01Jan 2023 by Jennifer Ayers
Lean 101: 6-week series – Sept 15 – Oct 20th (2 spots left)

Lean 101: 6-week series – Sept 15 – Oct 20th (2 spots left)

Classes
Lean 101(a virtual learning experience) Join us on a journey to discover the basic elements of lean principles and see the impact they make when you put them into practice. This course consists of six, one-hour classes focused on the foundational elements of lean. During this course, you will learn more about the history/background of lean, why these principles are important to creating a culture of excellence, standard work, 8 wastes, 5S, PDCA, and visual management. Each week will include instruction, discussion, and simulations followed by small project assignments between each class to help you practice the concepts in your own environment.Lean 101 is a beginning-level course that teaches participants the basic concepts of Lean Thinking. It is suitable for participants who work in office or manufacturing environments and includes…
Read More
02Aug 2022 by Jennifer Ayers
Sowing the Seeds of Lean – Aug 23rd @10am

Sowing the Seeds of Lean – Aug 23rd @10am

Webinar
Webinar You can't implement lean overnight. In fact, you shouldn't try to implement lean at all. Lean won't "stick" unless it is integrated into your organization and people believe in the new way of thinking and acting. This takes patience, persistence, and participation. In the gardening world, you can't just throw a bunch of plants in your backyard and expect them to grow and flourish. Success requires more than just planting them in the soil. The best gardeners plant a seed in a controlled environment so they properly germinate, then acclimate them before they are transferred to the garden where they continue to care for them daily. Gardening provides an excellent metaphor for keys to introducing and integrating lean into an organization. Organizational culture change requires people to understand, buy…
Read More
02Aug 2022 by Jennifer Ayers
Book Club: The Sensei Way at Work – Aug 19th – Sept 16th 

Book Club: The Sensei Way at Work – Aug 19th – Sept 16th 

Book Club
Book Club: The Sensei Way at Work – The Five Keys to a Lean Business TransformationAuthor: Dan ProckBack by popular demand as an encore.  If you haven’t joined us in the past, now is your chance.  This is a fun opportunity to discuss a great book with a group of NWHPEC community members. The Sensei Way at Work identifies the five keys that sustain successful lean production in Western enterprises—a challenge that has stymied business leaders, managers, and lean coaches for decades. It provides a detailed guide to the ways of being, thinking, practices and skills that leaders must develop both in themselves and in employees that make continuous improvement a way of doing business. Creating a culture of continuous improvement can’t be delegated. It has to be led, and this…
Read More
02Aug 2022 by Jennifer Ayers
The Bench – Aug 15th @12:30

The Bench – Aug 15th @12:30

Benchmark Request
Join us for another open-forum exchange of best practices.  This is a great way for members to come together to talk and share about a particular topic. This month the topics you can choose from are 1) Metrics or 2) Lean product development/Lean project management. You bring the questions and challenges; the group will offer advice and share lessons learned. Intended Audience: All NWHPEC members.  Please share internally with individuals connected to and interested in any of these topics.Date:          Monday, August 15thTime:         12:30pm - 1:30pmLocation:    Zoom (webcam preferred)Cost:           Free (NWHPEC members only) Registration: via Zoom, link
Read More
13Jul 2022 by Jennifer Ayers
Striving Towards a Lean Culture – July 26 @11am

Striving Towards a Lean Culture – July 26 @11am

Member Sharing
Featuring NWHPEC members! Are you curious about what a Lean Culture looks like and how you create one? Do you want to hear more about the challenges organizations face as they try to change the culture? Do you want to learn about successful tips for creating and influencing a Lean Culture? There is a lot of context behind the two words: Lean Culture. It may also come with a bit of a stigma. In our summer Member 2 Member (M2M) sharing event, you'll be able to hear six individuals from various roles in multiple organizations share their perspectives and experiences around the topic of Lean Culture. What have they seen? What have they experienced? What are their successes and failures? You'll hear some bite-sized ideas that you'll be able to…
Read More
24May 2022 by Jennifer Ayers
Project Management Excellence Workshop – June 15th @8am (Class is FULL)

Project Management Excellence Workshop – June 15th @8am (Class is FULL)

Classes
Project Management Excellence (including new product introduction)Facilitator: Norbert Majerus In my nearly forty years in the industry, I have lived through the evolution of project management—from no value added to a system where every major work is managed by a project manager and where hundreds of projects are going on at the same time. Today, project management is an institution, a function, a discipline, much like manufacturing, R&D, and finance. As such, it requires continuous learning and improvement. It should come as no surprise that project management can benefit from the same Lean and operational excellence principles than other functions have experienced. Among others, Lean thinking can transform project management toward perfect delivery (on time, on target, etc.), higher quality, improved speed, and more people engagement. New Lean insight can…
Read More
17May 2022 by Jennifer Ayers
Driving alignment and execution with Personal Management Systems – June 7th @11:30

Driving alignment and execution with Personal Management Systems – June 7th @11:30

Webinar
In a world filled with annual objectives, how can you create a management system that allows you to effectively deploy those goals throughout your organization and embed them into the personal management system of each individual so everyone uses scientific thinking when striving towards their goals. Come see how I combined deployment using cascaded Kata Challenges with Personal Management Systems (think leader standard work) to help develop my organization while striving towards our goals. Learning objectives:Learn how to use cascaded kata challenges to align all leaders to organizational objectivesLearn how to create a personal management system that ensures you are being intentional with where you spend your timeLearn how to build reflection into a standard review process and assess changes and adjustments to your objectives and personal management system as…
Read More