Regional Economic Transformation

Knowledge of Manufacturing Firms and Trends

Time Wise brings exceptional experience and knowledge about manufacturing that can help inform your workforce investment system’s strategic planning and investment decisions. We work on a regular basis with hundreds of manufacturers in many diverse parts of the country. We track industry trends, monitor contracts and analyze technology developments. This information may be helpful as your workforce system decides whether to target specific clusters with promising growth potential. Knowing what standards manufacturers are seeking for certification can be a helpful source of information for workforce investment systems.

Economic Data Collection and Measurement

In today's global economy public workforce systems find it increasingly important to become demand-driven. By working collaboratively to engage business, workforce systems can make strategic investments that address specific industry needs in high-growth industries. Time Wise can serve as a valuable partner in this endeavor.

The keys to successful demand-driven strategies are well-known. To prepare workers for new and growing job opportunities, a demand-driven strategy must incorporate:

	•		Industry projections and anticipated employment changes within the industry;
	•		Occupation projections that include the industrial makeup of the regional economy, the diversity of work performed across industries, and the anticipated demand for goods and services that drive regional growth; and
	•		Skills-based projections that provide data about the current supply of skills in the labor market and the future demand for those skills and that identify gaps between current skills and projected skill needs.

The Time Wise team can help your workforce board analyze these projections and develop a demand-driven strategy that meets the needs of manufacturers in the region. We can help identify skills in the current workforce, as well as projected future skills supply. We can assist you in identifying growing industry clusters and targeting both manufacturers that may be expanding and businesses that may be negatively impacted by changing economic dynamics and likely to experience employment declines. And we can help bring the right partners to the table to ensure that your strategy works.

Technology Training Roadmaps (Innovation)

Innovation Program Helps Felton Brush Become Solution Provider

"Working with the NH MEP Innovation Program was an important key to starting our new direction. In order to keep a competitive edge Felton Brush has been emphasizing its ability to create 'technology-driven market solutions.' We launched a new market driven initiative about six months ago to engage customers from the design phase to manufacturing the end product. By offering custom solutions, the company is aiming to diversify its product line and customer base. We are providing solutions rather than just brushes," said Mark Godfrey, CEO of Felton Brush, Inc.

“To me this is the only way U.S. manufacturers are going to compete in this global environment." MORE

In order to innovate, businesses must have a model and culture of innovation. The Time Wise Innovation Program focuses on assisting businesses with four essential aspects of innovation:

   • Integrating new and innovative technologies;
   • Identifying appropriate solutions;
   • Assisting with technology transfer; and
   • Developing product commercialization strategies.

The program consists of three phases.

Phase 1 begins with an enterprise-wide assessment. The assessment team includes a skilled project manager and an industry expert chosen in collaboration with the client. The team performs a gap analysis that benchmarks a client’s business practices, production processes and technology core competencies. With that information, we then work with the client to develop a Strategic Technology Roadmap and Professional Workforce Development Plan for the organization. This process is scalable and can be tailored to a company of any size.

Phase 2 focuses on technology matchmaking, technology transfer and professional workforce development. Using the Strategic Technology Roadmap, we match the client’s needs with technologies available from other companies, universities and federal laboratories. Once the transfer of knowledge or technology assets is determined, we begin to implement the workforce development plan to provide employees with the skill sets necessary to integrate the new technology into business operations.

Phase 3 focuses on commercialization. The Innovation Program team provides market research and business planning that identifies new growth opportunities that will impact the bottom line and help the company compete in a global market.

Innovation Program addresses common challenges

The Innovation Program helps clients overcome three common challenges facing American manufacturers, particularly small and medium-sized manufacturers:

	•		Staying informed of technology developments, determining which technologies are relevant for their business and implementing innovations that enable them to keep pace with global competitors;
	•		Losing out in producing second and third generation products to countries where labor costs are lower; and
	•		Maintaining their competitiveness by developing new first generation commercial products and having the ability to produce them at a competitive price.

Workforce investment system support

Workforce investment systems have begun to recognize the value that the Time Wise Innovation Program offers as a layoff aversion and incumbent worker protection strategy. By focusing on how companies can stay ahead of the competition by adopting new technology, identifying new markets, developing new products and applications and cultivating an internal culture of innovation, the program helps create business growth – and employment growth – opportunities.

Supporting the Innovation Program and the workforce training it provides is one way for workforce boards to invest in training that drives economic growth. Click here for more Innovation Program information.

Innovation Program success stories.

Sector Development Initiatives

Sector Intermediaries

“Typically, sector initiatives are launched and led by a sector intermediary. This is an organization that builds in-depth knowledge of the industry, establishes relationships with multiple employers, conducts research to monitor the industry’s changing needs, coordinates community resources to address industry staffing and competitiveness needs, and invests in potential and current workers in the industry to create enhanced opportunities.”

The Road to Sector Success: A Guide for Workforce Boards National Association of Work Force Boards -- National Network of Sector Partners

Time Wise brings exceptional knowledge of advanced manufacturing sectors and can help your workforce investment system implement sector initiatives that meet the demands of local manufacturers. We work with some of the nation’s largest manufacturers—such as Boeing, Raytheon and General Dynamics – as well as hundreds of small and medium-sized manufacturers. We track industry trends and can help workforce systems target specific clusters with promising growth and employment potential. If you are looking to develop a new cluster initiative, our team of experienced project managers can help you bring together the right partners, identify the needed resources and implement a workforce training program that responds to sector needs.

Why sector initiatives make sense

Sector initiatives integrate workforce development and economic development strategies. They are designed to provide interventions that improve the skills of incumbent workers as well as jobseekers. By engaging in a sector initiative, workforce development systems increase their knowledge of the workforce challenges facing the targeted industry and can develop integrated solutions that meet these skills and competitiveness challenges.

Sector initiatives begin by analyzing the needs of employers in a key industry and identifying labor or skill shortages common to the sector. They ask what human resources are needed for the sector to successfully contribute to the regional economy. By bringing together multiple employers, identifying barriers to growth and devising strategies to overcome those barriers, the workforce investment system can help generate the economic growth that revitalizes sectors and expands employment opportunities.

Sector initiatives are particularly valuable in rural regions where industry linkages may be weak and small manufacturers may have limited resources for participating in trade associations and collective economic development activities. In many cases the day-to-day struggle to compete, the distances involved, and the relatively low concentration of firms creates situations with little industry collaboration. These situations often are ripe for sector initiatives. Time Wise has been particularly successful in developing sector initiatives in rural regions where collaborative strategies can bring new resources to small manufacturers.

Time Wise record of success

Identifying a critical shortage of skilled machine operators among advanced manufacturers in New England, Time Wise developed a sector strategy to overcome this limitation to growth. Collaborating with workforce training partners and industry associations, Time Wise identified a funding source and launched the Machine Operator Skills Training Program (M.O.S.T.). Because many of the manufacturers were located in rural regions, some distance from community colleges and other traditional training locations, Time Wise devised a mobile unit capable of delivering training at the manufacturers work site. The mobile unit was outfitted with computer numeric controlled (CNC) machines and advanced telecommunications equipment that enabled it to deliver state-of-the-art hands on training.

Partnering with one-stop centers to identify trainees, the M.O.S.T. program has trained several hundred new CNC operators and helped overcome a labor barrier facing New England’s advanced manufacturing sector. It is an example of the kind of creative, sector-based solution that Time Wise can help develop with workforce development practitioners.