Doyle Equipment Manufacturing Company is a leading manufacturer of equipment for blending, conveying, tending, and spreading dry fertilizers… In 2016, Doyle consolidated most of its manufacturing and administrative functions in Palmyra, Missouri, where it built a new 220,000 square foot facility near its sister company, Riverview Manufacturing… Doyle recognized the importance of garnering the knowledge and expertise of long-serving employees who were nearing retirement. Losing the experience of critical employees can dramatically impede operational efficiency and productivity, especially as companies expand and prepare for additional growth. To combat the potential loss of tribal knowledge, Doyle decided to introduce an Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) to capture and consolidate “islands of information” into one integrated system. Facing the immense task of properly implementing an ERP, company leaders turned to Missouri Enterprise, part of the MEP National Network, for guidance.
Ingevity Corporation provides specialty chemicals, high-performance carbon materials, and engineered polymers that purify, protect, and enhance the world around us. Specifically, the company’s plant in Waynesboro, Georgia, makes a carbon honeycomb filter used to collect automotive gas emissions within a vehicle and reuse them, rather than release them into the atmosphere… In 2016, after a series of automotive recalls (unrelated to Ingevity), the entire automotive industry worked to improve quality standards. Many automotive OEMs began to require new certifications for companies in their supply chain. Even though Ingevity already had a quality management system in place and was certified to ISO 9001 and its automotive supplement, TS16949, the company needed to certify to the new, more stringent automotive- quality standard, IATF16949:2016, by September 2018, to maintain its customer base… Chuck Sabo, the company’s quality systems manager, quickly realized that his team needed some help and reached out to Elliot Price, Augusta Region Manager, who connected them with a GaMEP project manager and quality management system expert.
A 17-year-old spinout of the Bigelow Laboratory of Ocean Science, Fluid Imaging Technologies is based in Scarborough, Maine with 15 employees. The company manufactures industry-leading particle analysis instrumentation based on digital imaging technology. Its flagship product, the FlowCam, is the first automated particle analysis instrument to use digital imaging for measuring size and shape of microscopic particles in a fluid medium. With applications in oceanographic research, municipal water, biopharmaceutical formulations, chemicals, oil and gas, biofuels and many other markets, Fluid Imaging Technologies leads the way in imaging particle analysis… The challenge was to create tools and protocols to enable a manageable product development process… Maine MEP, part of the MEP National Network, worked with the company on a weekly basis to not only design tools and protocols, but also run a test product through the system to provide both training and validation of the system with the staff.
An Industrial Policy Success Story Trump Should Champion: The Manufacturing Extension Partnership
BY MARC FASTEAU & IAN FLETCHER
Marc Fasteau and Ian Fletcher are authors of Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries (Cambridge University Press 2024), a widely praised book on industrial policies in US and world history and the need for US industrial policies today.
President Trump has made American reindustrialization and reshoring central to his economic policy agenda. Reviving American manufacturing enjoys broad public support and has increasingly become a bipartisan priority. We have previously written about the importance of reindustrialization—a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s agenda—and one that has won over a significant part of America’s policymaking elite.
One of the most effective and least controversial tools for advancing this objective already exists: the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP). Yet despite its stated commitment to rebuilding American manufacturing, the Trump administration has not consistently supported MEP, at times proposing reductions or eliminations that would weaken one of the most effective mechanisms available to strengthen small and mid-sized U.S. manufacturers.
Strengthening MEP would directly reinforce the administration’s stated goals of supply chain resilience, domestic capacity expansion, and small-business manufacturing growth.
The Case of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership
The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), housed within the Commerce Department, helps smaller manufacturers adopt advanced technologies, adopt state-of-the-art management techniques, qualify for OEM supply chains and compete more effectively in domestic and global markets[MF1] . In the past, budget proposals have sought to eliminate or reduce the program, though Congress — including many Republican members — has consistently preserved it due to its demonstrated results.
