Manufacturing Day 2013 events, which ran throughout October in many states, have concluded, results have been tallied, and there is reason to celebrate.  This year 834 events were held throughout the lower 48 contiguous states plus Canada and Puerto Rico.  This was nearly triple the number of events from 2012. 

Manufacturing Day surveys, completed by more than 41 percent of the event hosts, project that more than 35,000 people participated in this year’s Manufacturing Day program and more than 23,000 of them were students.  That is a 500 percent increase over the previous year! 

The average length of an event was nearly four hours and 56 percent of the host companies that responded to the survey said that they collaborated with other manufacturers or regional organizations in the planning and execution of their event.  So, in addition to community awareness generated with the non-manufacturing segment of each community, these events helped build collaborative relationships with others in the manufacturing sector. 

One item event hosts said that they would do differently next year would be to “start planning earlier.”  Manufacturing Day 2013 co-producers the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the Manufacturing Institute (MI), the NIST-MEP program of the Department of Commerce and the Industrial Strength Marketing (ISM) are committed to helping next year’s hosts do just that.  Year-round communications and resources will be made available months earlier. In addition, more new resources will be offered to serve community organizations such as chambers of commerce, economic development groups, regional and state manufacturing associations, and MEP centers as well. 

To learn more, visit Manufacturing Day 2013’s video here.

Hosts’ videos can be seen here.

Next year’s event is scheduled for October 3. To learn more about this effort, please visit the Manufacturing Day Web site at www.mfgday.com.