The University of Maryland’s Technology Enterprise Institute will launch a new program to help turn the state’s dwindling manufacturing companies into global innovators, university officials announced Wednesday.
The Continuous Innovation Initiative will offer local companies consultants from the University of Maryland, for a fee of about $40 an hour, to help them rewrite business plans and instill an innovative corporate culture.
“If you’re competing on cost, there’s a good chance you’ll lose the battle to overseas manufacturing” said Al Etheridge, program manager of the Continuous Innovation Center. “American companies must innovate to stay ahead.”
The state of Maryland has already lost some 40,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000, according to the National Association of Manufacturers, much of that to overseas competition. The program will work with companies for three to six months, starting with an assessment of each company’s attitudes toward innovation, according to Etheridge.
“We’ll look at the current mood of innovation [at each company],” Etheridge said. “Companies have a way they like to innovate, whether they know it or not.”
The institute has already launched a pilot version of the program with three companies, including the Baltimore-based Maritime Applied Physics Corporation. Consultants are currently assessing companies and will ultimately produce an action plan.
“Our nation cannot afford to lose its manufacturing innovation edge and the wealth that it generates throughout our economy,” said Jerry Jasinowski, president of The Manufacturing Institute, a research arm of the National Association of Manufacturers. “We need programs like this to develop human capital, revitalize fundamental research and encourage productivity-enhancing investments in order to maintain a critical mass of production and a viable innovation process in this country.”
