Month: January 2016

CIRAS Helps Small Business Land More than $329K in Government Contracts

From the beginning, when Jeanie Waters launched 3rd Degree Screening in Council Bluffs in 2012, she knew that its success would require both commercial and government contracts. Waters, whose company provides background checks, drug tests, and field investigation services for clients worldwide, turned to CIRAS for help with the government part. “The overall value [of CIRAS] is in learning the process and having educated support throughout,” Waters said. “You keep building on what you know and you build off your CIRAS representative.”

PTAP TIPS: Tell Us What You Can Do

The specialists in CIRAS' Procurement Technical Assistance Program (PTAP) exist to help Iowa businesses understand what it takes to sell to the government. One of the key things necessary to succeed in to government contracting is a capability statement. A good one includes the following information:

CIRAS Helps Cline Tool Assess and Enhance Safety, OSHA Compliance

Sometimes, you just want to know. Cline Tool, based in Newton, recently completed a 15-month project with CIRAS to evaluate its safety plans and procedures. The result? Cline now has a new Safety Committee to address safety procedures, processes, and compliance moving forward. And its Board of Directors is much more confident after being reassured that Cline has a strong program in place that meets OSHA requirements.

WORKFORCE: If They Won’t Come, Build It—With a Robot

The evolution of manufacturing is occurring bit by bit across Iowa—including, among other places, at a metal door factory in Mason City. Curries, part of the Sweden-based ASSA ABLOY Group, is where roughly 490 production workers go each day to produce steel doors and frames.Since 2012, the company has been working steadily to automate the final phase of its door-handling process—a manual labor-intense procedure that tends to spawn high turnover and can cause the kind of muscle injuries that are common in an aging workforce.