This year, the WMCO’s fall networking event was held at Humber College’s Woodworking Center in Etobicoke. The event kicked off with updates from WMCO’s CEO Mike Baker on new developments within the WMCO including the soon to be fully launched Lean Yellow Belt online training course, an upcoming Cyber Security Training event series, Sales Development training, two upcoming plant tours and more.  The new Lean Yellow Belt online training course was developed in partnership with The Lean Advisors, industry experts and Dr. Bob Abell, Learning PhD scholar specializing in human learning behaviours to optimize the online learning impact for users.

The Lean Advisors, have been brought on board as a WMCO provider for online Lean Yellow Belt training and certification. Their expertise include Lean Management, Toyota Production Manufacturing System applied across industries, business transformation & change management. President of The Lean Advisors, Julia Novik presented at the event to describe the newly launched program with the WMCO.

Novik, along side business partner and company founder, Larry Cote work side with companies as they develop and transform their company to lean manufacturing. The Lean Advisors have worked not only in the manufacturing sector, but also other industries including healthcare, education, office, government, and facility design.

The event continued with Sepp Gmeiner, Partner at Lignum Consulting discussing technology investments – how manufactures can analyze their current operations to assess the most effective use of their dollars when they invest in new equipment and other technologies. Instead of evaluating one technology features compared against another, the discussion analyzed where a company’s unmet needs could be hiding that, if addressed can provide the most beneficial impact on productivity and efficiency.

“If you’re not having the newest technology, you need specialists in house who can deal with the old technology.” 

After returning from the networking break, attendees gathered into groups to collaborate though information sharing of best practices in production scheduling.  Online attendees were also able to engage in the discussion, including a guest manufacturer based in the province of Alberta.   As the break out sessions wrapped up, a summary of each group was presented for everyone to learn from.

Humber College Centre for Trades & Technology event host and Program Coordinator for the Cabinet Making and Industrial Woodworking Technician programs, Drew Aaslepp capped of the end of the networking event with a tour of the woodworking facility and an overview of the programs being provided for woodworking.

Want to re-watch this event? WMCO members can watch past event when logged in to the site.