Session ID:

VS1-01

n Intermediate

Setting & Staying the Lean Course…”Building the Playing Field Isn’t Enough”
Lean Strategy & Culture

From that epic movie ‘Field of Dreams’, comes the now famous story line “if you build it they will come.” A fantasy piece about a baseball diamond in the heart of an Iowa cornfield to which baseball legends return to relive their dreams. Well, you’ve planned, piloted and paved the way for the cast of characters to perform on your LEAN playing field, but are striking out, or are uncertain the plan will succeed. Why? What is missing between the message your company wants or needs to send, and what it is actually sending? What do you need to build into your lean improvement strategy in such a way that, “they will come” and be successful?

The late W. E Deming was clear in the first of his fourteen management commandments that this cannot happen without a pre-ordained requisite for ‘constancy of purpose’. Hence, an effective lean management stratagem necessitates the setting of a direction that best assures achievable sustainability and involves a real commitment to the ongoing involvement of its people. Conversely, the transition from a reactive organization to that of a self-driven and empowered one (the ultimate lean maturity goal) can never be realized where the process is actively void of engaged people.

The management team at Cogent Power has retooled its strategic model for continuous improvement and lean thinking to better achieve long-term sustainability as a self-propelled business. Learn more about their innovative model and its associated processes and approaches to people enabling, as well as key lessons learned i.e., the more you involve your people the further you will progress, to gain valuable insight into how your company might get an upper hand on its own lean program.

Cogent Power Inc., in business since 1972, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Cogent Power Ltd., part of the Corus Group acquired in 2007 by TaTa Steel, enjoys the reputation of providing quality electrical slit steel to meet the various demands of the electrical steel market and being one of North America’s leading suppliers of transformer cores for the power generation and distribution industries. The company of approx. 180 employees, located in Burlington, Ontario, Canada is both ISO 9001(QMI Quality Registrar) and ISRS Level 6 (DNV Safety Registrar) certified and now entering the fourth year in its Lean transformation journey having experienced one of its most successful years ever. The company’s vision is one of a self propelled continuous improvement culture with a clear focus on value stream management as supported by a strategic platform that includes eight critically aligned success factors with corresponding KPI measures.

Greg MacDougall, Manager Total Quality Systems & Lean Coach

Greg MacDougall in his current role as Manager, Total Quality Systems and Senior Lean Coach at Cogent Power, is mainly responsible for the direction of quality management and continuous improvement. He is a Quality Management graduate of Mohawk College, holds a technical diploma in Metallurgy from McMaster University and was accredited in 2004 as a Lean Coach through SA Partners LLP, United Kingdom (in association with Professor Peter Hines, Cardiff University, Lean Enterprise Research Centre,, Wales, UK).

He previously served as Corporate Director, Quality Management, ABC-Naco, Chicago, IL, accountable in his senior management role for the quality direction of numerous companies world-wide, and preceding this was Manager, Quality Systems, Dofasco Steel, Hamilton, ON, Canada. He has an extensive background in the steel industry involving quality improvement, is a past Instructor at Mohawk College, Senior ASQ Member, and RAB Certified QMS Lead Assessor. He has served on several Committees related to Quality Management and authored a number of presentations under the topic of continuous improvement.