Growing a manufacturing company is not just about increasing sales. Growth is about changing your strategy to improve both sales and profitability. New strategies require investment, so planning should always begin with finding out where the company is making or losing money.

The following outline describes an assessment process that was designed specifically for small and mid-size manufacturers (SMMs) who manufacture industrial products. It is based on the speaker’s real life experience in manufacturing and a difficult 5-year turnaround situation.

Prescription before diagnosis leads to malpractice. As a patient, you would not want a doctor to prescribe an expensive surgery without doing a careful diagnosis. This same principle applies to manufacturing companies, especially the fragile companies that have been hurt by foreign competition and relentless price discounting.

Deciding on a new growth strategy also requires good information on customers, competitors, and markets. This workshop will show you how to diagnose your company before you prescribe a growth strategy or invest money. The assessment can be tailored to the resources and size of the manufacturing company and is accomplished in 6 steps.

1. Financials – the relationship of sales, profits, and cash flow
2. Evaluation of costs, margins, and prices
3. Analysis of lost orders and current customers
4. Defining the competition
5. Defining the markets you are in
6. Evaluating possible growth strategies

This 4-hour workshop is an interactive event where the manufacturer asks questions on specific problems and the presenter offers solutions that the participant can take back to their plant. The speaker, Michael Collins, used the process described in his book Saving American Manufacturing to assess two industrial divisions that were losing money and market share. He developed a 5 year plan to turn around the divisions. Both Divisions doubled in sales and profitability in 5 years. Maximum 25 attendees.

Michael Collins is on a self-proclaimed mission to save US manufacturers, especially those in the industrial and technology sector, his specialty. He wants to change the tone and tenor of the conversation manufacturers are having about their future and the future of manufacturing in the United States. Why? Because he strongly believes that saving American manufacturing is the key to preventing the decline of living standards for the middle class and preventing other sectors of the economy from deteriorating.

This event will be hosted by the Jane Addams Resource Corporation and is co-sponsored by IMEC.

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