Prior to the American Manufacturing Summit 2019, we spoke with Competitive Solutions to discuss their Process Based Leadership model. This Q&A e-book explores the challenges manufacturers face when implementing transformation, what steps manufacturers need to take in order to implement transformation, and the benefits of leveraging Competitive Solutions’ Process Based Leadership model. This is an excerpt from the interview we did with Competitive Solutions: “What challenges do companies face in implementing transformation? The number one challenge companies face in implementing change is transformation is not starting with the leadership team. CSI prefers to work first with the leadership of an organization to ensure they have the skills necessary to “lead by example” and mentor the general population of employees. Our deployment approach is a “Level Based” and pragmatic process. Launching with the Site Leadership Team and building both ownership and capability within the team, validating team progress and proficiency, and then migrating the deployment to the next level within the organization has been the hallmark of CSI’s success. Keeping the implementation simple, succinct, and sustainable have proven to be the keys to CSI’s organizational transformation success.” Click through to access the full e-book here.
Read More →LEADERS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY: INTERVIEW WITH CHERYL THOMPSON
Cheryl Thompson is the Director of Prototype at American Axle & Manufacturing and Founder of CADIA (The Center for Automotive Diversity, Inclusion & Advancement), an organization dedicated to doubling the number of women leaders in the automotive industry by 2030. Cheryl has 30 years of experience at Ford Motor Co. and has held positions in skilled trades, operations, engineering, and leadership. She is a Six Sigma trained and certified Black Belt and is the winner of two Diversity and Inclusion Awards from Ford Motor Company. In November, Cheryl will join us at the American Automotive Summit to speak about the components and decision-making tips that are critical to any team’s success as well as the mistakes that leaders should avoid.
Read More →Leadership Strategies for Enabling Supplier Quality Management
When it comes to quality management, life sciences organizations all face a similar set of challenges derived from both the significant industry competition necessitating improved quality performance and reduced costs, and from ever-tightening regulatory compliance measures. Quality leaders in life sciences need to contend with these pressures while also meeting goals around innovation, and improving efficiency across the product development lifecycle in an industry that is relying more and more on a growing global network of suppliers, contract manufacturers, and other partnerships. The growing network of suppliers in life sciences means that visibility into supplier quality and across the value chain are more important than ever before, as an adverse event could quickly lead to recalls, fines, and irreparable brand damage.
Read More →5 Rules of Engagement for Breakout Performance
Whether you work at a small tech startup or a large, established manufacturer, there is an implicit understanding that business success can be easily quantified. Whether you are a CEO or a sales representative, the common wisdom is that there are identifiable numbers that can objectively determine if you are a success or a failure. In a world full of endless layers of nuance and opinion, tangible metrics of business performance are irresistibly attractive. However, there are serious limitations to taking such a binary approach to measuring success. This black and white approach to measuring business success is actually counterproductive, particularly if the goal is to achieve transformative performance improvement.
Read More →Shaping Tomorrow’s History – Today: In Conversation with Jonna Gerken
For more than six decades, SWE has given women engineers a unique place and voice within the engineering industry. It is an organization centered around a passion for members’ success and continues to evolve with the challenges and opportunities reflected in today’s exciting engineering and technology specialties. Jonna Gerken is the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) FY18 President. In this capacity, she leads a 40,000-member international organization which encourages more women to enter and stay in engineering fields. She is also the manager for the Program Chief Manufacturing Engineering (PCME) team at Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corporation (UTC). Her team ensures all engine components meet manufacturing readiness levels appropriated to their life – cycle stage. Jonna will be the Manufacturing Stream Chair at our upcoming 2018 American Aerospace & Defense Summit taking place December 12-13, 2018 in Glendale, AZ. We spoke with Jonna prior to the summit to learn more about her role at SWE and her thoughts on diversity in the workforce.
