A manufacturing power-group has been set up for northern B.C., but more energy is needed to get the young conversation going.
The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters has evolved over more than 140 years, but always as a federally legislated peer group to stimulate and catalyze the nation's manufacturing sector. It has provincial branches across the country, and one of the primary actions they take is running community-based roundtables. They are called Manufacturers' Executive Councils (MEC) and they behave like local manufacturing think-tanks, peer support group, and social activity all at the same time. For the first time in that long history, a MEC has been established in Prince George but it needs more people around the table.
Each MEC runs on a couple of main principles: privacy and non-competition. What happens in the group's discussions stays at the table, and those around the table cannot in any way be competition to one another.
It is a formula that has worked wonderfully at 10 other locations in B.C., said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters provincial vice-president Peter Jeffrey.
"Once you get the group going, it is very high-value," said Jeffrey. "We've done this for more than 12 years; we even have a book on how to do it. Once you get the membership to a critical mass and put in about six months of getting to know each other, we find that few people ever leave the group, few ever miss a meeting, and the members knit together. That benefits the members immeasurably, but it also benefits the community because what they are talking about is sustaining their business, improving their business model, troubleshooting their challenges, learning from one another in a supportive and honest peer environment."
Each group meets only once a month, and the agenda is set by the members themselves. Sometimes the talk is about a member's family problems, sometimes about labour shortages, sometimes about supply shortfalls, or a shrinking market, or the best way to address an advertising campaign or a human resources issue. All that the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters asks in return is general feedback about what the region's main issues are in the manufacturing sector, so they can lobby more effectively for better training programs, marketing campaigns, or government policy changes.
Renata King from Northern Development Initiative Trust has had experience working with MEC groups in the past and is involved in helping set the local roundtable up. NDIT has provided funding to offset the group members' entry costs, to cover off the difference between northern members' involvement versus the closely positioned Lower Mainland and Okanagan group members.
The largest early obstacle the northern, Prince George-based MEC group faces is local neighbourliness. There is a lot of mutual business being done among northern companies, so it is taking a while to gather firms together that do not have competitive elements.
So far the group has been made up of six companies and six or seven more are needed to have the MEC function best, said Jeffrey. The early participants include Geotech Drilling, Noratek Solutions, Stinger Welding, Northern Steel, Prolenc Manufacturing, and Angler's Atlas.
Some are large corporations, some are small businesses. The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters organization tries to achieve a mix of sizes and sectors in each MEC group. The other main stipulation to meetings is for members to be there in person. Teleconferencing technologies have been tried and found to be impedimentary to discussion.
The next meeting is tonight. For more information call King at 778-349-1561 or Jeffery at 604-713-7804.
