HURRY UP! Lean reliability conference is Oct. 6-8

Learn how world-class companies increase the reliability, performance and productivity of their plant-floor assets.

 

Reliable Plant magazine’s “Lean Manufacturing 2008: Lean Tools for Maintenance & Reliability” conference is October 6-8 at the Marriott Chicago Hotel in Schaumburg, Ill. (just a few miles from O’Hare International Airport). The event features three full days of keynote addresses, case studies, presentations and industry reports.

 

(Seats are going fast for this event. Register today!)

 

More than 200 industrial professionals from across the country are projected to attend this conference, which will feature leaders from best-in-class companies explaining how they utilize lean tools and techniques to increase the reliability and performance of their plant and mission-critical machinery and improve the performance of their plant maintenance organization. Lean helps these companies remain competitive in a global marketplace where speed, cost and efficiency is king.

 

Speakers for the 2008 conference are:

• Dr. Klaus M. Blache, Ph.D., CPE
  cost reduction manager
  General Motors Corporation
  (“Implementing lean tools for long-term success – Are you ready?) – KEYNOTE

• Wayne Vaughn PE, CMRP
  former director of maintenance (recently retired), Harley-Davidson Motor Company
  principal consultant, Vesta Partners
  (“Establishing a maintenance & reliability process for lean success”) – KEYNOTE

• Samuel Bethea
  director of North American reliability
  Campbell Soup Company
  (“Lean reliability at Campbell’s Soup: It’s ‘M’m! M’m! Good!’”) – KEYNOTE

• Dana Fluet
  lead maintenance and reliability engineer
  and members of the plant M&R team
  Harley-Davidson
  (“Harley-Davidson and reliability: An interactive discussion”) – KEYNOTE PANEL DISCUSSION

• Drew Troyer, CRE, CMRP
  chief executive officer
  Noria Corporation
  (“You simply can’t be lean without reliability”) – KEYNOTE

• Mike Fisher
  manager of EHS engineering
  Pat Bartholomew
  director of EHS management systems
  Baxter Healthcare
  (“Lean, clean and green: Baxter Healthcare at work”) – KEYNOTE

• Richard T. (Rick) Fox
  operations and maintenance manager
  and members of the plant M&R team
  Alcoa Power Generating Inc.
  (“Lean reliability pays off big for Alcoa power plant”)

• Bob Hafey
  director of manufacturing
  Flexible Steel Lacing Company
  (“Employing kaizen to increase worker safety on the plant floor”)

• David Hicks, PE
  outreach faculty member
  Auburn University
  (“Leading the lean reliability initiative”)

• Todd Bennett
  president
  United Southern Industries
  Sam McPherson
  lean enterprise and public sector consultant
  Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence
  (“Zone control: Laying the foundation for lean success”)

• Mike Bresko
  managing director and principal consultant
  General Physics
  (“Lean streamlines maintenance planning”)

• Dr. Jay Lee
  director
  University of Cincinnati/National Science Foundation Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems
  (“Tools to achieve zero-breakdown lean maintenance systems”)

• Mark Steward
  Operational Excellence team leader
  Eaton Corporation
  (“Eaton Lean System increases productivity, uptime”)

• Frank Bailey
  plant manager
  LAI International
  (“Revamping the plant through lean, Six Sigma”)

• Dean Jones
  training supervisor
  Grede Foundries
  David Townsend
  manufacturing specialist
  Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership
  (“Casting a mold for lean success”)

• Rick Reed
  director of Continuous Improvement
  WIKA Instrument Corporation
  (“How WIKA uses CI to raise the bar for maintenance and reliability”)

• Drew Troyer, CRE, CMRP
  chief executive officer
  Noria Corporation
  (“Reliability tools in the lean journey – A practicum”)

• Kevin A. Hartler
  director
  Grainger Consulting Services
  W.W. Grainger
  (“Improve your productivity and reduce your total cost”)

• Plus, additional presentations by Dow Corning and Brady Worldwide

 

(Also below, see a list of past speakers at our lean conferences.)

 

People registering for this conference have titles such as:

• maintenance manager
• plant engineering manager
• reliability manager
• production/operations manager
• manufacturing manager
• lean manufacturing manager
• Continuous Improvement manager
• Six Sigma black belt
• plant manager
• vice president of operations
• vice president of manufacturing
• maintenance technician

Seats for this conference are going fast. So, register today!

