Like many industries, semiconductor manufacturing requires an unwavering commitment to process reliability and yield. This session will explore how Intel uses digital twins to model scheduling, visualize factory layout and flow, simulate manufacturing operations and tailor complex processes that meet both critical production requirements and customer expectations. MES, SPC and even sensor data are used in simulations and fed back into real-time systems to optimize the manufacturing process. With Intel building a new fab plant near Columbus, the session will give conference attendees a chance to hear about how one of Ohio’s future manufacturers makes its core products—and learn from its experiences.

The lessons of the past few years have proven to manufacturers that the more agile their operations are, the better their company does.  Innovative manufacturers are driving faster action across factory operations by digitizing workflows. Digitally connecting the factory floor lowers costs, improves productivity, and delivers continuous improvement.  Extending digital transformation beyond the factory floor strengthens collaboration with suppliers to rapidly respond to business changes. This session will share (real-world) practical advice and lessons learned in digitalizing the entire enterprise.  

•    Understand how your peers resolving some of the dauting supply chain and manufacturing shop floor challenges
•    Learn some of the best leading practices in the industry to improve employee and supplier experiences while optimizing your manufacturing overall costs and margins
•    Take away some actionable tips and insights to get started with your journey and the value that can be realized

Attend this session to learn how Vitamix reduces waste in its work environment by capturing and implementing small improvement ideas from the workforce. This is one of the manufacturer's "go to" methodologies for creating a mindset of continuous improvement and fostering employee engagement. Vitamix's Tim Stasko will share the process, challenges encountered and lessons learned, and he'll take your questions. Don't miss an opportunity to gain insights from what Vitamix considers one of its best continuous improvement methods for engaging the hearts and minds of its workforce.

For years the emphasis on communication was from the 'front office' to the 'shop floor'. Many companies had training programs which helped the white-collar workers develop and improve their communication skills, however these same skills were not seen as being necessary or even useful to the blue-collar work force. Much of the communication, therefore ended up being too technical, or not technical enough for the people who were in a position to actually act on the information. In today’s agile and reactive environment, the information flow must be bi-directional, in many companies this 'reverse flow' of information has become increasingly critical to the success of any company. However, communication training has often not kept up with the needs. It requires more than just speaking (or listening) but an interactive exchange of useful and timely information, everyone needs to be aware of the need to actively communicate. There needs to be an understanding of a 'shared vocabulary, even when people use the same words, this does not always mean they are saying the same thing. This does NOT mean dumbing things down, but rather understanding the wording that will mean the same thing to all parties in the exchange. Technology may be a component, but often it becomes an inhibitor of real information exchanges. How many times has the response "I put it in the shared drive, or SharePoint or website", been used as an explanation of how communication was missed?

Improving Business Acumen to Drive Organizational Success

As organizations become more agile, and the fulfillment of the firm’s strategy becomes more urgent, executives need emerging leaders to understand how the gears of the business work and how the company creates and executes its strategy. Cultivating business acumen, regardless of title or role, is the definitive key to the future. 

But what exactly is business acumen?  Ask 20 people for a definition, and you’ll likely get 20 different answers.  Simply stated, business acumen is a portfolio of skills, behaviors and capabilities needed to support an organization in the achievement of its financial and strategic goals. 

This webinar will create a common understanding of the main pillars of business acumen using a dynamic tool: The Business Acumen Canvas. You’ll be shown how to interpret business acumen so that you can fine-tune your senses to the market where your company operates, the mindset to think strategically and the hard-core skills that comprise people, processes, products, finance, strategy and performance.  

You’ll be led on a journey toward business acumen excellence that will ignite new ways to think about talent and leadership development and to open the door to the third decade of the 21st century.

Learning Objectives:
1.    Provide a context for business acumen: Vocabulary and intent
2.    Describe the building blocks of business acumen using the Business Acumen Canvas
3.    Underscore the need for strategic thinking, entrepreneurial managers and leaders, and how to fine tune your company’s organizational development strategy

In addition, participants will be able to obtain a link to a complementary online assessment that can be adopted by participating companies so they can have employees assess their own levels of business acumen, which can be used with their managers to include explicit business acumen skill building in their performance plans. 

Additionally, all registrants will receive a complimentary copy of The Business Acumen Handbook by Steven Haines. 
 

One-third of manufacturing capacity is lost each year to solvable inefficiencies, costing the industry $650 billion annually. While manufacturers strive to improve their overall equipment effectiveness, many don’t trust their plant data—with key data points being lost in spreadsheets and whiteboards. Manufacturers can continuously improve their processes and make their front line’s day-to-day job easier by using a combination of lean techniques and digital technologies. Automation and digital reporting let manufacturers track how people and machines spend their time—providing one source of truth for data and real-time visibility to the shop floor from anywhere. But data in a vacuum doesn’t solve anything. Manufacturer Lester Buildings is accelerating continuous improvement efforts to improve performance and stay competitive by adding meaning to data, to pinpoint the exact cause of production inefficiencies. Raven and Lester Buildings will walk through how plants can leverage technology to boost continuous improvement; the importance of an empowered front line; lean practices for increasing efficiency and improving operations across teams. They will also share a real-life success story on embracing OEE technology to account for 100% of production time and losses.

Today’s highly volatile environment of the factory floor demands quick and well-informed decision-making. That hinges on information being exceedingly clear and presented in a way that does not leave too much room for interpretation. Nor should it require processing time in the mind of the person “reading” it. With that in mind, the aim of visual management is to communicate at the pace of manufacturing. While there is a variety of well-established tools and methods, the most important thing is to develop the skill to develop one’s own tools and methods. That is, to be able to communicate about your shop to your shop about all of the unique challenges and parameters that define it. The goal is to change the way we think about the visual fields that our people encounter in the process of their work. In this session, learn how Hiab Streetsboro uses visual management to spur quick and well-informed decision-making on its factory floor, and engage in robust discussion about how to build your own visual management system.

Just like a catcher telling the pitcher to throw a curveball, getting business-critical information and data to the right people at the right time is key for boosting productivity and engagement. Yet, finding effective and reliable hardware and software solutions for displaying such content at scale can be challenging. 

Follow Fresh Mark – the local, family-owned company behind quality meats provider Sugardale – to discover how they leverage digital signage to efficiently manage the flow of information across their production facilities and corporate offices. (Are you a baseball fan? If you attended a Cleveland Guardians game over the summer, you likely enjoyed a Sugardale hot dog at their Dollar Dog Nights).

This session will focus on a strategic, democratic approach to leadership called the Circle of Influence, which has proved effective for Saso Krstovski’s lean leadership at Ford Motor Co. The Circle of Influence consists of five components: acknowledge, listen, agree, rethink and effectively close. It emphasizes compassion, accessibility and inclusion. We’ll examine each of these charismatic leadership traits in depth and show how they work together to transform teams—and entire organizations. Attend this session and learn how the Circle of Influence can help improve your organization.

Manufacturers face unprecedented talent management challenges — the ongoing battle for skilled workers, record turnover, the pending silver tsunami of Baby Boomer retirements and negative perceptions of the industry among the Gen Z workforce.

Frontline hourly team members are the primary creators of value in operations, so manufacturers must act now to reimagine the workplace for the largest segment of their workforce. The first step is to understand the unique factors that attract, motivate, engage and retain the critical hourly employees in manufacturing.

Join us as we explore how manufacturing leaders can create a winning talent management strategy to become an employer of choice in this competitive landscape.

We’ll discuss:
• Insights into the unique needs, motivations and preferences of the hourly workforce
• Actionable practices and policies you can implement to address these unique needs
• The role of technology in creating a better experience for frontline employees