excellence in the northeast · 2014-08-22 · knowledge, your practical skills in implementing...

In T

his

Issu

e

Upcoming Events

Events Dates Location Cost

1   AME Annual Conference

2   Letter from the Northeast President

3   Upcoming Events

4   Recent Workshops

5   Networking Event Highlights

6   Meet Our Members

7   Membership Information

MORE EXCELLENCE INSIDE! At our last AME Annual conference, held in Baltimore in October 2010, the theme of “The Excellence Inside” allowed for an outstanding learning experience for all of those that were fortunate enough to attend.

This year’s conference will be held in Dallas in October – and should be another outstanding event and opportunity to network with 2000+ fellow Lean practitioners from all over the world.

Dallas Program Highlights will include –

•  6 Keynote Speakers •  60 Practitioner-to-Practitioner Value Stream Presentations •  40 Best Practice Tours •  40 Insightful Workshops •  10 Special Interest Sessions •  the Idea Exchange Cafe

To find out more, go to the conference website at www.ameconference.org.

Janice Frampton, Editor ([email protected])

To sign up for AME events, contact AME at 224-232-5980 or register on-line at www.ame.org.

To host an AME event in your area contact Tim McMahon, VP Programs at (860) 883-4445 [email protected].

Visual Management @ Wiremold March 15, 2011 West Hartford, CT Click here

EXCELLENCE IN THE NORTHEAST

Volume 5, Q1 2011

Northeast Region | Q1 2011

October 24 – 28, 2011 www.ameconference.org

Shingo Benchmark Tour of 2 Companies April 7, 2011 Avon and Middleboro, MA Click here

Lean Bronze Certification Prep Class March 21 – 23, 2011 Franklin, MA Click here

Taking Action with Lean Accounting May 19 - 20, 2011 Ayer, MA Click here

Officers

From the Northeast President

Board Members

•  Scott Gauvin, President (617) 209-4304

[email protected]

•  Tim McMahon, VP Programs (860) 883-4445 [email protected]

•  Zenagui Brahim, VP Mktg. (603) 226-3200 [email protected]

•  Glenn Golden, Membership Director (203) [email protected]

•  Roland Dion, Treasurer & Secretary (508) 222-9662 [email protected]

•  John Uliano, Networking (203) 407-5929 [email protected]

• David Hess, New Hampshire MEP ��(603) 226-3200; [email protected]

• Kenneth McGuire, Emeritus Status ��(508) 398-2010; [email protected]

• Brian Montanari, Habco, Inc.��(860) 682-6800, x104; [email protected]

• Andy Novotny, Alliances, Past President (860) 463-1780 [email protected]

• Jake Stiles, Stiles Associates, LLC��(603) 526-6566: [email protected]

• Ed Thumith, Thermo Fisher Scientific��(978) 314-8053; [email protected]

• Pat Wardwell, GBMP (617) 287-7648; [email protected]


The AME’s mission to harness the collective experience of its members was what motivated my own membership over seven years ago. Manufacturing professionals sit at what is both the challenging and promising crossroads of globalization and technological innovation and I found the opportunity to benefit from the insight of my AME peers invaluable.

I’m honored to be serving as President this year and am looking forward to fostering greater connections among our members and promoting the value of these relationships to the Northeast manufacturing community at large.

To that end, this spring features four great workshops and some of the region’s best examples of manufacturing success. From Legrand-Wiremold’s enduring legacy of Lean best practices to improving your own performance via the Shingo Benchmarking Tour, I’m confident our events provide attendees with the tools to enhance performance and cut costs.

In fact, AME’s unprecedented access to New England’s network of prominent manufacturers is what our members appreciate most. Wherever you are on your continuous improvement journey, I invite you to take advantage of the breadth and depth of our expertise and hope to see you at our next roundtable.

Until then!

Scott

EXCELLENCE IN THE NORTHEAST| Volume 5, Quarter 1 2011

Visual Management at Legrand-Wiremold March 15, 2011 - West Hartford, CT Learn about Wiremold’s best practices of Visual Management. The workshop includes an overview of Wiremold’s lean history, a tour of the facility reviewing examples of visual management, a training session on visual management, how to implement Visual Management, participation in work breakout sessions with Wiremold associates, and training materials to bring back. Attendees can start using the tools immediately upon returning! More Information

Lean Bronze Certification Preparation Course & Exam March 21-23, 2011 - Franklin, MA A Lean Certification from AME, ASQ, SME, and The Shingo Prize documents your Lean knowledge, your practical skills in implementing improvements and your ability to be a lean mentor. This certification is targeted to companies on lean journeys, and to lean champions, practitioners and consultants charged with facilitating those lean transformations. During the focused review process the group will be guided through review topics covered in the exam. More Information

