March 27th Roundtable Recap

Friday, 30 March 2012 14:42

Learning lean principles is one thing, but implementing them into a company’s culture is an entirely different challenge.

This was the topic Steve Bettis, VP of Operations at Earth2O, shared with HiDEC members at our latest Roundtable event. His lean journey has involved educating and empowering individuals at all different levels and departments within his company, and the payoff has been well worth the challenge. Some of the major takeaways from the presentation and ensuing discussion included:
·        Fail your way to success - Sustainable change involves a series of baby steps and your noted trends are more important than just change for change sake.
·        People often are not the problem - It is more a matter of the system they find themselves in. Give the same people better tools and you will often achieve better results.
·        The majority of people want to excel – Most people want to excel, they just need quality leadership that consistently focuses on role modeling and supporting employees, not just directing.
·        Sometimes you have to slow the production line down to produce more – If you’re willing to take a bit of a risk and slow down production to improve the process, there is the potential to experience a significant decrease in down time. Earth2O achieved that and more!
·        What you measure is what your people will focus on - Be careful what you choose to measure as this will heavily influence the activities and priorities of your workforce.
·        People are your most important assets – But it is not enough to just believe that, you need to consistently display it in your daily decision making. Don’t just express values, prove that they are alive and well in your organization.

A big thanks goes out to Steve Bettis for such a great presentation.  We hope to see you at our next HiDEC event!

Welcome Nate LiaBraaten

Monday, 06 February 2012 12:34

HiDEC welcomes Nate LiaBraaten as the new HiDEC Facilitator. Nate comes with a solid background in financial services and venture capital. Nate has spent many hours volunteering at the Bend Venture Conference and getting Venture Box, Bend’s new business accelerator, up and running.

New Steering Committee Member

Monday, 26 December 2011 00:00

HiDEC would like to welcome Clint Davis as a new member to the HiDEC Steering Committee. Clint is currently the Director of Supply Chain at Ruff Wear and has spearheaded the development of the APICS production management courses which are currently being offered at COCC.

Sponsors

Monday, 24 October 2011 13:55

Special thanks to Karnopp Petersen for sponsoring all four HiDEC Executive Forums