For 11 years, the Rhode Island Manufacturing Extension Service – better known as RIMES – has helped the state’s manufacturers improve efficiency, revamp their facilities, plan their growth, train their workers and otherwise grow and streamline their organizations.
Now, in a new partnership with the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, RIMES is leaving its Quonset Point offices to move in with the RIEDC, and together they plan to offer enhanced services to the manufacturing sector.
“I think this is an important alliance,” said Saul Kaplan, executive director of the RIEDC. “It’s a continuation of our effort at EDC to focus on how we can help companies to grow by combining our resources and tools with programs outside the EDC. I hope this sends a message that we want to collaborate to help manufacturing to grow.”
RIMES was created in 1996 with federal funding and has since worked with nearly 700 manufacturers. Its programs are credited with helping companies increase or retain sales totaling $67.8 million; invest $24 million; create or retain 1,202 jobs; improve the quality of their services; and boost productivity by 10 to 30 percent between 2000 and 2005.
“RIMES has a long and successful track record of working with manufacturers in the state to help them innovate, to help them increase the productivity on the plant floor and to develop a pipeline of new products and services to compete globally and continue to grow,” Kaplan said.
RIMES works with a wide range of manufacturers, including those in the electronics, textile, biotechnology, plastic products, printing service/equipment, metal casting/forming, jewelry, boat-building, medical device manufacturing and food production industries.
“We partner with local industries and provide assessments, training and then follow through with executing the new plans,” said Leslie Taito, CEO of RIMES. “It’s all about helping these manufacturers build and sustain their businesses, because we want them here for the long term, creating jobs. It’s a critical component to the Rhode Island economy, because they are the wealth creators.”
Next month, RIMES will move into the RIEDC’s offices in the American Locomotive Works complex off Valley Street in Providence. Taito said she hopes this move will create a one-stop-shopping aspect to the services the two organizations provide.
“We have wanted to do this for some time, and it finally came together,” she said. “We have worked in the community for 10 years, and we felt that a collaborative effort between EDC and RIMES would foster Rhode Island manufacturing growth. We’re really trying to streamline.”
Kaplan noted that the two organizations already have a long history of collaboration.
“We’ve been working with RIMES for a long time, and over the last few months, under the leadership of Leslie Taito, we talked about ways we could strengthen our relationship,” Kaplan said. “That way we could assure that we were working seamlessly across organizations.”
The new location is also expected to give RIMES new visibility with companies that already work with the RIEDC. And RIMES staff will work closely with the RIEDC’s business development team to more actively promote services from both organizations that promote and support manufacturing activity.
Kaplan and Taito said this kind of collaboration is especially important now.
“We are nearing the end of the outflow of manufacturing jobs, and those remaining have the opportunity to get stronger,” Kaplan said. “So we have to rally around the manufacturers that are here in Rhode Island now and help them get stronger, to compete nationally and globally, to increase productivity and create a steady flow of new services and products. Manufacturing is an important part of our economic history, and we’ll continue to focus on how to strengthen the manufacturing sector within our economy.”
Bob Flynn, senior vice president of corporate development at TACO Inc. and a former RIMES board member, said the alliance will benefit manufacturers.
“I think it’s highly positive, and it’s proof that the EDC recognizes the importance of manufacturing as a key element in the state’s industrial portfolio,” he said. “It also suggests that the state will work closely with RIMES in the areas of innovation, work force development and lean manufacturing.”
