Home | About Florida MEP | Upcoming Events | Success Stories | Partners & Resources | News | Board of Directors Contact Us | Enterprise Transformation | Performance Based Training | Supply Chain Management | Innovation Small Minority-Owned Company Competes on a Global Basis Tampa, FL - Automated Engineering Corporation, an electronics design and manufacturing company, was founded in 1987. The minority, female-owned company, located in Tampa, Florida, develops and designs products to satisfy the requirements of customers primarly in the automotive and defense industry. They provide product conception assistance, research, feasibility, design and development, prototyping, documentation, production engineering and production. AEC's current staff is comprised of 27 full-time employees and continues to expand. In 2002, Automated Engineering Corporation was looking for additional avenues and a direction to grow. Most of their workload came from general industry customers, and the company needed the ability to tap into the government and automotive markets for continued growth. AEC management contacted the Florida MEP, a NIST MEP network affiliate, for assistance. Florida MEP reviewed AEC's operation and was able to recommend several areas for improvement. The first was to become ISO Certified so that more bid opportunties would be available to them. The second was to adapt their newly implemented quality system to include many new Six Sigma tools and SPC charting so that their operation would comply with the requirements that the large automotive market demands. A third recommendation was to establish a formal Marketing thrust to concentrate on a few new customers and utilize new literature that would present Automated Engineering as a leader in their field. As part of this new marketing thrust it was necessary for AEC to understand these markets and how to compete in them. Florida MEP provided ISO Mentoring, Six Sigma Process incorporation and Marketing Mentoring to AEC. A Georgia Tech grant enabled the company to further its goal of growing their business by opening up new market avenues through training and, along with market research, the development of new literature to present to potential new customers. The Florida MEP is an affiliate of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the U.S. Department of Commerce. The national MEP is a network of manufacturing extension centers that provide business and technical assistance to smaller manufacturers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Through MEP, manufacturers have access to more than 2000 manufacturing and business "coaches" whose job is to help firms make changes that lead to greater productivity, increased profits, and enhanced global competitiveness. For more information on the Florida MEP program call 1-800-MEP-4MFG.