3: Small Manufacturers
Raise the productivity and competitiveness of small manufacturers Other Information:
U.S. manufacturing firms are among the most productive in the world, but small manufacturers consistently lag behind their
larger counterparts in value added per employee. Large firms typically have greater financial, technical, and human resources
available for production modernization and continuous performance improvement. However, the nation’s 360,000 small manufacturing
establishments employ about 12 million people—nearly two-thirds of all manufacturing jobs—and produce intermediate parts and
equipment that contribute more than half of the value of finished products. Due to the pervasive role of small firms in the
manufacturing supply chain, the future productivity of the nation’s supply base will rest largely on the ability of small
firms to improve quality, raise efficiency, and lower costs. The comparatively low productivity growth of small U.S. firms
can be attributed to numerous factors, including technical, cost, and information barriers. Through the Manufacturing Extension
Partnership (MEP), NIST helps to overcome these barriers by providing information, decision support, and implementation assistance
in adopting new and more advanced manufacturing technologies, techniques, and business practices. The national MEP network
helps small companies transform themselves into high-performance enterprises—productive, innovative, customer-driven, and
competitive businesses—by efficiently providing high value technical and advisory services, including access to industry best
practices. MEP’s ultimate goal is to measurably improve the productivity of all its clients.
Objective(s):
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