Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction

• Approach 1. - Share and Location Quotient Analyses
• Approach 2. - Core Industry Analysis
• Approach 3. - Cluster Analysis
• Approach 4. - Needs Surveys
• Approach 5. - Technology Use Surveys
• Approach 6. - Advisory/User Groups
• Approach 7. - Historical Program Data
• Regional Needs Assessments for Defense Conversion
  

Appendix A. Methodology
Appendix B. References and Resources
The Rural Economic Policy Program (REPP)

Development of the Manufacturing Assistance Program Needs Assessment Guide, Volumes 1
and 2, was cofunded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Rural Economic Policy Program (REPP) of The Aspen Institute. REPP gratefully acknowledges its funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which made the publication of this guide possible.

Jan Youtie, Senior Research Associate with the Economic Development Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, was the project's director. Project team members included J. David Roessner, Professor, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology; and Philip Shapira, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology.

Robert Bassler, Indiana Business Modernization and Technology Corporation; Peter LaPlaca, Connecticut State Technology Extension Program; Robert Springfield, Economic Development Institute; Edie Wiarda, Midwest Manufacturing Technology Center; and Nita Congress, technical editor, reviewed drafts of this guide. Gale Morse and James Thurston from the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, NIST, and Meriwether Jones at The Aspen Institute also provided significant and helpful suggestions.

Jan Youtie
Economic Development Institute
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0640
Phone: 404-894-6111 Fax: 404-894-0069

jan.youtie@edi.gatech.edu

Philip Shapira
School of Public Policy
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0345
Phone: 404-894-7735 Fax: 404-853-0535

ps25@prism.gatech.edu

J. David Roessner
School of Public Policy
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0345
Phone: 404-894-6821 Fax: 404-853-0535

david.roessner@pubpolicy.gatech.edu

Back to the beginning of the document.

A manufacturing assistance program must- by definition- assess the needs of the manufacturers in its service area. Needs are manufacturing practices that fall short of, or can be improved with reference to, a benchmark or standard. Because no standard, validated benchmarks exist, however, definitions of need are often influenced by the goals and missions of the parties involved. Elected officials emphasize the need to save and create jobs; program administrators focus on upgrading manufacturing capabilities; manufacturing firms are concerned with profitability and survival. Even within a firm, the president, managers, and workers may each have different opinions about what the problems are and how to solve them.

Thus, needs assessments have a large subjective component. This subjectivity is compounded by the fact that programs have little opportunity to formally exchange information about the assessment tools and methods they use, and their strengths and limitations in various program contexts.

One way to reduce this subjectivity is to set down systematic approaches that draw on the collective experience of programs from around the country. The purpose of this guide is to describe approaches used and recommended by assistance program staff to assess manufacturers' needs.

The Manufacturing Assistance Program Needs Assessment Guide consists of two volumes:

• Volume 1 covers regional-level needs assessment approaches. Regional-level assessments aim at identifying and describing the characteristics of the manufacturing sector within the service area so as to best match program resources with needs across the area. This volume was written for directors of technical and management assistance programs serving private industry to help them during program start-up.
• Volume 2 is an overview of approaches for conducting firm-level needs assessments. These assessments involve one-on-one interactions between program staff and client firms to match program services and staff to clients based on individual firm needs. This volume was written primarily for directors of ongoing technical and management assistance programs.

These volumes can be used together or as stand-alone documents. The material they contain is complementary; taken together, it represents a resource compendium on various approaches to conducting manufacturing needs assessments. As such, it may be used by audiences other than those listed above, including manufacturing assistance program planners and marketing staff, researchers of industrial policy and technology diffusion, people involved in economic development activities serving business, private sector management consultants, and industry and technology policymakers.

In using the material in these volumes, note the following:

• This material is not intended to represent "best practices." At this time, it is premature to think of best practices in this discipline, since the number of manufacturing assistance programs with long histories is small and represents an enormous diversity of experience.
• Assessment tools and methods are continually evolving. Because the practice of conducting needs assessments is rapidly evolving, this report is necessarily incomplete. New tools have been introduced, and older tools refined, since the writing of this guide. There has been no intent to exclude particular tools in this guide. The emphasis is on approaches to assessing need, rather than particular tools.
• The inclusion of particular case examples, references and contacts are not intended to be endorsements. The case examples represent typical approaches used rather than endorsed best practices.
• There is no one "right" approach. Manufacturing assistance programs differ substantially in terms of their mission, size and scope. They have broadly divergent client bases, and are located in economic regions with widely varying structures and conventions. Consequently, what works in one place and time may not in another. Tools and methods must be appropriately tailored.