Read More →Leading the Pack: Jane Chase, Institute of Packaging Professionals
For many leaders, networking, coaching and mentoring have been powerful forces that have shaped their careers and transitions to leadership roles. The Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP) is an organization dedicated to creating these networking and educational opportunities that help packaging professionals succeed. Jane Chase’s support of IoPP spans more than 20 years, during which time she served both at the local level as President of the Minnesota Chapter and at the national level since 2002. She is a national Past President and currently serves as the Institute’s Executive Director. In addition to her work with IoPP, Jane’s professional career includes a breadth and depth of experience involving ever-expanding roles in Quality Assurance, Operations, Processing and Packaging within multiple large CPG organizations known for innovation including The Schwan Food Company, SC Johnson, General Mills, Conagra Brands, Ecolab, and US Foodservice. We spoke with Jane about how networking, coaching, and mentoring have shaped her own career, how she would define a great leader, and what is unique about being a leader in the packaging industry.
Read More →Leadership Spotlight: Karl Weiss, VP, Material Handling and Underground Division, Caterpillar Inc.
We are thrilled to have Karl Weiss, VP, Material Handling and Underground Division, at Caterpillar Inc., join us as the Opening Keynote speaker at the American Manufacturing Summit, which will be held in Lombard, IL from March 27-28. He will be the discussing “Manufacturing Strategy and Helping Customers Win Through Operational Excellence”. Since joining Caterpillar in 1992, Karl has had various assignments within product development at Caterpillar’s Decatur, Joliet, and Aurora facilities, primarily focused on large machine structural design. He has also taken on international assignments in Geneva, Switzerland and Beijing, China. Since 2013, Karl has been a Caterpillar Inc. Vice President, previously of the Earthmoving division and currently of the Material Handling and Underground division. We sat down with Karl in advance of the event to talk about his career, his own leadership style, and what he will be talking about at the American Manufacturing Summit. Questions Answered: How would you describe your leadership style? What are the most important minutes of the day to sustain and grow your organizational goals? What is the best piece of advice you’ve received in your career? What was the toughest challenge you’ve faced in your career and how did you overcome it? What is the smallest change you have made within your role that has made the biggest impact?
Read More →Managing an Inter-generational Workforce
At the American Manufacturing Summit, Dirk Hilgenberg, VP, Assembly at BMW, shared this chart showing changes in the composition of the civilian labor force from 2004 to 2024. As you can see, the population of workers age 25-34 will remain relatively stable, there will be a decline in those aged 45-54, but as some people live and work longer, there will actually be an increase of those aged 65 and older in the workforce. The result, Hilgenberg says, is that by 2024, we will have three generations of workers on the shop floor with completely different value sets, interests, and abilities. This represents a huge challenge for leadership, team dynamics, and incentives.
Read More →The TBM Management System
The TBM Management System is a disciplined, systematic approach that helps organizations achieve their strategic objectives through enterprise-wide alignment and cross-functional problem-solving. The system leverages monthly, weekly, daily, and hourly monitoring to increase employee engagement and provide real-time feedback and corrective actions. As markets grow more competitive and business pressures increase, executives are facing a significant new challenge: how to improve performance, sustain their progress and successfully realize their strategic goals, often with little or no additional resources to support their efforts. Find out more about how the TBM Management System has been implemented in several organizations to date, creating improved visibility of strategic objectives and empowering employees to think and act on their own in order to achieve them. Read more in the full white paper below:
Read More →WCOM (World Class Operations Management): Why You Need More Than Lean
This book deals with World Class Operations Management (WCOM), detailing its principles, methods and organization, and the results that this approach can bring about. Utilizing real-world case studies illustrated by companies that have adopted this model (interviews with Saint-Gobain, L’Oréal, Tetra Pak, Bemis, and Bel Executives), it describes common patterns drawn from decades of hands-on experience, so as to present a theoretical approach together with the concrete application of its principles. WCOM, adopted by several multinational companies, is one of the more innovative management practises, as it integrates the best Continuous Improvement approaches (Lean, Total Productive Management, World Class Manufacturing) as well as the most innovative approaches in human dynamics like Change Leadership, Performance Behavior, Shingo Model, to name a few. Every book’s chapter has been authored by an expert in these different fields, thus revealing the synergy among the different practices, which is one of the distinguishing and successful aspects of WCOM. Maximising reader insights into the successful implementation of such an approach, and explaining not only its potentialities, but also its implementation dynamics, the critical points and the ways it can be integrated into different situations, this book is also about how to create a culture of excellence that is sustainable over a long period of time and delivers consistent (or ever-improving) results. Check out the Efeso Consulting book below:
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