Harley-Davidson leader to keynote at Lean Tools 2007

Harley-Davidson Motor Company is one of the most admired companies on the planet. With annual sales exceeded $6.15 billion, it ascended to No. 369 on the Fortune 500 list in 2007. It also annually ranks among the world’s most respected brands. Anytime your customer chooses to tattoo your company’s logo on his or her body, you know you have something special.

Harley-Davidson is a pacesetter … on the highway, on the financial pages and in the area of maintenance and reliability.

Noria Corporation's Reliable Plant magazine offers a rare opportunity to learn best practices from Harley-Davidson at its "Lean Manufacturing 2007: Lean Tools for Maintenance & Reliability" conference, to be held October 1-3 at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. In a prestigious keynote address on October 2, Harley-Davidson director of maintenance Wayne Vaughn will spell out the motorcycle manufacturer’s road to M&R excellence.

In this session, attendees will learn about overcoming the challenges of creating a proactive maintenance approach in just-in-time factories that run 24 hours a day. Vaughn will show how the maintenance strategy must be in alignment with the corporate goals, objectives and strategy, and how these strategies must then be designed for smooth execution on the shop floor. He will also show how this process must evolve from learning what works and what does not and how to ensure that operations and maintenance are always working together. Finally, he will discuss where he believes maintenance is going over the next several years and how Harley-Davidson is preparing itself for the future.

This is a rare opportunity to learn from and benchmark with one of America’s most dynamic manufacturers.

Vaughn provides both the strategic direction and oversees daily execution of both production maintenance and the facilities maintenance group's work at Harley-Davidson’s two powertrain plants in Milwaukee. This span of control includes approximately 250 trades and 25 salaried personnel. Vaughn’s career has covered a wide range of duties – from design engineering, supply chain management, new business development, production management and maintenance. Most of his career at Harley-Davidson has been in maintenance management. He also is a leader of the maintenance best practice effort across all of the Harley plants.

During his time as the Powertrain Operations facilities manager and as director, he implemented many programs including extensive training programs, an apprentice program, a crib organization effort, computerized maintenance management systems (he is currently the business champion for the company’s SAP conversion), predictive and preventive maintenance, and a Total Productive Maintenance program. This was accomplished while increasing the maintenance staff, increasing production by 150 percent, rearranging and installing thousands of machine tools, installing two assembly lines, and expanding the facilities.

Do not miss this important keynote address.

Harley-Davidson is just one of the benchmark companies that will speak at the Lean Manufacturing 2007 conference in Cleveland. Other companies that will have top corporate, plant and departmental leaders present keynote addresses and case studies include Toyota, Honda, Eastman Chemical, Energizer Battery, AstenJohnson and Nordson. Dr. Jay Lee, whose Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems at the University of Cincinnati is on the forefront of predictive maintenance research, will also provide a special presentation during the event.