 

 

Thank you for your time. I look forward to seeing you and your colleagues in Chicago.

 

About Noria

Noria Corporation is a world leader in information and educational resources for the industrial community. The company has offices in more than 30 countries and produces conferences, seminars, technical journals and trade publications. It also provides a range of consultation services on a global basis related to maintenance and reliability methods. For more information, visit www.noria.com.

 

About Reliable Plant magazine

The editorial in this bi-monthly magazine (circulation of more than 55,000) focuses on ways that readers can increase uptime and overall equipment effectiveness, reduce waste and inefficiency, increase organizational and planning skills, promote empowerment and cross-functional cooperation, and increase reliability’s role and importance in the plant and corporate structure. Its readers are maintenance & reliability managers, engineering managers, production/operations managers, maintenance & reliability technicians and plant managers. In its first three years of publication, it has won 16 awards from the business press industry.

 

About Paul V. Arnold

Paul V. Arnold is an executive with Noria and the editor-in-chief of Reliable Plant magazine. Over the past nine years, he has won 30 awards for editorial excellence from the business press industry.

 

 

ABOUT THE “LEAN MANUFACTURING 2008” CONFERENCE

 

Noria Corporation’s Reliable Plant magazine will present “Lean Manufacturing 2008: Lean Tools for Maintenance & Reliability,” a “best practices” case study conference on October 6-8 at the Marriott Chicago Hotel in Schaumburg, Ill. (just a few miles from O’Hare International Airport). This conference will bring manufacturing industry leaders from around the United States to Chicago to learn how best-in-class companies use lean manufacturing tools and techniques to increase overall plant productivity, maintenance efficiency and machinery reliability.

 

What is lean?

Lean is a philosophy of eliminating non-value-adding operations, activities, equipment and resources. Basically, anything that does not add value is waste. The lean mantra is “Produce the right products and provide the right services at the required time in the required quantities with consistency, predictability and reliability.” Tools in the lean (also known as the Toyota Production System) toolbox include, among others, kaizen, 5-S, visual workplace, Six Sigma, Total Productive Maintenance, Reliability-Centered Maintenance, Continuous Improvement, supplier partnerships, cellular manufacturing, value stream mapping, information enhancement, effective machinery lubrication and mistake-proofing techniques. Lean concepts are not new – they have been around for decades and popularized by icons such as Toyota and Honda – but their importance has greatly escalated as companies seek ways to become or remain competitive in a global marketplace where speed, cost and efficiency is king.

 

Why lean maintenance & reliability?

If an American manufacturing company is not implementing lean, the clock is ticking. If a company has implemented lean methods, is it making the most of these tools? Many U.S. manufacturers express a desire to become lean, but the end result is more dabbling than dazzling. Lean presents an enormous opportunity to eliminate non-value-adding activities associated with plant maintenance and operations departments and with the general practice of maintaining and ensuring the reliability of key production assets.

 

Who will attend “Lean Manufacturing 2008”?

-          Maintenance and reliability managers

-          Plant engineering managers

-          Production and operations managers

-          Plant managers

-          Lean manufacturing leaders and Six Sigma black belts/green belts

-          Vice presidents of manufacturing and operations

-          Maintenance and reliability technicians

-          Operators and other production workers

 

Some of the companies that have sent plant leaders and/or teams to our recent lean conferences:

·        Abbott Labs

·        Autoliv N.A.

·        BP

·        Boeing

·        Callaway Golf Ball

·        Cargill

·        ChevronTexaco

·        Chrysler

·        Conagra Foods

·        ConocoPhillips

·        Coors Brewing

·        Duke Energy

·        DuPont

·        Eastman Chemical

·        Ford Motor Company

·        Harley-Davidson

·        Hercules Inc.

