This week Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO) unveiled the rebranding of the High Desert Enterprise Consortium (HiDEC) as Grow 3 degrees, a move that aims to better convey the effort, which gives local entrepreneurs and companies access to continued education and peer-learning, with a focus on Lean principles.
Over the past year, EDCO and the HiDEC Steering Committee have been working together with The Mandala Agency, a full service branding, marketing and creative ad firm located in Bend, on both a name change and rebranding effort. From this emerged Grow 3o, giving the group a clear mission and focus.
Grow 3o relates to how small course corrections and incremental improvements over time can lead to significant gains and transform organizations. Continuous improvement is about engagement and problem-solving at all levels, and when consistently implemented it separates good companies from truly great ones.
In this spirit of continuous improvement, the core of what HiDEC (and what is now Grow 3o) stands for, EDCO chose to transition ownership of the effort to an organization that has the same values and goals, but one that could dedicate more resources to the effort. Effective immediately, the Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership (OMEP) will take the lead of Grow 3o and expand EDCO’s efforts of engaging more Central Oregon employers to learn best practices from experts and peers alike that will help their organizations improve.
“We really believe that OMEP is the perfect organization to carry forward this effort in our region,” said Roger Lee, CEO of EDCO. “They are already the lean and continuous improvement experts in the state and this will serve our companies well both in the short and long term.”
OMEP is just one of a nationwide network of organizations called MEP Centers governed by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), bringing considerable horsepower not only from their own team, but in best practices and resources from other parts of the country. These Lean implementation specialists understand the importance of culture and leadership, and as former business owners and engineers, their team knows the ins and outs of manufacturing. Like HiDEC did in the past, OMEP and Grow 3o work with a variety of industries outside of manufacturing, including health care, financial services, government administration and more.
Grow 3⁰’s mission is to help Central Oregon businesses improve their processes by leveraging the knowledge of experts and members through training and practical application of best practices. The organization is focused on Lean training and implementation: from first steps to advanced continuous improvement through events, workshops, problem-solving tours and more.
