Learning Tours Archives

30Jan 2025 by Jennifer Ayers

Benchmarking Tour: Coherent – Feb 18th (2 spots left)

Learning Tours

Tour Summary: Discover how the Wilsonville team has embraced an “Always Tour Ready” mindset, ensuring their operations are ready anytime, for anyone, whether it’s corporate leadership or major customers. This tour offers a firsthand look at their CI practices, tools, and team engagement strategies. What You’ll See and Experience Inventory Management Explore how their site optimizes inventory control to reduce waste and improve efficiency: · Kardex Auto Store Machine: Witness high-tech stocking efficiency and accuracy for part replenishment · Min-Max Kanbans: See how they minimize floor inventory while ensuring part availability · Point-of-Use Materials: Discover how supplies are strategically placed for optimal productivity · Milk Runs: Observe their efficient internal logistics system · Asset Tags: Learn how they keep a precise record of assets Employee Engagement Experience a culture where…

05Nov 2024 by Jennifer Ayers

Benchmarking Tour: Danner Boots – Nov 19th (FULL)

Events, Learning Tours

Using SQDPM to drive visibility and improvement Host company: Danner Boots/LaCrosse Footwear Danner is known in the industry for its high quality, rugged footwear, which is a result of their strong commitment to customer value. This commitment is deeply rooted in their approach to engaging and inspiring employees to actively participate in continuous improvement. Tour Summary: During this tour they will spotlight their key performance areas and examples of how they are engaging operators to drive improvement: Safety best practices Quality system (Rework/Defect Tracking/Six Sigma Events_)_ Delivery (Operator based maintenance/Preventative Maintenance Tracking) Cost (Efficiency Tracking/Kaizen Events) Morale (Employee suggestion system and surveys) Date: Tuesday, Nov 19, 2024 Time: 8:00am - 11:45am Location: 18201 NE Portal Way, Portland, OR 97230 (Map link) Registration required: Email [email protected], include name, email, job title. …

30Jul 2024 by Jennifer Ayers

Benchmarking Tour: Hardwood Industries – Aug 28th

Events, Learning Tours

Host company: Hardwood Industries is a value-added wholesaler and distributor of quality hardwood lumber and related products and services, dedicated to providing superior customer service and rewarding employment. “Here, our customers always come first, regardless of their size, their volume of business or their location. No sale is too small, too difficult, or too large for us. We always focus on the question, “Does it work for our customer?” As a result of this philosophy, we have built long-term relationships with loyal customers, and we continue to develop new, satisfied customers.” Tour Summary: Hardwood Industries began their Continuous Improvement journey in 2012. They continue to focus on small, 1-degree shifts every day that improve overall performance. This has led to the creation of documented training modules for critical tasks and functions, and utilizing…

24May 2024 by Jennifer Ayers

Benchmarking Tour: A-dec – June 12 (FULL)

Events, Learning Tours

Tour Focus: Lean Principles in Practice Host Company – A-dec website A-dec designs and manufactures dental equipment at their headquarters in Newberg, Oregon. The A-dec vision began with a simple idea: make the best better. From their simple beginnings, A-dec has emerged as one of the most respected names in the dental industry. In 1964, founders Ken and Joan Austin made the biggest choice of their lives: risk it all to start a company of their own. Little did they know that an invention and a dream would help revolutionize the world of dentistry. 60 years later, A-dec is an employer of choice and the world’s leading manufacturer of reliable dental operatory equipment. They continue to work for the betterment of dentistry and embed their values into the work they…

07May 2024 by Jennifer Ayers

Benchmarking Tour: WCT – May 16 (FULL)

Events, Learning Tours

Host Company – World Class Technology (WCT) website World Class Technology (WCT), located in McMinnville, OR has quickly become a global leader in the latest Metal Injection Molding techniques. Years of refining techniques have created uncompromising quality, high yields, and cost efficiency. WCT's state of the art equipment includes CAD/CAM design, CNC, EDM, Metal Injection Molding (MIM), Sintering and Coining. Our first exposure to CI was in 2019 when we invited Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership to come in and help with a backlog problem in one of our production lines which resulted in a huge success. Since then, CI has been one of our main focuses for identifying Value Added and Non-Value Added steps in our production process. We’re still new to this CI mindset and still learning every day to…

19Mar 2024 by Jennifer Ayers

Benchmarking Tour: Ichor Systems – April 25th (FULL)

Events, Learning Tours

Host Company – Ichor Systems (website link) Ichor is the leader in the design, engineering and manufacturing of critical fluid delivery subsystems and components for semiconductor capital equipment. Our products include the gas and chemical delivery subsystems that are key elements in the process tools used for commercial semiconductor device manufacturing. At our Tualatin, Oregon facility, our key processes include plastic fabrication for chemical delivery systems and stainless fabrications for gas delivery systems. Tour Summary Our goal as we began re-energizing our CI program a few years ago was a strong focus on sustaining improvement and employee engagement. As we moved forward implementing 5S, visual management, and standard work, we wanted to ensure continuous improvement efforts were ongoing, recognized, and shared among all our sites. One of the key management practices…

09Nov 2023 by Jennifer Ayers

Benchmark Tour: Danner Boots – Nov 30th (FULL)

Learning Tours

Host Company - Danner Boots/LaCrosse Footwear For nearly a century, Danner has crafted boots with purpose and integrity - footwear to equip those who choose the unlikely path, those who cut fresh trails, those who pioneer. To this day, our commitment to superior craftsmanship remains unchanged. We continue to craft high quality boots, using the best possible materials we can find, to create a product built to last. In our Portland manufacturing facility, we have blended superior handcraftsmanship with innovative new technologies such as automation and real time metrics tracking to ensure we stay competitive both domestically and internationally. Tour Summary: Danner is known in the industry for their high quality, rugged footwear. To consistently deliver a top-notch product, we invest significant time and effort into establishing robust quality systems. These…

Category: Learning Tours