·        Honda

·        Intel

·        International Paper

·        Kennametal

·        Kimberly-Clark

·        Kodak

·        Lockheed Martin

·        Lyondell Chemical

·        Merck & Company

·        Mercury Marine

·        Nucor Steel

·        Owens Corning

·        Parker Hannifin

·        Playtex Products

·        Pratt & Whitney

·        Raytheon

·        Sara Lee

·        Temple-Inland

·        Timken

·        Toyota

·        TXU Power

·        Unilever

·        U.S. Steel

·        Volvo

·        Whirlpool

·        Zippo Manufacturing

 

Industry leaders who have been speakers at our recent lean conferences:

·        Mark Emkes, chairman of the board and CEO, Bridgestone Americas Holding Inc. and Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire

·        Mike DaPrile, vice president, Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, and chief operating officer, Shoriki North America

·        George P. Stoe, executive vice president and chief operating officer, Worthington Industries

·        Keith Nosbusch, president and chief executive officer, Rockwell Automation

·        John Stollenwerk, president and CEO, Allen-Edmonds Shoe Corporation

·        Vincent T. Adorno, vice president of engineering and maintenance, Alcoa

·        Wayne Vaughn, director of maintenance, Harley-Davidson Motor Company

·        David Absher, facilities control, maintenance, operations and engineering manager, Toyota

·        Johnathan Ritter, skilled trades assistant manager, Toyota

·        Mark LaRue, plant services division manager, Honda

·        Kevin Caldwell executive vice president, Juran Institute

·        Ron Christensen, chief technology officer, Cargill

·        Tim Goshert, Worldwide Reliability and Maintenance Steering Committee chairman, Cargill

·        Rusty Patterson, vice president of Six Sigma and Supply Chain, Raytheon Company

·        Dr. Ross Robson, executive director, Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence

·        Mark Calkins, Seattle Site Services manager, The Boeing Company

·        Walter Tullis, lean implementation leader, Boeing Commercial Airplanes

·        Dr. Evelitsa Schweizerhof, global operations and Six Sigma manager, Ford Motor Company

·        Debbe Yeager, director of Six Sigma, Ford Motor Company

·        Tim Pettry, Ford Production System training coordinator, Ford Motor Company

·        Subramaniam Manivannan, quality coach/assessor, Ford Motor Company

·        Larry Fast, senior vice president of North American operations, General Cable Corporation

·        Dr. Richard Schonberger, president, Schonberger & Associates

·        Joe Tisone, vice president of global operations, Energizer

·        Steve Hockridge, global lean enterprise director, Energizer

·        Bryan Lund, lean coordinator, Global Lean Office, Energizer

·        Tom Odendaal, senior operations supervisor, Energizer

·        Cleveland Beaufort, plant engineering section manager, BMW Manufacturing

·        Danny Jones, Rapid Continuous Improvement manager, The HON Company

·        Kevin Proust, senior director of manufacturing solutions, Motorola

·        Paul Casto, reliability technology group leader, Eastman Chemical

·        Mike Cicholski, formerly Alcoa Business System director, Alcoa

·        Frank Stewart, general manager, Hillerich & Bradsby Company

·        Brian Hillerich, production manager, Hillerich & Bradsby Company

·        Bob Hillerich, maintenance and facilities manager, Hillerich & Bradsby Company

·        Ole B. Dam, vice president of operations, The Antioch Company

·        Mike Fognani, plant engineering project manager, Coors Brewing Company

·        Dan Roberts, Asset CARE director of reliability, Coors Brewing Company

·        Dr. Jay Lee, director, Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems, National Science Foundation and University of Cincinnati

·        Mark Birmingham, chief operations officer, Allen-Edmonds Shoe Corporation

·        Sue Gillman, lean enterprise director, Seagate Technology

·        Herb Turner, vice president of engineering, Nordson Corporation

·        John Winch, president and CEO, Minster Machine Company

·        Rick Hoffman, director of specialty engineering, Lyondell Chemical

·        Tanya Cook, manager of manufacturing and systems engineering and maintenance, Philip Morris USA

·        Wayne Ferguson, reliability engineer, Eli Lilly

·        Tom Hiatt, reliability engineer, Eli Lilly

·        Andrew Bissot, maintenance training program manager, U.S. Steel Corporation

·        Chuck Armbruster, corporate reliability engineering manager, J.M. Smucker Company

·        Mike Wroblewski, lean sensei/corporate lean manufacturing director, Batesville Casket Company

·        Todd K. Dennis, director of operations and plant manager, Batesville Casket Company

·        Mary Jo Cartwright, director and plant manager, Batesville Casket Company

