The Calumet Area Industrial Commission (CAIC) and the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC) will host an Informational Networking Breakfast for Chicago Area Manufacturers on Thursday, April 25^th, from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., at the Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, 1250 West 119^th Street (Just East of I-57), in Chicago.

Join Global Midwest Alliance, San Diego CONNECT and sponsor, Bank of America, for the first program in the Alliance’s 2013 Innovation, Growth and Globalization Industry-Focused Series: Innovations and Opportunities for Manufacturers, Additive Manufacturers, and Global Producers

Why attend? Program attendees will have the opportunity to network with executives from the manufacturing, development, international and finance communities, and learn about specific initiatives to bring manufacturing and industrial projects to developing nations through consulting, project bidding and funding, and private partnerships.

Lincoln and Logan County Development Partnership hosts the Manufacturer’s Council on March 19,2013 as the industry and educational leaders discuss partnerships and possibilities for advancing the regional workforce with featured speaker Kim Kuchenbrod.

If you have a success story to tell about the goods or services you sell around the world and have used a federal government program or assistance to get there, the U.S. Small Business Administration and Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) are cosponsoring the “2013 SBA-Visa Export Video Contest” where your company will have the chance to win up to $10,000 just by sharing your story with other small business exporters on www.exportvideo.challenge.gov

After a successful initial celebration last year, the next Manufacturing Day has been scheduled for Friday, Oct. 4, 2013. Manufacturing day is a great way to change the stigma on manufacturing and show young Americans that there are many rewarding high-skill jobs in manufacturing fields.

Integrate concepts of Lean and Six Sigma to increase productivity, boost quality

The Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC) and Heartland Community College are launching a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training series on March 15th in central Illinois for small and mid-sized manufacturers to learn how to integrate concepts of Lean and Six Sigma to increase productivity and ultimately, boost quality in their facility. This group training serves as a first step to positioning a company to realize significant savings through the Lean Six Sigma effort, providing short term payback and ongoing savings as processes are continuously improved.

The NIU Foundation is introducing exciting changes to its Venture Grants Program. The changes will result in extended collaboration between NIU’s students and faculty, the development of NIU’s best “ideas” into viable, market-ready products or technologies, and the advancement of NIU by bringing different minds and skill sets together.

Mission: Military 2 Manufacturing, one of the largest efforts to help veterans gain a foothold in the manufacturing sector kicks off in Schaumburg on Tuesday, December 18th, the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs (IDVA) announced today. “The manufacturing sector in Illinois is in dire need of thousands of trained workers, and military veterans are in a unique position to meet this demand,” said IDVA Assistant Director Rodrigo Garcia. “Illinois manufacturers are specifically looking for veterans who can bring soft skills and technical experience to their workplaces.”

Manufacturing companies increasingly face two challenges. On the one hand, there is pressure to reduce costs because of competition from low-wage countries. And on the other hand, customers are reducing order sizes and increasing the variety of the parts that they order, even including more custom (non-repeating) parts. So how do you deal with low-volume, high-variety production while at the same time reducing your costs? The answer is a strategy called Quick Response Manufacturing, or QRM.