GA Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) Georgia Tech

Manufacturing Disaster Assistance Program to Help Georgia Companies Prepare For Natural Disasters

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Satellite image of a hurricane.

Manufacturers in seven Georgia counties can participate in new program offered by the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (Jan. 30, 2018) — The Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) is seeking eligible manufacturers to participate in a disaster assistance program designed to help companies that are located in the state’s coastal areas assess their preparedness and develop operational solutions to minimize the impact of future hurricanes and other natural disasters.

The $173,859 grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) funds the GaMEP’s Manufacturing Disaster Assistance Program (MDAP), which was developed to address the needs of Georgia manufacturers.

The funds for the two-year effort are specifically designated toward assisting manufacturers with operations in Coastal Georgia in Camden, Chatham, Charlton, Glynn, Liberty, and McIntosh counties. It also includes Coffee County, which is not on the coast, but was also severely impacted by flooding during 2017’s Hurricane Irma. (Eligible manufacturers are encouraged to email Ben Cheeks, GaMEP’s coastal region manager at ude.hcetag.etavonninull@skeehc.neb.)

The counties are home to 408 manufacturing facilities that employ 23,000.

The MDAP creation follows a devastating 2017 hurricane season in which Hurricane Irma led to a mandatory evacuation of the coast’s nearly 540,000 residents and business owners, and resulted in estimated damages of more than $670 million. That’s on top of a 2016 evacuation of the Georgia coast following Hurricane Matthew, which caused more than $500 million in damages.

The goal with this tailored approach to help manufacturers on the Georgia Coast is two-pronged, Cheeks said.

“First, we want to assist as many manufacturers as possible and get them operating at pre-Hurricane Irma levels — that includes employment and fully contributing to the regional and state economies,” Cheeks said. “The second part of this effort is to help them develop plans that they will already have in place to address future hurricanes and other natural disasters so they will positioned for as little disruption as possible in resuming operations.”

As part of the offering, GaMEP will leverage its expertise and resources at Georgia Tech, as well as its local, state, and federal economic development partners, including the Technical College System of Georgia and the MEP network, among other organizations, Cheeks said. Pooling resources at all levels ensures maximum impact for the affected companies and communities, he added.

The MDAP initiative will include assessments of the manufacturers’ needs, helping prioritize opportunities for sustainability and growth. It also will incorporate the development of pre and post-natural disaster protocols that address challenges manufacturers will face following hurricanes and other natural disasters, such as supply chain and infrastructure disruption, labor displacement, and financial constraints.

“We’re taking a 360-degree approach with this effort,” Cheeks said. “It’s designed to help position our coastal manufacturers proactively and ahead of the likely after-effects we will see in future storms that will affect the Georgia Coast.”

What to Expect at an Energy Audit

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Sinan Sinharoy, GaMEP project manager, discusses energy usage with an employee of a manufacturing plant, during an energy audit.
Sinan Sinharoy, GaMEP project manager, discusses energy usage with an employee of a manufacturing plant, during an energy audit.

Completing an energy audit can help your company identify opportunities to save energy, reduce costs, and improve sustainability. On average, each assessment identifies opportunities to save more than 10% in annual energy expenditures.

Still wondering what type of a commitment it requires from you, what to expect, and what benefits you will receive if you participate? Read on to understand the process from start to finish. Then contact your Region Manager to find out more or schedule an audit.

Step 1- Understand energy trends and make an energy balance.

After the company fills out a short application and provides some basic information, the audit team takes the energy consumption information provided on past bills and equates that amount with major energy uses within the facility. Energy uses are the application of energy in the facility, typically through equipment and machines.

This process, called an energy balance, helps the team focus their efforts to create impactful recommendations, estimate cost savings, and develop accurate payback periods for new investments. It also allows the team to gain a general understanding of the facility before the site visit.

Step 2- Discussion with plant manager or other designated company representative.

The site visit starts off with a brief meeting discussing the audit procedure and what to expect. We then ask various questions about the facility, such as:

  • How many people are employed here?
  • Is this a seasonal operation or do you operate year round?
  • What products do you make and how many production lines are there?
  • What is the significant energy consuming equipment in the facility?
  • When was your facility built?
  • Do you have specific energy goals or initiatives already planned or being considered?

Step 3- Walk through of the entire facility.