·        Bill Kimbro, corporate lean enterprise director, Kennametal

·        Darrell Dumont, manufacturing engineering manager and lean coordinator, Thomas & Betts

·        Greg Walker, technical support manager, Autoliv North America

·        Aaron Blawn, facilities supervisor, Intel

·        Jim Serazio, enterprise process manager, Raytheon Missile Systems

·        Garrett Olszewski, value stream manager, Raytheon Missile Systems

·        Steve Lundvall, facility services infrastructure systems supervisor, Raytheon Missile Systems

·        Scott Haulotte, technical services and Continuous Improvement manager, Karl Schmidt Unisia

·        Jeff Slater, lean solutions leader, Owens Corning

·        Rick Baldridge, reliability functional leader, Cargill

·        Pat Gathman, plant manager, Cargill

·        Lynn D. Nelson, Six Sigma master black belt, Rio Tinto/Kennecott Utah Copper

·        Larry Cote, senior reliability specialist, Dofasco

·        Chuck Kooistra, senior vice president, General Physics Corporation

·        Mike Bresko, managing director and principal, General Physics Corporation

·        Larry Dunfee, Consumer-Centered Manufacturing manager, Whirlpool Corporation

·        Matthew Herman, assembly process engineer, Whirlpool Corporation

·        Steve Eberhardt, corporate Organizational Effectiveness leader, AstenJohnson

·        Curtiss Quirin, director of operations, The Stanley Works

·        Ahmad Ashour, Operational Excellence Leader, ABB

·        Alan Gross, director of operations, Webster Plastics/Parker Hannifin

·        David E. Brown, Reliability and Manufacturing Center of Excellence Leader, Hercules

·        David James, autonomous maintenance/progressive maintenance resource, Clorox Corporation

·        Pamela Young, TPM coordinator, Presto Products/Alcoa

·        David McDonald, vice president of operations/supply chain, Therma Tru

·        Chris Hykin, director of operator-driven reliability, International Paper

·        David Thompson, president, Kennedy Manufacturing

·        Beau Groover, lean implementation manager, Nordson Corporation

·        Michael Giuliano, operations manager, Nordson Corporation

·        Barb Molnar, lean project manager, Nordson Corporation

·        Joseph P. Ziskovsky, director of operational excellence, Johnson Screens, a Weatherford International company

·        Vincent Gatto, senior advisor for applications and product development, Albemarle Corporation

·        Michael Potts, vice president, Orion Energy Systems

·        Kishan Bagadia, president, PEAK Industrial

·        Mike Thelen, lean facilitator, Hub City Inc., a subsidiary of Regal-Beloit Corporation

·        James Price, faculty principal, University of Kentucky College of Engineering’s Center for Manufacturing

·        Dr. Pradeep Deshpande, professor emeritus of engineering, University of Louisville, and president, Six Sigma and Advanced Controls

·        Michel Baudin, owner, Manufacturing Management & Technology Institute

·        Joe Panebianco, senior management consultant, TBM Institute

·        Larry Rubrich, founder, World-Class Manufacturing Associates

·        Mike Verdin, principal, Aveus

·        Jose Wilkins, senior technical advisor, Allied Reliability Inc.

·        Frank Murphy, founder and president, Inventory Management Services Inc.

·        As well as other leaders from Goodyear, Oracle, Mosaic Company, SMI Steel, Quaker Oats, Oracle, ConocoPhillips, JEA, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Baker Instrument, EMD Chemicals, Herguth Laboratories, Valero Energy, etc.

 

Additional information on Reliable Plant

Reliable Plant has built a tradition of editorial and graphic excellence. Since its inception in mid-2005, we have been acknowledged as a quality leader by our national and international peers. Reliable Plant has earned 16 awards – nine in the American Society for Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) competition and seven in the Writing That Works Awards for Publication Excellence (APEX) competition. Our magazine and electronic publication honors are as follows:

 

2008

APEX, International Grand Award, Web and intranet sites

Paul V. Arnold

ASBPE, Silver Award, case history
"Alcoa Power: The Payoff"
Paul V. Arnold

ASBPE, Silver Award, regular column – staff written
"The Exponent"
Paul V. Arnold

