Roger Montz has worked in management for nearly 26 years. He thought he knew it all until he attended a Cedar Valley Manufacturer's Association meeting.

Montz said driving from Independence, where he is the operations manager for Quality Craft Corp., to attend monthly CVMA meetings has been very worthwhile.

"Attending meetings has brought new and refreshed ideas that have greatly improved all aspects of our operations," he said.

CVMA was formed in 1977 by a small group of manufacturers with the help of Iowa State University's Center for Industrial Research and Service. Since 1963, CIRAS has been helping Iowa State University Extension and the College of Engineering carry out their mission to improve the quality of life in Iowa by enhancing the performance of Iowa industry.

CVMA was created to establish a forum for the exchange of ideas to benefit industry in the Cedar Valley. The purpose is to promote and serve industry with an organized approach to free enterprise, education and positive legislative relations.

At a recent CVMA meeting, Audrey Sires, from Hawkeye Community College, gave a talk on the subject of "Lean Office Management" that included new ideas to improve all aspects of a business.

"At first, I thought 'What on earth could I learn?' or 'Do I really care if my notebooks are the same color or color labeled to topics?'#" Montz admitted. "But after listening to her program, she gave me an awareness that an organized office is very efficient in time savings, and being uniformly supplied in our offices has brought a great savings in real money.

"When I got back to my office, I started rearranging notebooks and files to make it a lot easier for anyone to come to my office and find what they need," he said. "Now I can order less materials and save money."

Montz currently serves as president of CVMA and said being a member has many benefits.

"Getting to know the very interesting and wonderful people that make up CVMA is a personal benefit," he said. "I also get ideas that will help me in my job. Quality Craft benefits by having me make wiser, cost-saving decisions and always seeking opportunities to expand our business.

"The whole organization is vital to growth, both internally and externally," Montz said. "Internally, by sharing ideas from the program speakers to sharing ideas between members on how they are coping with cost increases and other operating costs. Externally, by networking to see if another member would be interested in our products that we can make for them.

"Every manufacturing or service group in the Cedar Valley is welcome to become a member, and I am sure (they) would benefit greatly," Montz said.

CVMA is composed of 83 companies from the Cedar Valley, including members from Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Independence, Oelwein, Clarksville, Waverly, Denver, Shell Rock, Hudson, Janesville and Evansdale.

Tim Sullivan, program manager for CIRAS, said one way of measuring the importance of manufacturing to a state is by looking at what percentage of the gross state product comes from manufacturing.

"According to the latest data, 21 percent of the Iowa GSP comes from manufacturing," Sullivan said. "By this measure, there is only one state in the nation whose economy is more dependent on manufacturing. Looking at the Cedar Valley area, it is safe to say that manufacturing is very important to the economy.

"Using data last updated in 2000, manufacturers operate over 550 locations in the eight counties contiguous with Black Hawk County," Sullivan said. "At least one in every five private sector jobs are in manufacturing, topped by 27 percent in Buchanan County, 24 percent in Black Hawk County, 21 percent in Bremer County and 20 percent in Benton County. In Butler and Grundy counties, 19 percent of the private sector jobs are in manufacturing, and 16 percent are in Fayette and Tama counties.

"Associations like CVMA provide great learning opportunities that most individual companies may not have been able to experience, networking with colleagues and meaningful discussion of topics that have a common interest to members," Sullivan said. "CVMA provides members the opportunity to grow professionally."

CVMA meets from 4 to 6 p.m. the first Tuesday of each month from September through June. Meetings are hosted by area businesses. The evening includes networking and refreshments, a guest speaker, a tour of the hosting facility, a company spotlight and announcements.

Dawn Hines, office assistant for ISU Extension and administrative assistant for CVMA, has observed the benefits of attending meetings.

"The organization gives members a chance to network with other businesses in the area, giving them the opportunity to find out what other businesses do and what services and products they could provide each other without having to go out of state or out of the country for that service or product," she said.

"We have toured companies such as John Deere, Wood Components & Technologies, Schumacher Elevator, Iowa Metal Spinners, Advanced Heat Treat, Winnebago Industries in Forest City, Vermeer Mfg., Pella Windows in Pella and the Harley-Davidson assembly plant in Kansas City," Hines said. "We do one big tour every year. This year we are planning on touring the ISU Virtual Reality Center."

As part of the ISU College of Engineering's Emerging Technologies Conference on April 26, a grand opening tour of the Virtual Reality Application Center featuring the C6 - a six-sided virtual reality chamber - will be available to view the recent multimillion-dollar renovation, making it the most realistic virtual room in the world.

The C6 is a 3-D, full-immersion, synthetic environment that boasts 4000-by-4000-pixel resolution per wall, for a total of 100 million pixels. Forty-eight dual-CPU workstations send images to 24 Sony SRX-S105 digital cinema projectors, providing an intensely detailed, high-resolution experience for researchers and other participants. This facility consists of a 10-by-10-foot room where all four walls, the floor and ceiling are projection screens that are capable of displaying back-projected stereoscopic images. The C6 incorporates a 3-D sound system and was the first known system of its kind to support wireless tracking.

"In the C6, CVMA members will experience the latest in virtual reality technology," Sullivan said. "Hopefully, members who take the tour will be able to imagine ways that virtual reality could help them visualize some aspect of their environment that is now hidden. In reality, the visit to the C6 may be a little like a visit to Baskin Robbins. Members will enjoy greatly what they get, but it's just one taste of the many centers and labs on the ISU campus that can assist manufacturers.

"And, since the C6 resides in Howe Hall where the CIRAS campus office is located, it can also be a chance to stop in at CIRAS," Sullivan added.

CIRAS is a part of Iowa State University Extension and the College of Engineering. It provides outreach and in-reach so manufacturers can take advantage of the information available at ISU.