In this step our team inspects the facility to get a basic understanding of the manufacturing process and how the operation works. The team records information about:

  • The manufacturing process and how equipment is utilized throughout the plant.
  • Nameplate ratings for major equipment.
  • Compressed air, lighting, HVAC, and other major equipment that consumes electrical energy.
  • Boilers, ovens, heaters, and other major fuel-consuming equipment.
  • Structural design in regard to energy use.

Step 4- Speak with facilities/maintenance personnel.

Next we interview a representative from facilities and/or maintenance to help us gather more in-depth information about the machines and facility that could not be easily obtained during the walkthrough. We also ask about current maintenance schedules to understand what opportunities for improvement might be available through adjustments to your maintenance routine.

Step 5 – Meet as a team to discuss ideas and create an action plan for the rest of the day.

We regroup, discuss ideas, and research information that might be helpful as we complete the assessment. Then we create a plan for the rest of the assessment that will include more data collection and information gathering to help us develop cost-saving recommendations.

Step 6 – Data gathering.

The team uses data monitoring and measurement equipment to record information about potential opportunities. This could include any of the following:

  • Logging electrical consumption of major equipment over the course of a week.
  • Logging temperature and humidity levels to determine effectiveness of HVAC equipment.
  • Measuring temperatures of uninsulated equipment and pipes.
  • Sampling and analyzing exhaust gases to determine combustion efficiency.
  • Recording lighting levels throughout the facility.

Step 7- Closing meeting and follow up.

Finally, the team discusses observations with the plant manager and other staff members that were involved in the process and makes some initial recommendations based on what was observed in the plant. Then over the course of the next two months, the team will analyze the data to provide a comprehensive report to the company.

The report includes an analysis of energy trends over the past year, a complete energy balance of the facility, and five to ten recommendations for reducing waste through energy and water consumption, as well as productivity improvements. Each recommendation includes a simple payback analysis tailored to the client’s requirements.

Six to nine months after the report is delivered, the team will follow up to find out if the recommendations were implemented and if the results were as expected.

The initial audit takes about eight hours and within two months you receive an in-depth report with all of your energy information in one place, recommendations from our team of energy experts, and even estimated cost and payback period for potential investments.

Contact us for more information or to schedule an energy audit.

Georgia Tech co-op student inspects equipment during an energy audit.
Georgia Tech co-op student inspects equipment during an energy audit.

How Do You Develop Lean Leaders in Your Organization?

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Young employee working in a manufacturing plant.

By: Sam Darwin, GaMEP Lean and Process Improvement Project Manager

Are you using Lean as a point solution to try to solve an immediate need, or is it part of your company’s overall strategic plan? Have you discovered how to make Lean sustainable within your organization? Successfully taking the Lean journey takes a commitment from the team and from leadership. So, if there is not a seasoned sensei already in your organization, you are probably trying to develop Lean leaders organically. There are 3 key strengths necessary to develop an effective Lean leader and assessing the potential in possible candidates is the critical first step.

1. Develop Lean thinkers:
Ask yourself this: “who in your organization already sees things through a Lean lens”? This person should be able to recognize waste, provide strong ideas for improvement, and are excited about making changes to enhance your company. Additionally they should be able to follow through with ideas – “put the pen to paper”, so to speak, and then be open to and understand how to make adjustments through the PDCA (plan–do–check–adjust) cycle.

2. Develop skilled practitioners:
The most technical part of Lean leadership is developing certain skills that practitioners use. Part of this is the ability to learn specific processes or tools, such as facilitation and instruction on the soft skills side, and how to lead a Kaizen event, SMED (Single-Minute Exchange of Dies) techniques, Value Stream Mapping, and more on the technical side. A person can learn the basics through classes, but the best learning will come by the proven method: watch someone who is good, try to emulate, evolve your own talent and learn from every opportunity.

3. Develop leaders (irrespective of Lean):
People follow leaders because these leaders:

  • Lead people down paths with potential – some paths are rockier than others, but they always
    have a clear vision
  • Make things happen instead of sitting on the sidelines
  • Motivate or inspire people around them
  • Are trustworthy and they care about their team

Once you’ve established that Lean champion, it’s important to realize that not everyone else with a leadership position has to be a Lean leader. They do however have to understand the common goals, buy into them, and support and reinforce the message to their respective teams (i.e. not stand in the way).

In the early phase of the Lean journey, the best formula I have ever come across is: find the most likely team members who possess key leadership traits or talents and invest in and develop them to the fullest. Taking the initial momentum and building upon it will lead to more people buying in to the overall goal and building a Lean culture. As the Lean journey within your organization takes shape, additional leaders will begin to emerge. It’s just as important to nurture and reward these new Lean leaders as it is to continue fostering the skill set of the original Lean leader, as this will help to sustain the culture in your manufacturing company.

