K-W April SIG Blog

Sr. Manager's Group

Our April 2010 SIG was hosted by Northern Digital Inc. (NDI) in Waterloo.  NDI was established more than 27 years ago, NDI is trusted by international leaders in medicine, industrial and research for the accuracy and reliability of its measurement technology. NDI has over 15,000 advanced measurement systems installed worldwide, across a diverse field of applications. Our innovative technologies are employed in key medical, life sciences, and industrial markets, including:

• computer-assisted therapy
• clinical gait analysis
• sports/biomechanics research
• industrial part inspection
• ergonomics

The Senior Manager's group was treated to a presentation by Sherri Embleton, Senior Manager, Manufacturing Operations, who provided some great insight into the barriers and obstacles that NDI has been faced with over the past few years and how they have managed to overcome them.  We were then treated to a demonstration of one of their industrial CMM machines and a tour of their facility.

Continuous Improvement Group

Northern Digital Problem Theme for the CI Group: Inventory Cycle Count Systems to Effectively Manage Raw Material Inventory

 Context:

They are a low volume high mix manufacturer with fluctuating demand. One of their finished products ranges from 3 - 10 shipped units per month to customers. As well they have high expectations for lead time to their customers (within 2-3 weeks). They are well within our capacity, but at times (due to fluctuations) they exceed our capacity limits.

Data:

Raw materials items are prioritized by their cost and identified into three categories (A, B, and C) i.e. "A" items are most costly.

Currently they execute a monthly inventory count with 90% focus on A items and there are no counts on C's items during any month. They perform a physical year end count on all items with a check on locations as well as counts. Their inventory accuracy is currently sitting at 94% which includes A and B items only.

Problem for the group.

Overall Goal: Is to implement a formal cycle count program that will improve accuracy (to 100%) for all items and reduce the amount of discrepancies at the end of year to put us in a position to trust our ERP on-hand balance.

Some great suggestions were made and a fantastic discussion was had by the over 30 participants!

Engineering

During the Engineering session, NDI shared their flow chart of their current process for releasing product for production. Highlights of where things work well and where they do not will be shared and brainstormed with the Engineering group. Some great discussion and suggestions were received regarding the release of product including where the production involvement does and should start and when the bill of materials was released.  It was also interesting to note that product release and communication between all levels of the organization during this process was a common element for all industries.

Human Resources

 The final SIG for the day was the Human Resources group where we discussed  Profiling the Right "Fit" for Recruitment

All HR professionals develop a "profile" of the right "Fit" for your organization when recruiting new employees.

 Some of the questions the group discussed and considered were:

 How do you involve other departments and stakeholders when considering what you are looking for in a new employee?

• Have you developed a profile for the right "fit"? What does it look like and how did you get there?
• Has your "profile" ever failed you in a hiring decision and were there signals you did not listen to?
• Do you believe your profile is accurate? Why?

Some suggestions were discussed such as creating behavioural descriptive interview questions based on the key skill sets the hiring supervisor identifies as key indicators or success and also providing a realistic job preview to the candidates either through a plant tour or having them complete a simple work simulation.

 Thanks again to the entire team at NDI for hosting a great networking and sharing SIG.  For more information on the Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge SIG events please contact Mike Baker or Laura Gibson.