In a modern economy, innovation must not only be invented—it must be diffused. Knowledge has economic impact only when it is transmitted to firms and deployed at scale. Larger corporations often have the internal resources to track technological developments and implement them. Smaller manufacturers typically do not. MEP fills that gap.
These firms—often tier-three suppliers—play a vital role in American manufacturing. While large Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) dominate headlines, they depend on deep networks of smaller suppliers. Strengthening these suppliers strengthens the entire industrial system.
MEP is analogous to the agricultural extension services that have long supported American farmers by bringing state-of-the-art techniques into widespread use. The program operates on a cost-sharing basis among federal, state, and private-sector partners. Companies contribute financially to the services they receive, ensuring both accountability and relevance. It is not a giveaway program; it is a performance-based partnership.
A Nationwide Network with Measurable Results
MEP has a nationwide network of 51 regional centers and 460 service locations that provide a wide variety of technical and business assistance, either using their own staff or by connecting firms to state and federal agencies, trade associations, universities, research labs, and other institutions. It has over 1,400 in-house manufacturing experts and 2,100 outside consultants. In 2022, MEP conducted 33,500 interactions with 9,111 different clients.
Its 2025 federal funding was $175 million—modest by federal budgetary standards.
Yet its economic returns are substantial:
Few federal programs can plausibly claim such measurable leverage and return.
Case Studies
The MEP centers differ in the scale and complexity of their services. Some are small not-for-profit entities, while others are far larger affiliates of universities or state and regional economic-development organizations. They vary according to the focus of local manufacturing, the presence of major research universities, regional startup rates, and the type of entity managing them.
For example, the Ohio Development Services Agency’s Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship oversees the Ohio MEP through six sub-recipient centers. One, MAGNET in Cleveland, serving the state’s northeastern industrial corridor, has over 50 experts and support staff. By contrast, New Mexico’s MEP Center is a standalone non-profit. It has an office in Albuquerque, branches in Farmington, Las Cruces, and Roswell, and a total staff of 10.
Projects can be carried out by center staff, a partner organization, or third-party consultants. Here are three case studies from MEP’s website:
Doyle Equipment Manufacturing Company is a leading manufacturer of equipment for blending, conveying, tending, and spreading dry fertilizers… In 2016, Doyle consolidated most of its manufacturing and administrative functions in Palmyra, Missouri, where it built a new 220,000 square foot facility near its sister company, Riverview Manufacturing… Doyle recognized the importance of garnering the knowledge and expertise of long-serving employees who were nearing retirement. Losing the experience of critical employees can dramatically impede operational efficiency and productivity, especially as companies expand and prepare for additional growth. To combat the potential loss of tribal knowledge, Doyle decided to introduce an Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) to capture and consolidate “islands of information” into one integrated system. Facing the immense task of properly implementing an ERP, company leaders turned to Missouri Enterprise, part of the MEP National Network, for guidance.
Ingevity Corporation provides specialty chemicals, high-performance carbon materials, and engineered polymers that purify, protect, and enhance the world around us. Specifically, the company’s plant in Waynesboro, Georgia, makes a carbon honeycomb filter used to collect automotive gas emissions within a vehicle and reuse them, rather than release them into the atmosphere… In 2016, after a series of automotive recalls (unrelated to Ingevity), the entire automotive industry worked to improve quality standards. Many automotive OEMs began to require new certifications for companies in their supply chain. Even though Ingevity already had a quality management system in place and was certified to ISO 9001 and its automotive supplement, TS16949, the company needed to certify to the new, more stringent automotive- quality standard, IATF16949:2016, by September 2018, to maintain its customer base… Chuck Sabo, the company’s quality systems manager, quickly realized that his team needed some help and reached out to Elliot Price, Augusta Region Manager, who connected them with a GaMEP project manager and quality management system expert.