APEX, Award of Excellence, overall magazine and journal writing
"Reliable Plant magazine"
Paul V. Arnold

APEX, Award of Excellence, feature writing
"Louisville Slugger: The Sweet Spot"
Paul V. Arnold

 

2007

ASBPE, National Azbee Silver Award, case history
"Inside the Toyota MR-50"
Paul V. Arnold

APEX, International Grand Award, Web and intranet sites

Paul V. Arnold

ASBPE, Gold Award, opening page/spread – photo
"Skills Training at U.S. Steel’s Fairfield Works"
Ryan Kiker

ASBPE, Silver Award, case history
"Skills Training at U.S. Steel’s Fairfield Works"
Paul V. Arnold

ASBPE, Bronze Award, case history
"Eli Lilly: The Remedy"
Paul V. Arnold

APEX, Award of Excellence, overall magazine and journal writing
"Reliable Plant magazine"
Paul V. Arnold

 

2006

ASBPE, Silver Award, case history category
"Big Plans for Coors"
Paul V. Arnold

ASBPE, Silver Award, regular column – staff written
"The Exponent"
Drew D. Troyer

ASBPE, Silver Award, regular department
"Lubrication Lessons"
Jim Fitch

APEX, Award of Excellence, feature writing
"Alcoa: All Fired Up"
Paul V. Arnold

APEX, Award of Excellence, new magazines and journals
"Reliable Plant magazine"
Paul V. Arnold

 

 

SYNOPSIS OF PRESENTATIONS FOR THE 2008 LEAN CONFERENCE IN CHICAGO

Implementing lean tools for long-term success – Are you ready?

Klaus M. Blache

Ph.D., CPE, manufacturing engineering director, General Motors Corporation

The presentation will begin with a brief overview of select events regarding the beginnings of lean, defining lean, its transformation over the years, and what it has evolved to – specifically what it means to maintenance and reliability today. This will set the stage for a sampling of lessons learned during lean implementation on waste reduction, continuous improvement, standardization, PDCA, flow, problem solving, OEE, ergonomics, maintenance and reliability. The keynote address will converge on topics focused on implementation for long-term success. Discussed will be lean culture readiness, thinking lean, using a total systems approach, assuring strategic alignment and sustaining the lean process.

 

General Motors has one of the most widespread lean manufacturing initiatives in place in the United States. GM grew interested in lean manufacturing in the early 1980s as it examined elements of the Toyota Production System that had been adopted by several Japanese auto manufacturers. In 1994, GM and Toyota formed a joint venture called the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) to pioneer implementation of lean methods at an automotive manufacturing plant in the U.S. By the early 1990s, the success of NUMMI, among other factors, made it increasingly clear to GM that lean offers potent productivity, product quality and profitability advantages. Today, as one of the planet’s most experienced lean companies, GM’s manufacturing performance has remained strong (even in the midst of an economic downturn), and continues to reach new levels of quality, productivity and asset reliability.

 

Establishing a maintenance & reliability process for lean success

Wayne Vaughn PE, CMRP

principal consultant, Vesta Partners (and former director of maintenance, Harley-Davidson Motor Company)

It is essential that you start early in establishing a successful maintenance and reliability program. This keynote session will explain how you can get your trades and engineers involved early, and hold people accountable throughout the procurement and commissioning process. It includes a detailed method for creating an asset care program that will deliver the reliability that is expected. This process, a foundational element of any lean program, can be applied to existing equipment and to new equipment. The session, led by the recently retired director of maintenance of Harley-Davidson Motor Company (a role model for any manufacturer looking to go lean), will lay out the entire process, identify key success factors and identify pitfalls that must be avoided. It will also note where there are differences between applying this process to existing equipment and to new equipment.

 

Lean reliability at Campbell’s Soup: It’s ‘M’m! M’m! Good!’

