Microsoft Corp. approached NEW Manufacturing Alliance executive director Ann Franz a few years ago with a question.
“If we gave you some money, what would you do with it?” Franz recalled representatives of the tech giant asking.
Microsoft has made several investments in Green Bay, including in the Titletown Tech innovation center near Lambeau Field. The company was familiar with the NEW Manufacturing Alliance and its work. The organization has grown from 12 companies when it started in 2006 to more than 300 today, including 190 manufacturers from across the 18 counties in northeastern Wisconsin.
Along the way, NEWMA has awarded more than $300,000 in scholarships to students at colleges in the region, developed curriculum and videos showing real-world applications of math and helped boost the number of students in welding programs from fewer than 200 in 2005 to nearly 1,000 last year.
Franz had an idea when Microsoft asked for her plan. She’d heard a lot about Industry 4.0, the convergence of technologies like automation, analytics, 3D printing, connected devices and digitization, among other things. She wanted to know how companies in the region were adapting to these new technologies that many believe will dramatically alter the future of manufacturing.
The money from Microsoft went to help fund a survey by St. Norbert College in 2019 on how companies were preparing for Industry 4.0. Of the 104 businesses surveyed, more than 90% did not have a complete plan to handle the shift and more than a third had no plan at all.
“We realized there was a lot of learning that needed to be done,” Franz said.
To accomplish that learning, NEWMA turned to a model it has developed over more than a decade helping manufacturers solve their talent needs. The organizations started with task forces focused on talent and K-12 education, each established to be action-oriented.
“We decided early on that we weren’t going to have any committees because I’ve been on too many committees and a lot of times they focus on the problem and not the solution,” Franz said.
The task forces now meet once per month, provided there are specific tasks to discuss. As the original groups grew, they split into new task forces focused more narrowly on specific areas. Each task force has two or three key initiatives with an end result each year.
“I think when you are results-driven, you get a lot of people who are interested,” Franz said.
She added that meeting regularly helps task force members develop more meaningful relationships.
“In order to foster that collaboration, you really need to have consistency,” she said.
Following the initial study, the Industry 4.0 group grew to around 60 people with significant initial interest in cybersecurity and automation and robotics. Some of the initial efforts have included larger companies giving presentations on their use cases of new technologies and a joint project with Michigan Technological University on data analytics.
Franz said larger companies are willing to share with smaller ones because they’re still figuring out Industry 4.0 themselves and many of the smaller firms are in their supply chain.
“They realize in order for the big company to be successful, they have to have their suppliers be successful too,” she said.
The joint project on analytics is an opportunity for smaller firms to tackle something that might otherwise be too costly.
“If we can bring six to eight companies to come together to work on a joint project, that offsets the cost significantly and makes that ROI where they’re going to see the benefit,” Franz said.
She added that even though companies are busy, they see the value in employees taking a couple hours each month to work with other businesses.
“It helps further professional development of their staff. Plus, we know that two heads are better than one,” Franz said. “These companies, I think they’ve realized, ‘Hey, we’ve been doing it on our own and we’ve only moved the needle this far,’ where ‘Hey, I participated in this task force with other people where I was able to share in these learnings and I’m able to solve problems much more efficiently and effectively because I got more input than just my own four walls.’”