Find out more about GaMEP’s Lean and Process Improvement Services.

What Automation Means for Economic Development

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GaMEP Director, Karen Fite, moderates the Automation Panel at the 51st Annual Basic Economic Development Course.
GaMEP Director, Karen Fite, moderates the Automation Panel at the 51st Annual Basic Economic Development Course.

Automation.

The word and what it represents is driving a lot of discussion about what that means for manufacturers and for those in economic development tasked with bringing industry — and jobs — to their communities.

But automation is not the boogeyman people think it is, said Mark Ligler, vice president of Factory Automation Systems. The Atlanta-based company is a systems integration resource for many of the top manufacturers in the United States and supports them in programmable controller and drive systems, robot integration, and information solutions.

“Automation is not a job killer,” Ligler said. “It’s a job creator and it’s keeping people here employed.”

Ligler made his remarks as part of a panel discussion, “What Automation means for Your Community” at the 51st annual Basic Economic Development Course (BEDC) held Feb. 27 through March 2.

Sixty-five economic development professionals from across the country attended the course held at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center.
Sixty-five economic development professionals from across the country attended the course held at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center.

The interactive professional development course is produced by the Georgia Tech’s Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) and offered in partnership with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). It provides seasoned economic development professionals and those new to the field with the core fundamentals of business attraction, workforce development, retention and expansion, and entrepreneur and small businesschallenges, as well as transformative trends in the industry.

The 2018 BEDC theme — “Automation and Economic Development” — centered on how that is changing a number of industries and drove the panel discussions and other events for the 65 attendees who came from across the country.

“The research tells us that in roughly 60 percent of current occupations that at least a third of tasks performed in those jobs could be automated,” said Karen Fite, director of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP).

A federally funded program at Georgia Tech, GaMEP works with manufacturers in the state to increase their competitiveness and efficiency and boost productivity.

Fite, who moderated the panel, said the question for those in economic development and manufacturers is to understand how automation will affect business and industry and how to best prepare for the jobs and skills it will require.

It was a sentiment echoed by other panelists, which included Josh Benton, executive director of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development; Tom Sammon, a GaMEP project manager specializing on implementing Lean manufacturing practices and helping companies develop capital equipment applications, and John Fluker, president and chief sales officer of Grenzebach Corp. in Newnan, Ga.

“Automation, when you look at it from a longterm perspective, is all about competitiveness,” Fluker said.

“Competitiveness and demographics are driving automation,” he said, adding the technologies behind it are helping create a new landscape with jobs that demand new skills.

“It’s not a job killer,” he said. “It’s a skills changer.”

Automation.

The word and what it represents is driving a lot of discussion about what that means for manufacturers and for those in economic development tasked with bringing industry — and jobs — to their communities.

But automation is not the boogeyman people think it is, said Mark Ligler, vice president of Factory Automation Systems. The Atlanta-based company is a systems integration resource for many of the top manufacturers in the United States and supports them in programmable controller and drive systems, robot integration, and information solutions.

“Automation is not a job killer,” Ligler said. “It’s a job creator and it’s keeping people here employed.”

Ligler made his remarks as part of a panel discussion, “What Automation means for Your Community” at the 51st annual Basic Economic Development Course (BEDC) held Feb. 27 through March 2.

The interactive professional development course is produced by the Georgia Tech’s Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) and offered in partnership with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). It provides seasoned economic development professionals and those new to the field with the core fundamentals of business attraction, workforce development, retention and expansion, and entrepreneur and small business

Automation.

The word and what it represents is driving a lot of discussion about what that means for manufacturers and for those in economic development tasked with bringing industry — and jobs — to their communities.

But automation is not the boogeyman people think it is, said Mark Ligler, vice president of Factory Automation Systems. The Atlanta-based company is a systems integration resource for many of the top manufacturers in the United States and supports them in programmable controller and drive systems, robot integration, and information solutions.

“Automation is not a job killer,” Ligler said. “It’s a job creator and it’s keeping people here employed.”

Ligler made his remarks as part of a panel discussion, “What Automation means for Your Community” at the 51st annual Basic Economic Development Course (BEDC) held Feb. 27 through March 2.

