Business Support

Manufacturing Services

Looking to improve product quality, shorten lead times and boost customer satisfaction?

Northern Initiatives wants to help Michigan Manufacturers grow! Whether you need support in shortening lead times, eliminating waste or improving your customer experience, we have tools and expertise to support you!

Supporting our Manufacturers

Northern Initiatives as an affiliate of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center offers direct services to small and medium sized manufacturers to connect them with the best manufacturing practices and technologies available.

At Northern Initiatives our focus is to help you:

  • Be more responsive to your customer needs
  • Improve your product quality
  • Reduce inventory and the costs that go along with it
  • Shorten lead times
  • Eliminate and prevent waste
  • Improve customer responsiveness and satisfaction levels

Industry 4.0 Assessments and Transformation Planning

Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center (MMTC), Michigan Economic Development Corporation, and Automation Alley are offering a free Industry 4.0 assessment for U.P. Manufacturers as part of its Industry 4.0 Signature Initiative.

The goal is to generate awareness of Industry 4.0 opportunities for manufacturers and connect them with services and resources to prepare for successful technology implementations.

The free Industry 4.0 assessment is a 40-question qualitative and quantitative survey covering:

Voice of Customer/Business
Documented Processes or Standard of Work
Existing Automation Applications

The data captured from the survey is input into a matrix that ranks your current environment and your Industry 4.0 readiness. We provide a summary report that highlights areas for improvement and increased efficiency.

Based on your results, MMTC is available to provide a customized transformation plan to help guide your business through Industry 4.0 application implementation.

For more information or to schedule your assessment, contact Kristin Smith.

Lean Manufacturing

We help with:

Ready to begin or continue your Lean journey and focus your resources on:

  • Reduction/Elimination of the 8 common manufacturing wastes.
  • Process improvement.
  • Work flow improvement.
  • 5S – Workplace organization
  • Kaizen Events

Quality Systems

We help with:

Support in the implementation of the ISO 9001 system. 

We can advance your certification objectives and assist you with:

  • ISO 9001: 2015 Transition
  • ISO 9001 Management Overview
  • Quality Auditing to ISO 9001
  • Employee Awareness of ISO 9001
  • ISO 9001 Implementation
  • ISO 9001 Documentation
  • Implementing ISO 13485

Training

We help with:

Northern Initiatives offers professional development training and coaching for leaders and teams focusing on improving workplace performance through improved interaction among your workforce.

Training Topics:

  • Leadership/ Supervisory Skills
  • Team Skills
  • Train-the-Trainer
  • Facilitator Skills
  • Company specific training

Get in Touch for Support

Contact Kristin Smith at ksmith@northerninitiatives.org or (715) 889-0182

For over 20 years, MMTC- Upper Peninsula has delivered high quality manufacturing and technical support to small / medium-sized manufacturers across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.