The Mississippi Make It In America (MMIIA) team is hosting a FREE Reshoring Opportunities Workshop on 
Wednesday and Thursday at the Itawamba Community College Belden Center in Tupelo.
The Reshoring Opportunities Workshop will focus on creating jobs in Mississippi through reshoring, which is the process of bringing jobs back to Mississippi that have been previously offshored to other countries. Reshoring can be accomplished by replacing foreign suppliers with domestic suppliers and/or bringing production in-house. The purpose of the Reshoring Opportunities Workshop is to help companies explore reshoring opportunities with the goal of accelerating the trend of bringing back jobs to the United States.
To register for the Reshoring Presentation and lunch, and/or schedule a Breakout Session, contact Jill Sellers at jsellers@cavse.msstate.edu or (601 )407-2746. There is no cost to attend the workshop.
Over the last 20 years, many companies may have offshored work and jobs primarily due to the significant difference in labor costs in overseas countries versus the United States. However, this picture is changing. According to the Boston Consulting Group, net labor costs for manufacturing in China and the United States are expected to converge by 2015. Many companies are finding there are unforeseen costs and other issues that are causing them to rethink their decisions to offshore.
About the workshop
The Reshoring Opportunities Workshop will be held at ICC Belden Center, at 3200 Adams Farm Road, off McCullough Boulevard in Tupelo. For directions, call (662)620-5000. The workshop will be repeated each day as follows:
The Reshoring Presentation will cover concepts and trends and will also introduce the “Total Cost of Ownership” tool (developed by the Reshoring Initiative), which companies can use to analyze and compare overall costs of manufacturing in the United States versus overseas.
In addition to the midday presentation, companies that are interested in pursuing reshoring are encouraged to schedule either a Morning or an Afternoon Breakout Session. These sessions will provide an opportunity for OEM and supplier companies to work with the MMIIA team to identify opportunities to strengthen their collective supply chains. After the Breakout Session, the MMIIA team will work with the companies to take action on these items.
UPCOMING RESHORING EVENT
SAVE THE DATE: A Reshoring Summit will be held September 23-24, 2014, at the Franklin Center at Mississippi State University. Additional information will be available soon.
About the Mississippi Make it in America program
The Mississippi Make It In America (MMIIA) team has received a competitive grant awarded under the 2013 Make It In America Challenge Grant competition. This program, entitled “Reshoring Advanced Manufacturing Jobs in Mississippi: Enhancing Skills and Building Competitiveness,” establishes a statewide initiative with two key thrusts: (1) “Helping Mississippi Manufacturers Strengthen their Supply Chains” and (2) “Training Workers to Acquire Advanced Manufacturing Skills.”
The Mississippi award, one of only 10 such awards made nationally, was funded by a multiagency grant from the Economic Development Administration (U.S. Department of Commerce), the Employment Training Administration (U.S. Department of Labor), the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Hollings Manufacturing Extension Program and the Delta Regional Authority. The three-year program, which began in late 2013, commits to creating or saving 750 jobs and achieving an economic impact of $40 million for the state.
The goal of the Strengthening Supply Chains thrust is to help Mississippi manufacturers identify opportunities to reshore jobs, improve supply chains, and strengthen Mississippi’s supplier base.
Issues and needs that can be addressed in this thrust include:
- Sourcing suppliers closer to Mississippi’s manufacturing plants, including reshoring of work, jobs and suppliers back from overseas locations
- Providing technical assistance to help companies achieve lower costs and/or improved quality, and/or find new or alternative suppliers that can accomplish this objective
- Achieving growth and/or increasing production by sourcing new or alternative suppliers and/or making internal production improvements
- Deploying new technologies and innovative solutions to create competitive advantages
- Meeting new qualifications or certifications such as Six Sigma Green Belt and Lean Manufacturing by training existing or new employees
- The goal of the Training Workers thrust is to help applicants and workers acquire advanced manufacturing skills through training and internships with Mississippi manufacturers.
For more information about the Mississippi Make it in America initiative, contact Dr. Clay Walden at walden@cavse.msstate.edu or 601-407-2713.
The Mississippi Make It In America team consists of:
- Mississippi State University – CAVS Extension; Franklin Furniture Institute, National Strategic Planning and Research Center
- InnovateMEP Mississippi (a line of business of Innovate Mississippi)
- Itawamba Community College; East Mississippi Community College; Mississippi Delta Community College; Holmes Community College
- Mississippi Partnership Workforce Investment Area/Three Rivers Planning and Development District; Delta Workforce Investment Area/South Delta Planning and Development District
- The Reshoring Initiative (Harry Moser, founder and president)
- Mississippi Development Authority
Source Article from http://bizbuzz.djournal.com/2014/07/21/meetings-week-focus-bringing-jobs-back-mississippi/