Samuel Bethea

director of North American reliability, Campbell Soup Company

Thanks to focused lean activities that have impacted reliability, uptime and productivity, Campbell Soup Company is well on its way to realizing its mission of “building the world’s most extraordinary food company.” Simply put, the company aspires to be extraordinary in everything it does. Achieving this lofty goal requires disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action in both the marketplace and the workplace. Over the past six years, this approach has lifted the company to the upper echelons of performance in the global food industry. In time, the firm believes it will become “truly extraordinary”. The company feels that is has the people, products, capabilities and plans in place to fully bring its mission to life. This keynote session will provide details of how Campbell’s, one of the most visible names in global manufacturing, pursues reliability every day. The company’s North American portfolio includes powerful retail and food service brands, including Campbell’s, Pace, Prego, Swanson, StockPot, V8 and Pepperidge Farm. Its North American business represents $5.2 billion in sales, with operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Latin America. On a global basis, the company has 40 manufacturing sites that serve customers in 120 countries.

 

Harley-Davidson and reliability: An interactive discussion

Dana Fluet

lead maintenance and reliability engineer, and members of the plant M&R team, Harley-Davidson

Harley-Davidson manufacturing is all about predictability. No surprises. No bottlenecks. No breakdowns. No downtime. No muda. What lies ahead is known. Just turn on the production equipment and create. It is the reliability image – the lifestyle – that is built by maintenance and embraced by employees in production, operations, finance, and plant and corporate management. Reliability-fostered predictability is the on ramp to increased output, productivity, efficiency and profitability at this truly American industrial company. Perhaps no Harley-Davidson plant embodies this spirit and vision like its powertrain operations factory located in the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls.

 

This keynote panel discussion session will feature maintenance and reliability leaders from this phenomenal site. It will be captained by Dana Fluet, who has helped implement projects and institute processes that have the plant on path “toward being 100 percent proactive and having zero fire-fighting.” Learn and ask questions during this interactive session!

 

You simply can’t be lean without reliability

Drew Troyer

CRE, chief executive officer, Noria Corporation

At its core, lean manufacturing is about the elimination of losses – usually called waste by lean practitioners. This is strikingly similar to the field of risk management, which is the focus of reliability management. Reliability practitioners specialize in defining and dimensioning risks to the organization using a variety of tools and techniques. These tools have been proven over the decades in industries where risk management really counts – aviation and nuclear power to name a few. In this keynote address, we’ll discuss how to define your losses in macroeconomic terms to define your Bold Outrageous Goal (BOG), then discuss how to apply modified versions of the same tools employed by reliability practitioners in the aviation industry to define and dimension – in monetary terms – specific wastes that equate to lost profit for your organization. Armed with this information, you’re positioned to prioritize loss areas for elimination, proceeding with confidence that you’re driving value for your organization.

 

Lean, clean and green: Baxter Healthcare at work

Manufacturing EHS Leaders

Mike Fisher, manager of EHS engineering, and Pat Bartholomew, director of EHS management systems, Baxter Healthcare

Baxter Healthcare is proactively addressing environmental issues by driving greater operating efficiencies, adopting new technologies, and collaborating through public and private partnerships. Such initiatives have helped the company achieve a 35 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per unit of production and a 22 percent improvement in energy efficiency per unit of production. The company also estimates that the investments it has made in recent years yielded $80 million in savings and cost avoidance, with $9 million of that from energy savings alone. The benefits go far beyond cost avoidance and energy or raw material savings. Many of the initiatives the company has put in place have yielded higher quality levels, greater production output and flexibility, reduced waste, and improvements in workplace safety.

 

Tools to achieve zero-breakdown lean maintenance systems

Jay Lee

director, University of Cincinnati/National Science Foundation Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems

This insightful presentation will introduce state-of-the-art and prognostics technologies and most commonly used predictive maintenance tools for machine monitoring and failure prevention. Case studies in different industries (semiconductor manufacturing, automotive, transportation, power generation, etc.) will be presented. Attendees will be able to learn how to use these tools and technologies to:

1. Improve machinery reliability, manufacturing equipment uptime, production throughput and product quality.

2. Generate useful information from manufacturing equipment for real-time quality assurance, process degradation assessment, supplier evaluation and management, and closed-loop product life cycle systems.

3. Develop an integrated IT-enabled system for zero-breakdown lean maintenance systems.

 

Lean reliability pays off big for Alcoa power plant

Richard T. (Rick) Fox

operations and maintenance manager, and members of the plant M&R team, Alcoa Power Generating Inc.

