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Can you determine the performance gap in your organization?
Few organizations today can say their workforce has all of the skills and all of the tools needed to achieve the performance levels leaders expect. This "performance gap" between what is and what could be reflects the potential that exists to improve the competitiveness of the region's employers.
The gap expands when leaders see a need to push their organizations to higher levels in order to beat the competition. The gap expands when employers hire new employees who may not bring the necessary skills sets to work on day one. It expands when new technology is introduced before the employees are ready to use it or before the systems are ready to support it.
In some cases the performance gap can be shrunk with new systems and processes. In other cases it may require hiring additional people with needed skills. In most cases, however, the performance gap can be best addressed through purposeful, systematic training.
The Center for Business and Industry's new Performance Improvement Initiative is designed to help employers in the region close the gap between what they expect of their employees and what they actually get from them. CBI believes that one indicator of the strength of the region's workforce is the combined "performance gap" of all of the area's employers. As that gap grows or shrinks, so the region's ability to compete nationally and globally weakens or strengthens. Continued
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| NCC's PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE TO AID EASTERN PA BUSINESSES
In a move to expand the services it provides to business and industry and take a stand in "bringing back Pennsylvania," the Center for Business & Industry (CBI) of Northampton Community College is launching a comprehensive Performance Development Initiative designed to more closely align its programs and services to aid businesses with workforce needs in the eastern Pennsylvania market where much of the state's population growth has taken place. Read More... |
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Tim McNair |
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Lessons Learned at Gettysburg Relevant to Leaders in Business Today
Xploring is a Yearlong Journey into Leadership Development for Martin Guitar Executive
"What a trip! We went to Gettysburg thinking it was a little history visit, and it was so much more than that," exclaims Tim McNair, controller for the venerable Martin Guitar Company. "In 2002, when the Xploring program was first introduced to the region, I and Martin's Vice President of Manufacturing were designated to participate. The rest, as they say, is history."
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The Power of Partnerships
Binney & Smith's Comprehensive Training Requirements
Colored In With Broad Professional Offerings by NCC |
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When the All-American brand is Crayola®, there's a special relationship to be cultivated.
Northampton proudly labels the makers of Crayola products a client. For Northampton's Center for Business & Industry, the partnership is both demanding and satisfying. "The job market is opening up and that goes for Binney, too," says Kent Zimmerman, associate dean of technology at Northampton. "It's time to do more training now that the ranks are being filled with new employees, although our relationship with Crayola has lasted over time through both upturns and downturns in the economy. We work to satisfy their needs, to stay in front for them."
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| Free WEDnetPa Training Available at Northampton
When the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania goes to work for PA's employees, the government calls upon the community colleges and other educational institutions to make things happen. In 2003/04, NCC contracted with over 70 area employers, awarding over $800,000 in contracts for guaranteed free training through WEDnetPa.
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Largest Plastic Chain Conveyor Manufacturer Automates World
FlexLink, Lehigh Valley Company Since 1988
You've heard the lines. Go with the flow. Handle with care. Automate or perish. Here is a company helping others achieve these simple goals with automated processes for increased efficiencies and profitability.
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Getting Value out of your ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System
By Sam Schaadt
Sam Schaadt is staff instructor/consultant in quality and productivity at the Center for Business & Industry.
In addition to his twenty-five years industry experience in supplier quality and quality engineering,
he has provided over five thousand hours of training and consulting to over sixty organizations in quality awareness,
ISO 9000, auditing, measurement systems and statistical quality for CBI.
Far too often organizations view the implementation and maintenance of an ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System as a non-value added activity. When asked why an organization installs an ISO 9001 compliant quality system the number answer is "Our customers asked or requested that we do it".
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Lean Manufacturing in a Nutshell
Chances are you've heard the phrase 'lean manufacturing' bandied about for the last few years. In a nutshell, lean manufacturing is the endless pursuit of waste elimination in a manufacturing operation. 'Waste' is considered anything that adds cost while adding very little or no value to a product or service. In reducing waste, we seek to reduce such things as defects, waiting time, unnecessary motion, unnecessary production steps, over production of product, excess inventory, and inefficiency among people and equipment. Read More... |
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| Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan
The critical role of education in the nation's economy
At the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce 2004 Annual Meeting, Omaha, Nebraska, February 20, 2004
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