Shingo Benchmarking Tour - AccuRounds & Brookfield Engineering April 7, 2011 - Middleboro and Avon, MA Attendees will tour two organizations that have been recognized by the Shingo Prize for their ongoing continuous improvement efforts. Participants will “go to gemba” to see real world examples of how companies embody lean principles, systems and tools. They will have the opportunity to talk with employees, and gain insight into how companies inspire and empower employees to be the creators of operational excellence. More Information

Taking Action with Lean Accounting May 19-20, 2011 - Ayer, MA This workshop will provide a compelling hands-on understanding of why adaptation of Lean Manufacturing creates a mandate to challenge traditional cost accounting, and show a new, high-impact role for the financial professional. An alternative to traditional cost accounting will be demonstrated. Attendees will be provided with three new goals for the accounting and finance leader and staff, and ten specific strategies to reach those goals. More Information

Upcoming Events

March 15, 2011

April 7, 2011



Last Quarter’s Workshops – Two Pull Systems For The Price Of One

Mercury Wire

OFS Fitel


.

Two Pull Systems For The Price of One – October 5 & 6, 2010 On October 5th and 6th, AME in the North East Region hosted a 2-day event, focused on sharing two different Pull systems – allowing the attendees from as far away as Ohio to see first-hand what is possible with Lean thinking.

Mercury Wire, October 5, 2010

Since 1967, Mercury Wire Products, Inc. has been designing and manufacturing custom cable and assemblies. On Day One of our two day event, Mercury Wire spent time putting their Pull System tool in context of their overall 10 year Lean journey.

Visual management highlighted how each product gets pulled from the customer, to the end of the line, back through the manufacturing process to the raw material supermarket and ultimately, back to the suppliers. Customer lead times have been reduced from 2 months to 4 hours – and this was accomplished by moving “slower.” In fact, most Mercury Wire employees can explain why “slower is faster;” that their much larger and faster machines, that would fabricate and “push” much more wire downstream are now gathering dust. Today, their Number One Value Stream line runs at 1/10 the original line speed, producing only what the customer needs and doing it in a much smaller footprint.

The day culminated with a review of Mercury Wire’s pull system developed to process the many project ideas emerging from their continuous improvement-minded workforce. Projects that get selected for implementation go through four steps – Sandbox, Get Ready, Active and Follow-Up. New projects don’t get pushed onto the workforce, they are instead pulled once another project completes the Active stage.

OFS Fitel, LLC

Day Two was spent at OFS Fitel in Sturbridge, MA. OFS manufactures leading-edge optical fiber, optical cable, fiber to the home, connectivity and optical components. The attendees learned about a Pull System in a high volume situation – starting with a review of the value stream map before the pull system vs. it’s current state. This was followed by a tour of the various pull systems in the plant – starting with a traditional Kanban card system where the inventory is relieved to a customer order. The cards signal more fiber to be tested to replace inventory – allowing for lower levels of finished goods and high on-time delivery performance. The signal then trickles back to the next operation to replace the fiber. A golf ball and PVC pipe is used as the signal. When a ball comes down the pipe, more fiber is produced. The day finished with a simulation of a Push Factory vs. a Pull Factory building Lego parts, demonstrating the benefits of implementing a pull type system. The attendees left with a new sense of understanding of pull systems and a renewed interest in implementing them in their own organization.


Recent Networking Events – Roundtable at Brookfield Engineering



Brookfield Engineering

February 15, 2011

On Tuesday, February 15th, Brookfield Engineering in Middleboro, MA. hosted a Massachusetts Networking Roundtable for the North East region of AME. The subject of the roundtable was a “discussion about hurdles and effective solutions in dealing with fluctuating order quantities” .

Twenty participants from a variety of organizations attended – offering and sharing solutions with one another in trying to identify methods for resolving some of their day to day challenges.

The original direction of the discussion was centered around what the participants could do internally to manage their own production schedules and procedures. However, the discussion quickly moved towards what the participants could do in working with their suppliers and customers - to ensure they could get materials and/or services when needed to accommodate these “chunky” or unforeseen orders.

The discussion also centered around the opportunity to bring services back in that have been outsourced. In examining the entire supply chain – looking at your bottlenecks and determining whether bringing back in-house some of the services you’ve outsourced to suppliers may help reduce some of the delays that surround these unusually large orders. This option is especially becoming more relevant as equipment costs that were previously prohibitive are becoming more affordable.

Another attendee suggested that it may be time to relook at Value Stream Mapping as a solution to your customer order issues. Most likely your world has changed since you last produced your VSM’s – and it may be beneficial to look at these again and perhaps even include some of your major customers and/or suppliers to look at joint solutions to some of your most significant issues. This solution also may allow you to see who else within your organization can assist with some of your major bottlenecks - i.e. – can operators order their own parts? Can Value Stream Managers take a more proactive role in speaking directly with customers and suppliers to resolve some of your execution issues?

