Michael UngarCEO of the Industry 4.0 Club

Manufacturing Extension Partnerships: Best Kept Manufacturing Secrets!

6 May 2026 · 1 min

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1:02

In this segment, the speaker highlights the often‑overlooked role of Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEPs) and specifically the North Carolina MEP (NCMEP). They note that NCMEP has operated for nearly three decades and maintains a network of eight partner organizations spanning diverse sectors such as textiles, polymer testing, and community‑college training. These partners generate referrals and repeat business, directing manufacturers to the appropriate partner (e.g., Wilson College of Textiles for textile needs, the Polymer Center for extrusion testing). Through these relationships, NCMEP conducts outreach, brings manufacturers into its ecosystem, and connects them to the full suite of resources and services NCMEP offers.

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I wish everyone understood the MEP structure and that we existed. I'm sure in every state we would all agree that we could call ourselves the, the best-kept secret in each state. Yeah. Because we've been an MEP center for almost 30 years, and we've— we, we have a mix of both. I mean, there are some who come to us, we have a lot of repeat business that we do, but also through our relationships, we have 8 partners that are part of the, of the NCMEP grant in North Carolina, and they're all in mostly different sectors. And so they bring in a lot of different clients, and maybe they don't know one of our partners, but they know that if they have a textile need, they go to the Wilson College of Textiles. Or maybe if they need extrusion test done, they, they don't know NCMEP, but they go to the Polymer Center. And so once they're in with that, or the community college system for customized training. Right. And so we have a lot of different ways that we can have outreach and, and bring in manufacturers into the fold and introduce them to all the resources that NCMEP can provide.