James Womack to Keynote Regional Continuous Improvement Conferencde

Online, January 9, 2012 (Newswire.com) - The mission of the 2012 Northeast Shingo Prize conference is to build a strong regional Lean network through two days of enriching and inspiring lean education and benchmarking. The Conference will bring together lean leaders, practitioners and champions, from organizations big and small, from manufacturing to government to healthcare, for a comprehensive educational experience. The Conference will be held on September 25 and 26, 2012 at the DCU Center, 50 Foster Street, Worcester MA 01608.

W. Edwards Deming once said, "If American business understood collaboration, there would be no competition." The 2012 conference will highlight organizations and individuals who are realizing this benefit today, going beyond pockets of excellence to generate an environment that captures the creativity and involvement of an ever-expanding system in which the whole is much, much greater than the sum of its parts. Attendees will learn how to develop and expand this sharing network in their organization to gain the greatest ongoing benefit from the technical aspects of Lean.

According to Bruce Hamilton, Chairperson of the annual Northeast event, "The word "sharing" is frequently advocated to kindergarten age children, but by the time we are young adults, our learning often becomes specialized, solitary and proprietary. What we should be freely sharing between departments, divisions, business partners and community, we are withholding to our detriment. The reality is that US manufacturers, hospitals, clinics, municipalities and other organizations have to implement lean philosophies and tools together to remain competitive. Sharing ideas instead of hiding them both within an organization and between organizations and industries will only benefit our region and strengthen our economy. Our 2012 Northeast Shingo Conference will promote this kind of sharing and creating the mutual support network we need to rekindle in the US in order to compete globally."

This year's keynote speaker is James P. Womack, Ph.D., founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit training, publishing, and management research company based on Toyota's business system. The intellectual basis for the Institute is described in a series of books and articles co-authored by Womack over the past 20 years. The most widely known books are: The Machine That Changed the World (Macmillan/Rawson Associates, 1990), Lean Thinking (Simon & Schuster, 1996), Lean Solutions (Simon & Schuster, 2005), and Seeing The Whole Value Stream (Lean Enterprise Institute, 2011).

The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence is named for Japanese industrial engineer Shigeo Shingo who distinguished himself as one of the world's thought leaders in building operational excellence. Dr. Shingo has been described as an "engineering genius" who helped us to understand the concepts, systems, and techniques that, under his tutelage, became fundamental to the renowned Toyota Production System, often referred to now as the Toyota Business System.

Registration is open and there is an Early Bird deal for people who register before May 1, 2012. A group discount is also available and, for a nominal surcharge, seats can be shared by two people (one to attend each day). Visit www.neshingoprize.org to learn more.