Iowa #Lean Consortium Fall Conference Features Keynote by Award-Winning Author and CEO on the “Silent Enemy” of Lean Continuous Improvement
Cambridge, MA (PRWEB) September 17, 2018 -- As he listened on the factory floor to a continuous improvement team reporting on a completed project, Lantech CEO Jim Lancaster suddenly had a sinking feeling.
“I’ve heard this before,” he thought. “In fact, I heard a team report about fixing the same problem with the same solution four years ago.” As Lancaster walked upstairs to his office, he wondered why the operational and financial gains from improvement projects disintegrated over time.
In a keynote at the Iowa Lean Consortium conference, Lancaster, author of the "Work of Management," will describe how Lantech, a successful early adopter of lean management, struggled over time to sustain lean management’s operational and financial benefits.
The annual fall conference, sponsored by the nonprofit Iowa Lean Consortium, expects to draw more than 400 executives, managers, and continuous improvement professionals from healthcare, services, government, education, manufacturing, finance, and other businesses to the Sheraton West Des Moines, October 23-25, 2018.
The conference features two keynotes, preconference workshops, tours of companies practicing continuous improvement, and breakout sessions organized in three tracks: learning, practicing, and advancing. Registration is open now at: http://www.iowalean.org/learning-opportunties/fall-conference-2018
In his keynote, Lancaster will reveal:
- Why fluctuations in hundreds of variables lead inevitably to the “silent enemy” of continuous improvement – process deterioration.
- How the Lantech team beat the “silent enemy” with a new system of daily management, based on overlapping daily and weekly cycles of standardized work activities that managers and executives at every level use to resolve frontline operational problems immediately.
- Why 60 to 90 minutes of daily, standardized management activities at the frontlines are a CEO’s most important minutes of the day and are the real work of management because they grow the business.
- How daily management and sustainable continuous improvement produce – and sustain -- dramatic positive results on the bottom line.
The complete story of how Lantech quadrupled profitability by making improvements stick is detailed in the Work of Management, published by the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc. The book was recognized with the prestigious 2017 Publication Award from the Shingo Institute, part of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University. W
About the Iowa Lean Consortium
The Iowa Lean Consortium is a dynamic, member-driven non-profit dedicated to advancing lean in all sectors of our economy. Driven by members’ needs, the ILC can provide the philosophy, tools, and techniques to meet today's business challenges through members serving members, including but not limited to the following sectors: manufacturing, service/transaction, businesses, education, healthcare, and government.
About Lantech
Lantech is known as the leader in stretch wrap technology and innovation, as well as case handling equipment. It has sales and manufacturing headquarters in Louisville, sales and manufacturing facilities in The Netherlands, and sales and service operations in Australia and China. Annual gross sales exceed $130 million.
Chet Marchwinski, Lean Enterprise Institute, http://www.lean.org, +1 (617) 871-2930, [email protected]
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