Alcoa’s Warrick Power Plant in Newburgh, Ind., is old. Eighty percent of the equipment is original (vintage mid- to late 1950s and early 1960s). That creates some sizeable challenges for the plant and its maintenance organization. After many years of struggling with a reactive, chaos-heavy environment, the plant found a way to turn the corner. Waste and inefficiency were greatly reduced, in some aspects eliminated, by incorporating elements of the Alcoa Business System, including greater planning and scheduling, maximized planned downtime, asset history, standardized work, predictive maintenance and a focus on the root cause of failures. Alcoa has seen that if the equipment is more reliable, there is less downtime, fewer unplanned outages and fewer emergencies. Greater reliability generally means reduced maintenance costs and lower total costs for the power plant. And, if it can provide low-cost power as well as reliability (no off-line situations), the adjacent Alcoa smelting plant does not have to procure power from the outside market, where the costs are generally two to three times higher.

 

In this interactive panel discussion, maintenance manager Rick Fox and members of his maintenance and reliability team will explain how the Alcoa plant made this monumental change happen and answer your questions on a host of lean reliability related subjects.

 

Leading the lean reliability initiative

David Hicks, PE

outreach faculty member, Auburn University

Lean implementations primarily fail due to a lack of management support and clear connections between lean activities and bottom-line results. In sports, players are told to “keep your eye on the ball,” and then receive training and coaching in the basic techniques required for success. Maintenance leaders are expected to embrace lean principles and put them into action, often with only a brief overview of the principles. This Leading Lean presentation provides a systematic approach to leading lean transformations in all areas, including maintenance and reliability. The system starts with Leader Standardized Work, supported by Visual Metrics that make unusual situations obvious. The anomalies are then attacked using structured problem-solving techniques and communicated in an A3 format. Improvement ideas are placed into a visual accountability system that supports quick, effective status meetings to drive continuous improvement. Leaders using this system have seen improvements in throughput, costs, revenues, inventories, maintenance and employee involvement. This session is perfect if you have been given the task of bringing lean into your plant’s M&R functions.

 

Zone control: Laying the foundation for lean success

Todd Bennett

president, United Southern Industries, and Sam McPherson, lean enterprise and public sector consultant, Shingo Prize

The foundation of the House of the Toyota Production System is “Stability in the 4 Ms (man, machine, methods and materials).” Zone control is Toyota’s little-understood territorial management system that provides machine-intensive operations the same breakthrough performance that cellular manufacturing provides assembly operations. Zone control is a “severe way”, but it was the method for United Southern Industries to achieve basic stability in its machine-intensive custom injection-molding operation. During this session, USI president Todd Bennett and lean enterprise transformation sensei Sam McPherson will share how to: organize your operations for zone control; organize zone control’s “chain of responsibility”; organize the “chain of response” protocols; create zone leader roles and responsibilities; set progressive SMART goals for zones; and develop zone cadence management activities and zone leader standard work in support of zone control.

 

Lean streamlines maintenance planning

Mike Bresko

managing director and principal consultant, General Physics

This presentation will show how to apply the principle of lean flow to maintenance down-day and outage planning, and explains how some commonly held beliefs in maintenance organizations lead to planning rework and waste. It highlights how early cut-off dates for new outage work can paradoxically cause more work and poor planning when viewed through the lens of the lean waste of overproduction. It will explain how to group job types, and involve and manage functions other than planning to streamline the maintenance work cycle and achieve high readiness for the start of the outage.

 

Eaton Lean System increases productivity, uptime

Mark Steward

Operational Excellence team leader, Eaton Corporation

Eaton’s team organization provides an active Lean Six Sigma manufacturing process to reduce setup, increase uptime, reduce costs, reduce lead times and provide a superior product. This is achieved through, among other things, the: development of kanban programs with customer input; continual review of current state map to improve lead-times; setup reduction focus; 6-S plant cleanliness, organization and safety; TPM kaizen events; continuous flow methods; and, value steam mapping exercises.

 

Eaton’s Watertown, Wis., facility, the focus of this case study session, is part of the company’s Electrical Group. It employs approximately 290 people who manufacture printed circuit board assemblies, meters, relays and enclosed drives for the electrical industrial, commercial and construction markets. Eaton Corporation is a global leader in electrical systems and components for power quality, distribution and control; fluid power systems and services for industrial, mobile and aircraft equipment; intelligent truck drivetrain systems for safety and fuel economy; and automotive engine air management systems, powertrain solutions and specialty controls for performance, fuel economy and safety. Eaton has 62,000 employees and sells products to customers in more than 125 countries.