The interactive professional development course is produced by the Georgia Tech’s Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) and offered in partnership with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). It provides seasoned economic development professionals and those new to the field with the core fundamentals of business attraction, workforce development, retention and expansion, and entrepreneur and small business

Sixty-five economic development professionals from across the country attended the course held at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center.

challenges, as well as transformative trends in the industry.

The 2018 BEDC theme — “Automation and Economic Development” — centered on how that is changing a number of industries and drove the panel discussions and other events for the 65 attendees who came from across the country.

“The research tells us that in roughly 60 percent of current occupations that at least a third of tasks performed in those jobs could be automated,” said Karen Fite, director of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP).

A federally funded program at Georgia Tech, GaMEP works with manufacturers in the state to increase their competitiveness and efficiency and boost productivity.

Fite, who moderated the panel, said the question for those in economic development and manufacturers is to understand how automation will affect business and industry and how to best prepare for the jobs and skills it will require.

It was a sentiment echoed by other panelists, which included Josh Benton, executive director of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development; Tom Sammon, a GaMEP project manager specializing on implementing Lean manufacturing practices and helping companies develop capital equipment applications, and John Fluker, president and chief sales officer of Grenzebach Corp. in Newnan, Ga.

“Automation, when you look at it from a longterm perspective, is all about competitiveness,” Fluker said.

“Competitiveness and demographics are driving automation,” he said, adding the technologies behind it are helping create a new landscape with jobs that demand new skills.

“It’s not a job killer,” he said. “It’s a skills changer.”

Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership Launches Outreach Initiative for Food Processing Manufacturers

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Damon Nix, senior project manager at the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership, discusses ergonomic solutions for lifting bags of malt with Bobby Epperson, operations training and safety manager at Terrapin Brewery in Athens, Georgia.
Damon Nix (left), senior project manager at the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership, discusses ergonomic solutions for lifting bags of malt with Bobby Epperson, operations training and safety manager at Terrapin Brewery in Athens, Georgia.

ATLANTA (Aug. 28, 2017) — Georgia is a one of the nation’s leading agriculture states, with the industry contributing about $74.9 billion to the state economy each year.

A related sector — food processing — is a strong and growing component of the Georgia economy, and accounts for $11 billion to $12 billion each year of the state’s gross domestic product. Food processing also employs 69,000 across the state, with 10,000 of those jobs being created since 2010, according to Georgia Power’s 2016 Food Processing Industry Report.

It’s that strength in food processing, which comprises the largest segment of Georgia’s manufacturing sector, that led to the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership’s (GaMEP) new initiative focused on those manufacturers’ unique needs.

GaMEP, a federally funded economic development program at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, works with manufacturers across Georgia to help them remain viable and economically competitive.

“Food processing comprises many different products and sizes of manufacturers and it is important to assure their viability and growth,” said GaMEP Director Karen Fite. “This effort is in recognition of where the growth is occurring in the manufacturing sector and we want to make sure we’re applying our resources and expertise, as well as cutting edge research coming out of Georgia Tech, that can help our manufacturers.”

Damon C. Nix, GaMEP’s senior project manager, is leading the food manufacturing programming, which includes coaching, analysis, and consulting in:

  • Food Safety
    • Compliance with the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requirements.
    • Management system implementation and audit team support.
  • Energy Management
    • Energy assessments to identify cost reduction and performance improvement opportunities.
    • Companies with fewer than 500 employees at a plant site may qualify for a free energy assessment through Georgia Tech’s Industrial Assessment Center program.
  • Environmental Services
    • Environmental compliance services and management system (ISO 14001) support.
    • Environmental Protection Agency P2 grant-funded projects that support pollution prevention through reduced greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, and hazardous materials generation.
  • Worker Safety and Health
    • Implement lean/process improvement approaches to safety problem solving.
    • Partner with the Georgia Tech Research Institute’s Food Processing Technology Division to support Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules compliance, applied research, and technology solutions.
  • Workforce Development
    • Operational Leader and Frontline Supervisor Training.

“Georgia’s food processing GDP ranks it sixth in the country and we rank sixth in employment,” Nix said, noting the state has roughly 680 food processing manufacturers, including the 127 that either relocated to Georgia or built new facilities here since 2010.

“The GaMEP has created significant results serving manufacturers overall,” Nix said. “We want to continue that momentum in food processing. Georgia’s manufacturing industry remains competitive and continues to grow because the food processing industry is expanding. We want food processors to know that the GaMEP is a resource to support their continued growth.”