About NCI

North Central Indiana Business Assistance Center, Inc. (NCI) is a 501(c)3 established in 1992 to provide business assistance to companies in north central Indiana (Counties of Elkhart, St. Joseph, Marshall, Kosciusko, and Fulton.) Under the NCI umbrella in Elkhart are Business Technology Improvement (BTI), Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) and Minority Business  Council.

The Business Technology Improvement Group utilizes a team of experienced professionals to provide Lean Training and shop floor improvements to businesses in the Michiana region. Beginning with a quarterly held all-day overview workshop (Lean 101), follow up training and implementation of standard lean tools is typically held on individual company shop floors with results oriented Kaizen projects. NCI is recognized as an approved provider of Certified Lean training under Indiana TAG Grant requirements and trains to 8, 40 and 80-hour Certification levels.

NCI hosts and sponsors the Michiana Lean Network, a network of regional businesses and organizations which exists to allow its members to improve their processes using the experiences of other members and benchmarking against their processes. The network facillitates coaching, training, benchmarking, plant visits and is a format for sharing both successes and failures. Membership by both exxperienced Lean/6-Sigma companies as well as companies newly engaged in Continuous Improvement is welcomed and encouraged. 

A full-time staff member is dedicated to the process of transferring new technologies into regional businesses. Working closely with the Technology Transfer Departments of Indiana Universities, NCI identifies available marketable technologies and then finds regional companies willing to license and develop these technologies into viable products. In this role of "marriage broker", NCI is insuring that manufacturing continues to play a significant role in Michiana's future.