WMEP Blog

By Marie Mansheim, WMEP Growth Specialist

Traditional business growth planning often stresses the importance of listening to the wants and needs of manufacturers’ customers.

But should it? Are there more important aspects that need to be considered?

by Rich Rovito, WMEP Industry Reporter

By Jerry Thiltgen, Senior Manufacturing Specialist, WMEP

What’s old is new when it comes to fortifying the basic concepts of lean manufacturing.

By Rich Rovito, WMEP Industry Reporter

Three Wisconsin companies have been recognized with the Governor’s Export Achievement Award to highlight their growth in global business development. 

Prolitec of Milwaukee, Johnsonville Sausage of Sheboygan Falls and Sussex-based Power Test Inc. received Export Achievement Awards at the 49th annual Wisconsin International Trade Conference in Milwaukee on May 7. 

New policy direction for U.S. manufacturers

by Rich Rovito WMEP Industry Reporter

The policy agenda for U.S. manufacturing is changing, with the debate shifting from how to rescue and retain existing footholds in the industrial sector to how manufacturers in this country should lead the world in new technologies and innovations.

 by Rich Rovito, WMEP Industry Reporter

Exporting can provide a means of boosting sales and profits for small and mid-size manufacturers in Wisconsin looking to take advantage of explosive growth in other parts of the world.

But competing successfully in foreign markets comes with an array of challenges.

By Roxanne Baumann, WMEP Director of Global Engagement

For years, Wisconsin manufacturers could serve local, regional or U.S. markets and earn a solid profit.  We could count on Midwest stability and doing business on a handshake with people we knew, who looked like us and talked like us.  

by Rich Rovito, WMEP Industry Reporter

Continuous improvement must involve a fundamental change of a company’s overall business philosophy in order to be effective. 

Getting employees to buy into continuous improvement can lead to an array of benefits, but often comes with numerous challenges because, let’s face it, many of us tend to be resistant to change.