responsible for providing such programs.  Is it Government, Education Systems, Private Sector, or a combination of all three?
Nigel pointed out that in North America it’s time to change our mindset about investing in labor.

We covered so much information during our interview that it is impossible to highlight even a tenth of it here.  Please do yourself a favor and listen to this entire fascinating discussion.

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Mike Collins of MPC Management

January 28, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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Mike Collins, Author and Founder of MPC Management

Experience is an asset earned over time

Today we had the opportunity to speak with Mike Collins, Author and Founder of MPC Management. With over 40 years in the Manufacturing industry, authorship of 3 books and over 300 published Manufacturing focused articles Mike is a treasure-trove of Manufacturing knowledge. During our discussion today we focused on two specific topics discussed in Mike’s book “Saving American Manufacturing”

Manufacturers Must Diversify

According to Mike American Manufacturing is at a stalemate. Manufacturers simply are not growing and sales are stagnant.  Mike walked us through his two key items that must be analyzed before any manufacturer can invest in a plan for growth.  Mike explained that in order to have a successful growth plan, a manufacturer must first figure out why they are losing sales and secondly able to identify what competitive value the are offering their markets.  

We Must Start Training for the Future

For the second part of today’s show we dove head first into a recurring issue on MRR.  How can we improve the growing issue of workforce development for manufacturers going forward. Want to hear Mike’s solution?  We need to place a new emphasis on the apprentice programs of the past. Mike was kind enough to provide an in-depth explanation and statistics to really expose the bare-bones of this issue. With whom does the responsibility lay for improving our training programs? Is it the private sector or public sector’s? Who needs to take the lead and invest the time and money to find this solution?  Take a moment and listen to the entire interview to hear Mike’s opinions on this ever increasing issue.

Want to learn more about Mike’s Books?  You can find all three books for sale at the MPC Management Website or purchase from Amazon by clicking below:

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Filed Under: STEM Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,