Impact Dakota CEO/President, Jodie Mjoen, recently visited Washington D.C. to participate in Hill Day. Adrian Dawson-Beker from Elinor Coatings, LLC, in Fargo, joined Jodie to share the vital role that Impact Dakota experts bring to North Dakota's manufacturers. Implementation goes from taking months to taking days with the help of our trusted expert senior business advisors who have been working in the manufacturing industry for decades.

During their time, they collaborated with Senator Kevin Cramer, Congressman Kelly Armstrong, and Senator John Hoeven, and their staffs about the future of manufacturing in North Dakota and in the USA. They spoke about the increased sense of urgency for solutions to manufacturers biggest challenges - supply chain disruptions, workforce, and need for automation, are in motion and already hitting the factory floors across North Dakota and throughout the USA. 

Our North Dakota Congressional Leadership teams all expressed their commitment to help ensure that Impact Dakota and the national Manufacturers Extension Partnership (MEP) are priorities and that they will have the reach and resources needed to address the manufacturing challenges by delivering impacts to every single North Dakota manufacturer. 

Lean 101 Workshops

During this one-day Lean overview, you will learn about the Top 10 Lean Tools, C4/A3 Idea Generation, Problem Solving, and participate in a Lego simulation. 

April 20 • Fargo, ND

Lean Enterprise High Performance Manufacturing Training

The Impact Dakota LEHPM training helps businesses achieve higher profitability by building internal capability and capacity to improve QUALITY, COST, and DELIVERY. This training is based on the Lean Enterprise Certification (LECP) body of knowledge and uses standards developed and judged by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) in partnership with Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) and the Shingo Institute. 

Next Course begins May 23rd! 

If you answered "yes" to questions 1 and/or 2 and are interested in more information about questions 3 through 5, please register for this introductory webinar*! 

April 26 • 1:00 p.m. (CT)

*In-depth Workshops will be held May 22-25 in multiple locations in North Dakota (Workshop Information Available Soon)

May 2023 is the deadline for compliance...where do you stand? 

BASICS OF HACCP

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) training is required by USDA-FSIS for it’s inspected facilities and many food manufacturers and wholesalers require their suppliers and vendors to have a working and audited HACCP plan.

May 2-3 

In these training sessions, participants will gain the knowledge and skills needed to audit your company’s quality system to the ISO9001 and/or AS9100 standards, the requirements, auditing principles, how to establish an audit program, gather objective evidence, and prepare audit conclusions. In addition to the lecture, participants will get to do experiential activities and gain hands-on auditing practice. There will be ample time throughout the training for questions and answers.

May 24-25 • ISO9001:2015 is 1-1/2 days | AS9100D is 2 days. 

Many manufacturing companies, in North Dakota, are looking to enhance their business from workflow optimization to inventory management to office practices. These tools can be adopted by all departments where it makes sense.

Achieving business excellence within a company comes from optimizing a work environment to deliver desired goods and services. Lean manufacturing is a production method aimed primarily at reducing times within the production system as well as response times from suppliers and to customers. 

Click here to read this article written by Impact Dakota Senior Business Advisor, Wendy Hauff.

When people think of Quality at the Source, they tend to think of how it relates to parts in a manufacturing environment. It is much more than that. Quality at the Source is an awareness that needs to be part of the company culture. When a project is poorly bid and turns into a contract, someone must find ways to make the project profitable. If a bill of materials is inaccurate or incomplete, someone needs to take extra time to keep the disruption from affecting the schedule. If a part is created with a defect, someone down the line will have to fix it.

Click here to read this article written by Impact Dakota Board of Directors Secretary, Tom Krank - Senior Vice President and General Manager of TMI Systems Corporation.

2022 AUTOMATION TAX CREDIT STATUS

With tax time right around the corner, I wanted to take this opportunity to cover the Automation Tax Credit (ATC). This program provides tax credits of up to 20% of the applicants’ investment in automating manual processes. For each of the past four years, the legislature has set aside $1M for the ATC program. This means that if the demand is less than $5M per year, all applicants would receive a full 20% tax credit on their investment ($1M/$5M). However, if the cumulative demand across the state goes beyond $5M, the percentage realized by applicants is prorated. 

Click here to read full Lehman's Terms Article.

Think of your business as a vehicle. You need to care for and maintain the different components to keep it reliably running. The business optimization program will tune your business engine. Our focus is on the following 6 areas, or cylinders:

Please contact Gordon if you have any questions, or if you would like to take action on the Business Excellence Optimization offering. Click here to schedule your no-cost assessment. 

Impact Dakota is partnering with NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NIST MEP) and our nationwide network of 50 other MEP Centers across the U.S. and Puerto Rico to help solve supply chain gaps encountered by manufacturers, government entities, and critical service providers. 

DO YOU HAVE A GAP? ARE YOU ABLE TO FILL A GAP?

— Open Opportunities —