Collaborative Advantage

The West Michigan Tooling Advantage Group (TAG Team) was formed to provide our customers with a single source for world-class tooling solutions by pooling the value-added expertise of our members.

Working collaboratively with our customers and one another, the TAG Team coalition is able to operate more competitively in the global market place. Through niche manufacturing expertise, sharing of lean manufacturing principles, development of standardized processes, established tooling standards, work-load balancing and group purchasing power, the TAG Team is able to provide timely delivery of competitively priced products without sacrificing product quality.

The Tooling Advantage Group

The Tooling Advantage group consists of the following members:

Together we can do project management and problem solving, blending the expertise of each member and providing a single contact for your project requirements. Being seperate yet in collaboration provides our customers the large company benefits of capability, manpower and experience while maintaining the flexibility, quick response, low overhead, personal correspondence and "niche expertise" of a small company.

Please check our Member Profile and our Capabilities pages for specific equipment capabilities.

The Michigan Advantage

Long known world-wide for it's advanced automotive manufacturing capability, the Great Lakes Region possesses 60% of the tooling industry establishments in the United States and 69% of the tooling industry employees. Nationwide Michigan alone ranks #1 for the total number of tooling industry establishments (16.4%) and tech-savy employees (24%).

Although the largest concentration of these companies are associated with the automotive industry and located in the southeastern portion of the state, a large contingent of companies are also located in West Michigan. These companies are more diverse as this is the heart of world-wide funiture manufacturing with corporate offices and manufacturing centers for all the major furniture companies located here. West Michigan is also known for its excellent employee work ethic and entreprneurial spirit ensuring a strong supply of talented employees.

Michigan is also known for it's research and development capabilities and is ranked #1 in the nation for automotive R&D, spending $10.3 billion annually. It is ranked #2 nationally for overall R&D expenditures. Much of this research is supported by our world-class research university system and a deep pool of tech-savy talent.

For more on the Michigan Advantage, follow this LINK to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.