Updated October 2026.

This note follows the Manufacturing Extension Partnership page on nist.gov, accessed 14 October 2026. The figures below are the ones that page prints.

The page is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) entry on nist.gov. It says the Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a programme administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. It says the programme’s primary mission is to strengthen and empower small and medium-sized U.S. manufacturers through state-designated MEP Centers located across the U.S. and in Puerto Rico. It says the programme comprises nearly 1,400 trusted manufacturing advisors and experts at more than 450 MEP service locations.

Those three sentences are the path the page itself describes: a federal institute administers a programme, state-designated centers sit across the country and in Puerto Rico, and advisors work from those service locations. Packaging-line model and before-and-after rate still come from the plant’s own trial.

The same page carries a news headline dated 20 November 2024: “CESMII and NIST MEP Partner to Boost U.S. Manufacturing with Smart Technologies.” The visible sentence under that headline says the Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII), part of the Manufacturing USA network, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology continue into text that the page then truncates. A headline reports an announcement; plant output still has to come from operating data.

A separate headline on the page, dated 20 May 2026, says NIST’s Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership has issued notice that it will announce something. The rest of that item is truncated on the page. It is an announcement notice, not an operating result.

The NIST MEP page names the administrator, the mission and the center footprint.

Advisor and location figures printed on the NIST MEP page.

If a plant wants to know whether a public programme can help a specific line, the next record is the center’s own current description, checked when the question is asked. The figures above are the ones printed on the NIST page on 14 October 2026. They can change. This website does not enrol a plant, and it does not claim that a conversation with an advisor produces a particular output rate.

For a specific line, start from the MEP center’s current description. This note does not recommend a supplier.

Next check: the MEP center’s current description, then a trial on the plant’s product.