One member brought up an option that he had learned about at last year’s annual conference in Baltimore – that being “Self Balancing Through Continuous Flow.” This process allows for continuous flow – with operators “stealing” parts from one another as needed, allowing the operation to run continuously. This was a topic that was worthy of further discussion – perhaps at a future networking session.

The group then discussed topics for upcoming networking sessions – coming up with at least 15 ideas to be pursued further.

The meeting ended with a very informative tour of Brookfield Engineering’s operations – highlighting many of the Lean improvements they have implemented to date – and giving the attendees some good ideas to take back and try in their own organizations.

Scott Gauvin, AME NE Region President Scott Gauvin is an experienced change agent with over 17 years of demonstrated business management success. A native Bostonian, Scott’s expertise is developing continuous improvement strategies to enhance operations, sales and financial performance for wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, consumer goods and industrial manufacturing.

Under his guidance, Macresco Edge, his management consulting practice of 10 years, has enabled clients in the U.S., China, Mexico, Central America, Europe and the Middle East to improve productivity, increase quality and reduce cycle times, inventory and waste, culminating in greater market share and profitability.

A Six Sigma Black Belt, Scott also has significant experience creating lean leadership and process improvement training curriculum and has lead multinational training efforts, enabling his clients to navigate the cultural change necessary to sustain their success and incorporate Lean Six Sigma practices into future endeavors.

Scott comes from a Technology orientation and prior to launching his consultancy, he specialized in technology systems integration from developing database architecture to full MRP implementations for companies such as Courier Corporation, Titelist and Harris Communications.

Scott holds a BA from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Boston University. He is a member of the China Business Roundtable and is currently serving as the President of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) North East Region.

John Uliano, Board Member John Uliano is a leader and educator in the processes of continuous improvement. His experience includes over 16 years in Operations, Sales and Marketing. John is currently employed by HID Global as the Director of Operations for the America’s, which includes responsibility for HID Global’s continuous improvement initiatives.

John began his career with 12 years of employment at The Wiremold Company. There he held key leadership roles in sales, operations, warehousing, continuous improvement, training, facilitation, project management and marketing. John also continued to expand his knowledge base with The Danaher Company, working as an Operations Manager.

John’s current role at HID Global includes the direct operational responsibility for five facilities in North and South America as well as global support for the company’s continuous improvement initiatives. He leverages the use of strategic deployment and continuous improvement to enable rapid transformation and improve flexibility to better service HID Global’s customers.

John is also a Board Member of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, North East Region and is proud to have played a key role in the attainment of five Shingo Prizes and Medallions over the span of his career.

John holds a BS in Business Management from Central Connecticut State University with a concentration in Production.


President, AME NE Region


John Uliano

Scott Gauvin

If you would like to be featured in our members section, please contact [email protected]

Board Member

Meet Our Members

Benefits of Corporate Membership •  Discounted membership – At Level 1, register five individual member �� the cost of four. •  Individual memberships are transferable – send anyone in the �� organization to an event at member price. • All members receive discounted rates for regional event • The individuals registered receive the award winning Target magazine �� four (4) times per year. •  In the Northeast, Networking events are free for members.

AME Mission

To inspire commitment to

enterprise excellence through

shared learning and access to best practices.

AME Vision

Bringing people together to share,

learn and grow.

Volunteerism Continuous Improvement

Integrity and Trust Engaging and

Welcoming Practitioner Focused

AME Membership - 5,000 Professionals are Ready to Help You Excel. The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) is the leading industry-diverse community of more than 5,000 professionals dedicated to enterprise excellence. Join today to explore the latest continuous improvement methods and best practices that will help you move your career, your company and your industry forward.

AME Member Benefits

•  Network with like-minded peers •  Attend industry-leading conferences •  Garner company-to-company rights •  Participate in engaging workshops and facility tours •  Experience practitioner-to-practitioner learning •  Receive special member discounts to all events •  Obtain a free subscription to award winning Target magazine •  Improve your skills and advance your career

Become a Corporate Member



WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBERS!!! -Westinghouse Electric - Nypro, Inc. -Fuss & O’Neill Mfg. Solutions, LLC - Krizer Quarter Horse -Lytron, Inc. - CPS Technologies -Dynisco - Avery Dennison -University of Connecticut - Lonza Rockland, Inc. -Butler Automatic, Inc. - Crane Currency -LB Foster Company - Technical Graphics

Core Values

excellence in the northeast · 2014-08-22 · knowledge, your practical skills in implementing...

Documents