Partners in Business

3520 Old Main Hill
Logan, UT 84322-3520

Phone: 435.797.2279
Fax: 435.797.3440
Email: partners@usu.edu

Operational Excellence Speakers: 2008-2009

Keynote Speakers:

Robert D. Miller

Executive Director, The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence

The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence

Bob has a strong and diverse background with experiences in many different industries and professional roles. His engineering and operational background has given him broad exposure to the issues faced by leaders at all levels in their pursuit of Operational Excellence. Bob’s primary role has been that of an agent for organizational change; beginning with the application of computer technologies for Engineering, production and back office applications and currently with the advancement of principles, systems and tools of Lean. He has worked in both line and staff executive leadership roles in some of America’s leading companies and been an advisor to many other organizations of all sizes all over the world as one of the principals in a global advisory services company . Bob is currently the Executive Director of The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business in Utah State University.

William W. Bundy

President & CEO, Trendway Corporation

Lean and Build-to-Order with Speed and Reliability

While office furniture is the most tangible evidence of what Trendway does, exceptional service is the essence and the heart of our brand. This discussion will describe how lean principles are applied to achieve 99.95% on-time shipments with 75% of orders shipping in 2 weeks or less. People involvement, variable takt times based on demand, a cross trained flexible work force, and a few core leadership principles will be woven together to describe how it is done.

 

J. Brian Atwater, PhD

Associate Professor of Operations Management, Utah State University

The Power of Possibility:  Cultivating Employee Driven Improvement

J. Brian Atwater is an Associate Professor of Operations Management at Utah State University. He earned his Ph.D. in operations management at the University of Georgia in 1991. He currently teaches courses in operations management, continuous improvement techniques, and systems thinking. Dr. Atwater holds several professional certifications in the field. He is certified in production and inventory management (CPIM) by the American Production & Inventory Control Society (APICS). He is also a certified academic associate (JONAH) of the Goldratt Institute. He has also received lead auditor training in ISO 9000 from The Victoria Group and has worked as an ISO auditor. He has also worked as an examiner for the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing.

  

Tim Costello

Chairman of the Board, President & CEO, Builder Homesite, Inc.; New Home Technologies, LLC

Making Information Flow

Tim Costello is currently Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Builder Homesite, Inc., and New Home Technologies, LLC. Prior to BHI, Mr. Costello worked for Applied Materials as Vice President, Global Operations. Prior to this position, Mr. Costello served as the Vice President of Strategic & Technical programs for the World Wide Manufacturing Organization, Vice President of Production Engineering, Managing Director for the Common Module Manufacturing & Engineering (CMM&E) organization, and the Director of Engineering for the mainframe group in Austin, Texas. Prior to 1993 he held a variety of executive and management positions at General Motors Corporation covering a broad range from Strategic Planning to Engineering and Quality Management. In addition Mr. Costello has consulted internationally on the development & implementation of world-class manufacturing, engineering and quality systems. 

 

 

Breakout Speakers:

C. Martin Hinckley

President, Assured Quality, Inc.

QMax - The Best Tool and Methodology for Mistake-Proofing

Dr. Hinckley is President of Assured Quality, Inc and an internationally recognized leader and educator in mistake-proofing and quality control. A leader on the steering committee of the Chinese Society of Quality Control referred to this work as “one of the few breakthrough concepts integrating several important ideas.” A former Professor at MIT and CEO described this work as, “The best I had seen in a decade in the manufacturing area.” In 2006, Martin received the Westgard Quality Award at the Antwerp Meeting for his contributions to Clinical Chemistry.

  

Mark Graban

Senior Consultant, ValuMetrix Services, A Johnson & Johnson Organization

Lean Methods, Lean Culture, and Error Prevention

Mark Graban is a Senior Consultant with ValuMetrix Services, a Johnson & Johnson organization. Mark earned a bachelors degree in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and was a fellow in the Leaders for Manufacturing program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning dual masters degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration. He has led process improvement efforts in various industries, moving exclusively into healthcare in 2005, where Mark has led teams of hospital employees in laboratory and radiology departments, among others. Mark is the author of a book entitled "Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Patient Satisfaction." (www.leanhospitalsbook.com)

 

James M. Sutton

Principal Engineer, Lockheed-Martin (LM) Aeronautics Company

Taking Back Control of Your Company:  Ending Software's Reign Over the Enterprise

James M. Sutton has taken a business approach throughout his entire career in software- and systems-engineering. This has led to very different approaches than are typical in those fields. His book on Lean software, “Lean Software Strategies,” won the 2007 Shingo Prize. Sutton holds a Black Belt in Modern QFD, is a certified Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) practitioner, and has spoken and published for numerous conferences. He is a Principal Engineer at Lockheed-Martin (LM) Aeronautics Company, and holds the international CSEP (Certified Professional Systems Engineer) certification with the INCOSE organization.

