The Life Cycle Institute Partners with the University of Tennessee to Help Companies Overcome Obstacles to Successful Lean Initiatives

PharmaManufacturing.com
08/25/2008

The Life Cycle Institute, the learning source for optimizing asset reliability and performance, has partnered with the University of Tennessee Center for Executive Education to launch Establishing Reliability Excellence for Lean Implementation (Lean Reliability) – a certificate program taught by practitioners focused on establishing foundational reliability in support of Lean Manufacturing.

According to Dr. Alex Miller, Dean of the Center for Executive Education, the main obstacles to implementing Lean include: 1) resistance to change from employees; 2) lack of integration of Lean into the overall business plan; and 3) lack of stability in current business processes, which can occur in the form of people, materials, process variation, and machine reliability. Dr. Miller said, “We recognized that by not addressing reliability issues, many companies were failing in their attempts to implement Lean. Subsequently they abandon Lean and become even more vulnerable to offshore competition.”

Lean Reliability is designed for plant managers, maintenance managers, business unit managers, directors of operations, and vice-presidents of operations who are interested in transforming their business through the principles of Lean Manufacturing by first optimizing manufacturing assets and processes.

This course will be delivered by Chuck Parke, a faculty member with the University of Tennessee. Parke brings more than 25 years of real-world manufacturing experience, including serving as vice president for Whirlpool's Cooking Division. Joining the Center for Executive Education in 2007, Parke is a UT alumnus with an undergraduate degree in engineering and an executive MBA from the College of Business Administration.

Joining Parke in teaching the course are Darrin Wikoff and Paul Borders, both Principal Consultants at Life Cycle Engineering. As a certified Change Management Professional, Wikoff has coached and mentored many of the world’s industrial leaders through the rigorous process of implementing and managing reliability improvement initiatives in support of Lean Manufacturing. Through his ability to combine technical expertise with lean manufacturing methodologies, Wikoff has enabled organizations to improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) while significantly reducing operating costs. Borders worked as a strategic manufacturing manager for more than 17 years. His realm of experience includes progressive expertise in top-quality plant operations, quality control, safety, and environmental management.

The first class is scheduled for October 12-17, 2008 in an intensive, one-week residency period at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, campus. For more information on Establishing Reliability Excellence for Lean Implementation, please call (865) 974-5001, or email TheCenter@utk.edu. Click here for course literature. Cost for the Lean Reliability course is $4,500, which includes tuition, books and materials, lodging, and meals.