A 17-year-old spinout of the Bigelow Laboratory of Ocean Science, Fluid Imaging Technologies is based in Scarborough, Maine with 15 employees. The company manufactures industry-leading particle analysis instrumentation based on digital imaging technology. Its flagship product, the FlowCam, is the first automated particle analysis instrument to use digital imaging for measuring size and shape of microscopic particles in a fluid medium. With applications in oceanographic research, municipal water, biopharmaceutical formulations, chemicals, oil and gas, biofuels and many other markets, Fluid Imaging Technologies leads the way in imaging particle analysis… The challenge was to create tools and protocols to enable a manageable product development process… Maine MEP, part of the MEP National Network, worked with the company on a weekly basis to not only design tools and protocols, but also run a test product through the system to provide both training and validation of the system with the staff.
Supporting Supply Chain Resilience and National Security
In addition to solutions to specific manufacturing problems, the MEP centers increasingly offer more generalized services such as supply chain optimization, sustainability measures, workforce development, procurement assistance for government contracts, and technology acceleration. MEP emphasizes helping firms adopt all-important lean manufacturing practices, which it has been instrumental in spreading among small firms.
The centers also help the 35,000-40,000 larger, more sophisticated, managerially proactive firms with tasks such as process improvement, capacity expansion, technology and supplier scouting, technology-driven market intelligence, capital access, cybersecurity, and international quality standards such as ISO 9001.
Most MEP client companies are “tier three” firms, and the centers help them connect with the larger tier two firms that supply the tier one Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) at the top of the manufacturing food chain. With MEP assistance, tier three SMMs often enter into cooperative arrangements with one another to develop products they can then sell to tier two companies.
Although a genuinely collaborative national manufacturing network had been a goal from the start, MEP centers for many years collaborated only regionally. Thus, in 2017, the MEP National Network was launched.
The CHIPS Act of 2022 expanded MEP’s funding, especially for reshoring, domestic supply chains, critical technologies, and foundational manufacturing capabilities. It authorized $2.3 billion for 2023 to 2027, triple the previous five-year period, though the actual appropriation for 2023 was $175 million, only $17 million higher than the previous year.
During 2017-23, MEP engaged in several other initiatives:
A Strategic Opportunity
MEP’s budget is small compared to similar foreign programs like Germany’s Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, a major contributor to that nation’s legendary manufacturing prowess. It is also modest relative to the scale of America’s manufacturing base.
At a time when policymakers are scrutinizing federal programs for efficiency and measurable impact, MEP stands out as a high-performing investment in domestic capacity.
If the United States is serious about reindustrialization, strengthening firms inside the tariff wall is just as important as erecting it. Tariffs protect the market; productivity and technological diffusion determine who thrives within it.
Strengthening the MEP would reinforce the administration’s commitment to domestic production, supply chain resilience, and small-business manufacturing growth. It would be a practical and effective step toward cementing America’s industrial revival.
Reindustrialization requires both market protection and firm-level capability. MEP provides the latter. It deserves sustained and strengthened support as part of a comprehensive strategy to rebuild American manufacturing.
MADE IN AMERICA.
CPA is the leading national, bipartisan organization exclusively representing domestic producers and workers across many industries and sectors of the U.S. economy.
TRENDING
Why 2025’s Record Breaking Trade Deficit Doesn’t Hurt the Argument for Tariffs
CPA Praises Launch of First-of-its-Kind Portal Exposing Malign Foreign Funding in U.S. Higher Education
CPA Applauds Trump Administration’s Consideration of New Section 232 National Security Tariffs
An Industrial Policy Success Story Trump Should Champion: The Manufacturing Extension Partnership
CPA Statement on SCOTUS IEEPA Tariff Ruling
The latest CPA news and updates, delivered every Friday.
WATCH: WORTH FIGHTING FOR
Get the latest in CPA news, industry analysis, opinion, and updates from Team CPA.
CHECK OUT THE NEWSROOM ➔