As our members are aware, EMC's Strategic Interest Group (SIG) events are peer-to-peer networking opportunities that members utilize to share ideas, discuss hot-topics and benchmark performance.

EMC members in our Kitchener-Waterloo/Cambridge Consortium have taken this one step further... a review of Lean principles, followed by solving a continuous improvement challenge presented to by the host organization. Each month as part of their Waterloo region networking events, EMC's Continuous Improvement SIG participants break out into brainstorming groups and collectively discover some possible solutions to the presented challenge.

Pictured are the CI sessions hosted by Centra Industries in Cambridge where their problem for the group was: Managing the effectiveness of CI project results with limited resources: For all of us with CI initiatives, how do you integrate and capitalize on CI activity successes when employees have other critical daily job tasks to complete? A common challenge for all manufacturers engaged in ongoing continuous improvement!

Best practices related to managing a number of CI projects simultaneously were shared, and methods of tracking and implementing CI action items were benchmarked as well. With the success of these events, EMC members in Kitchener-Waterloo/Cambridge are now lining up to host these opportunities in 2009, given the enormous brain power brought to bear on their continuous improvement challenges.

Peer-to-peer networking and benchmarking at its best!

For more information or to participate in an upcoming session, please contact EMC Senior Field Service Advisor, Mike Baker.