 

 

Workshop Speakers:

Scott Saxton

Lean & Continuous Improvement Manager, Autoliv

Standardized Work:  Lasting Improvements Cannot be Made Without it

Scott Saxton has worked for Autoliv for the past 19 years. During this time he has worked in three of the Utah facilities as Operations manager, Production Control and Logistics manager and most recently as the Lean and Continuous Improvement manager. As a dual responsibility he has the unique opportunity to teach and development companies in Lean outside Autoliv in a new consulting division. Scott worked closely with Harada-san from Toyota who mentored Autoliv management in the Toyota Production System. He was fortunate to be involved from the beginning in the Continuous Improvement transformation within Autoliv. Scott holds a Business administration degree and lives in North Ogden with his lovely wife and 4 children. 

 

Dustin Ott

Manufacturing Excellence Manager, Boart Longyear Company; Former Manufacturing Manager, O.C. Tanner Company

Getting to Continuous Flow in a Make-to-Order Environment

Dustin will share six reasons why the methods used by low-variety discrete part manufacturers are unsuitable for the job shop and make-to-order operations. He will provide simulated examples of how high-variety operations can apply the principles of lean and achieve, or even exceed, the traditional gains associated with a lean conversion.

  

Brad Parker

President, Oregon Division, La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries

Lean Retail:  Applying Standardized Work to Sales through TWI

Brad Parker is the President of La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries in Oregon. Brad founded the company in 1994 and was the fastest growing market in La-Z-Boy history. Opening 5 stores in 5 years, with a 6th store added in 2003, Brad has been recognized in the furniture industry as a pioneer in sales, marketing, advertising and operations. As one of the founders of the Furniture Galleries Excellence (FGE) Board, Brad has led both the Operations & Technical Steering Committee and Advertising Committee for La-Z-Boy and has continued to lead the industry with sales and operational innovations. In 2008, Brad was the recipient of the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence for his work creating a sales boot camp based on the Training Within Industry (TWI) methodology.

 

Rex L. Morgan

Engineering Director, O.C. Tanner Company

Strategy Deployment - Getting Everyone on the Same Page to Achieve Results

Rex Morgan is the Director of Engineering of the O.C. Tanner Company of Salt Lake City, Utah. O.C. Tanner is the leading Awards Recognition Company in the world. The O.C. Tanner Company won the Shingo Prize in 1999 and has been driving lean manufacturing ever since. Rex facilitates multi-lateral discussions as part of a semiannual policy deployment process for one of the supply chain groups at O. C. Tanner. Included in this process is catch ball, where team leaders have a voice in the prioritization process and the means by how objectives are accomplished. 

 

Drew Locher

Managing Director, Change Management Associates

The Complete Lean Enterprise-Value Stream Mapping for Administrative and Office Processes

A Lean Enterprise relentlessly drives out "non-value-added" waste by improving the flow of materials and information. It is imperative that companies apply lean thinking to all processes - non-production as well as production. By redesigning key business processes, tremendous benefits to the organization can be realized. This workshop reviews the eight basic wastes in the context of non-production processes. Lean Thinking is applied to information intensive processes by making use of Value Stream Mapping - the assessment and planning tool of lean practitioners. Participants will learn to use this tool to define the current state of an existing business process, re-design the process based on lean concepts, and develop an Implementation Plan for the future state model.

 

Rosemary Fullerton

Associate Professor, Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University

Making Cost Management Systems Relevant in Lean Enterprises

Rosemary Fullerton, an associate professor in the School of Accountancy Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University (USU), has taught and researched extensively in the area of Lean thinking. She has presented her research and workshops related to Lean accounting at conferences throughout the U.S. and in Europe. She is also affiliated with the USU sponsored Shingo Prize, serving as a reviewer, site examiner, and team leader. She has received two Shingo Research Awards: one for her 2007 book, Accounting for World Class Operations, co-authored with Jerry Solomon, and one for her published article related to performance measures in JIT environments. Professor Fullerton is a licensed CPA in the state of Utah, and earned a PhD from the University of Utah, a MAcc and BS from USU, and a BA from Brigham Young University.

 

Cindy Jimmerson

President, Lean Healthcare West

A3 Problem Solving:  Practicing Lean in Daily Work

Ms. Jimmerson is a pioneer of lean healthcare, having initiated her work with a grant from the National Science Foundation, 2001-2004. She is the founder and president of Lean Healthcare West, an organization of healthcare professionals offering education and implementation of TPS/lean principles in hospital, clinic and long term care facilities. She is the author of the Lean Healthcare West© reVIEW Course and Workbook, A3 Problem Solving for Healthcare, and many journal publications. Although she travels internationally for work, she refuses to budge her office from the beautiful Blackfoot River in Missoula, Montana.