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Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

Carver Machine Works Realizes Multiple Rewards from a Commitment to Quality

With the help of: North Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NCMEP)

About

CMW Global, Carver Machine Works, Washington, North Carolina, is a high-mix, low-volume manufacturer. For 45 years, CMW has been repairing and overhauling heavy equipment for the process industry and specializes in build-to-print fabrication and mechanical assembly. Half of the industries the company serves are in the process industry, petrochemical, pulp and paper, and mining. The other half of their business is from the defense industry, concentrating on naval defense. CMW Global repairs and overhauls major systems on aircraft carriers' half-life. The company also builds-to-print for large missile defense systems subcomponents and fabrication for specialized applications.

The Challenge

Lindsey Crisp, President and CEO of CMW Global, said, “The rigors required by the defense industry have helped us be a better company for all our customers.” The defense critical projects require the company to meet quality certifications from the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program (NADCAP), Non-Destructive Testing (NDT), ISO 9001:2015, AS9100D, CWI, and other military standards, and specialized welding and machining credentials that require high-level training and skillsets.
The final product and the support we got from Industry Expansion Solutions was outstanding.
— Lindsey Crisp, President and CEO of Carver Machine Works

MEP's Role

For 14 months, a cross-functional CMW team, a mix of quality team members, management and staff, and North Carolina Industry Expansion Solutions product specialists, part of the MEP National Network™, reviewed every standard requirement and updated and streamlined the manual. “After hundreds and hundreds of hours of work, we could reconcile what the manual stated and what we do. We reduced the size of the manual to less than a tenth of its original size, and now it is concise, relevant, and current. In addition to that, because it is a more manageable size, we're publishing the manual through Microsoft Teams now instead of having all these hardbound copies, which makes revision changes and managing control of documents much more efficient,” Crisp stated.

The CMW standards manual update project with Industry Expansion Solutions generated a total economic impact of $175,000. There was a $20,000 investment in new processes, a $20,000 investment in new equipment, a $5,000 investment in info systems, and a $50,000 impact on workforce improvement.

Created February 25, 2025