 

Employing kaizen to increase worker safety on the plant floor

Bob Hafey

director of manufacturing, Flexible Steel Lacing Company
Flexible Steel Lacing Company is no stranger to lean manufacturing concepts. Flexco has been aggressively using them at its plant in Downers Grove, Ill., for more than a decade. One focus area has been the use of kaizen activities to improve the safety of maintenance and production workers. Such efforts have resulted in a phenomenal safety record and a culture where workers are continually on the lookout for ways to make their workplace safer. This case study will open your eyes to tools and tactics that will reduce and/or eliminate safety incidents and, not coincidentally, increase productivity, performance and reliability.

 

Revamping the plant through lean, Six Sigma

Frank Bailey

plant manager, LAI International

LAI International is a premier manufacturer of precision-engineered components and assemblies for aerospace, power generation, defense and other advanced technology industries. Its facility in Scottsdale, Ariz., is realizing amazing dividends from its implementation of lean and Six Sigma. The site has trained 57 percent of its employees in Six Sigma practices, and has technicians, engineers and quality managers certified as Six Sigma black belts. LAI has created seven project teams as a result of lean production initiatives, which focus on eliminating waste from processes. A recently completed lean project reduced data-entry steps and setup times for a production sub-assembly, producing projected savings of more than $100,000. LAI has initiated additional lean efforts, including adding visual management tools and implementing audited 5-S programs, a methodology to organize and improve the workplace. It also regularly utilizes kaizen events to examine and retool processes and eliminate waste.

 

Casting a mold for lean success

Dean Jones

training supervisor, Grede Foundries, and David Townsend, manufacturing specialist, Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership
Grede Foundries Inc., founded in 1920, produces ferrous castings for the OEM automotive and construction equipment industries in 10 locations around the Midwest. The Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a non-profit private corporation dedicated to helping manufacturers in and around Wisconsin by improving costs, implementing lean and quality systems and assisting in top-line growth. Grede’s lean journey began in April 2006 when WMEP was asked by a major customer of theirs to assist Grede in improving lead-times on a critical part. A timeline of lean projects traces Grede’s lean journey from that first project to the present and beyond.

 

Projects described include value stream mapping for two processes, Total Productive Maintenance for two troublesome machines, 5-S for the plant and office, quick changeover for three production areas and kaizen events for rapid improvement. Where projects are complete, actual dollar savings are projected. Several before-and-after photos are employed to demonstrate the effects of the projects. The presentation ends with a reflection on what went well and what to build on.

 

WIKA maintenance: A vision to the future
Rick Reed
director of Continuous Improvement, WIKA Instrument Corporation
This presentation will outline how WIKA uses a kaizen methodology to identify the vision or strategy necessary to begin driving continuous improvement into the maintenance areas. We will look at maintenance from the 50,000-foot level down to the floor level. This presentation outlines a WIKA proven methodology that will develop both long range and short range plans to achieve the success in maintenance that has already been achieved in manufacturing. 

Reliability tools in the lean journey – A practicum

Drew Troyer

CRE, chief executive officer, Noria Corporation

This session is an extension of the concepts described in Drew’s keynote address. In this practicum, we’ll learn how to deploy an integrated suite of reliability management in a manufacturing organization to define and dimension loss areas, then target them for elimination. These tools include functional/reliability block diagrams (F/RBD), failure reporting and corrective action system (FRACAS), dollarized process failure modes and effects analysis (DPFMEA), and root cause analysis (RCA). We’ll use live examples to demonstrate the power of these tools.

 

Improve your productivity and reduce your total cost

Kevin A. Hartler

director, Grainger Consulting Services, W.W. Grainger

In an increasingly competitive global environment, organizations must innovate to find opportunities to improve their productivity and reduce total cost. Initiatives that consider ALL aspects of process improvement and waste reduction will find the greatest level of success in improving efficiency. This session will provide you with a host of ideas to increase the performance of your plant maintenance and reliability team and offer up methods to work more closely and strategically with your distributors of maintenance, repair and operations tools and supplies.