Jacob Grey Custom Launches New Products, Improves Brand Recognition with help from SCMEP Company Overview Based in Columbia, South Carolina, Jacob Grey Custom is a manufacturer of custom .45 caliber 1911 handguns. The company handcrafts each gun specific to its owner and never mass-produces its guns. By…
Chuck Spangler has more than 30 years of experience in a variety of different industries, including Milliken & Company, Michelin, Willis Hosiery, and the South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP). He has been with SCMEP for 22 years, first as a Manufacturing Specialist, then Field Manager, Chief…
With over 1700 events nationwide celebrating Manufacturing Day on Oct.2, the South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP) will host two local events Sep. 29, and Oct 2, in honor of the occasion. The event is held annually on the first Friday in October and is meant to…
Hosted at Leidos’ operation near Charleston, this OpExChange Lean manufacturing Kaizen brought together 19 participants from six companies, representing a diverse cross-section of South Carolina manufacturing. The event took place inside a relatively new, high-tech environment – a 150,000-square-foot facility supporting advanced manufacturing and system integration for…
Focus, Simplicity, and Operational Discipline In manufacturing, complexity often creeps in quietly. More product variants. More options. More engineering changes. More processes layered on top of processes. Left unchecked, that complexity can slow an organization down. At ITW Hartness, the philosophy is different. Focus on the critical…
Last week, Harsco Rail welcomed a full house of manufacturing peers from across South Carolina to its West Columbia facility for an OpExChange tour focused on operational transformation. The visit followed the familiar OpExChange format — presentation, plant tour, and peer collaboration — with Harsco Rail providing…
The OpExChange held a phenomenal event this week — and it was a little different than what we’ve done in the past. This was our first-ever “Plant Manager Exchange,” a pilot format built specifically for plant leaders to collaborate in a safe, peer-to-peer environment and trade ideas…
Generative AI is no longer a future concept reserved for tech companies. It is quickly becoming part of the operational toolkit for manufacturers across South Carolina – and leaders are working to separate meaningful opportunity from marketing hype. On February 3, OpExChange hosted a virtual session titled…
On January 13, members of the OpExChange gathered at Timken’s Tyger River plant for a deep dive into the next evolution of the Timken Manufacturing Operating System (TMOS 2). More than a traditional plant tour, the visit offered an inside look at how a 125‑year‑old company continues…
A Look at How MEPs Drive Growth, Safeguard Jobs, and Fuel the Next Generation of Advanced Manufacturing For decades, the nation’s network of Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEPs) has served as one of the country’s most effective—and often under-recognized—economic development engines. Created under the U.S. Department of Commerce’s…