This presentation will share lessons learned and experiences from implementing an innovation mindset for an R&D organization. We are all busy but innovation is a lifeblood for the business. It generates novel ideas for products or services that make a significant impact. It is fundamental that your team is encouraged to participate and that a culture of exploring new concepts and technologies is established. Even within large corporations employees can demonstrate an intrapreneurial spirit. In order to be effective and efficient, establishing a systematic approach is key. Start small, fail fast and push constant experimentation. Make the process simple to follow, support a sense of community and above all make it fun and rewarding.

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When designing business processes for supply chain, we often start by planning to implement best practices. What can be easily overlooked is the actual needs of the business, both now and in the future. Sometimes a less mature or simplified version of a best practice may be the right solution to achieve business excellence, with a roadmap for process maturity as the business changes. In this presentation I will discuss aligning best practices with business needs for Planning and Inventory based processes.

In this talk we’ll explore the Quality and Customer Service connection. Quality acts as the frontline for the development team partnering with Customer Service as the frontline to customers. The partnership of these two organizational functions is critical both with each other and the engineering teams because of the long term effects on the customer experience. This discussion will explore the outbound relationships of the development, quality, and customer service team interactions. Then we’ll put a lens on the feedback loop, or the inbound calls to customer service, the escalation paths necessary to resolve issues, and the connection back to quality. These are some of the critical infrastructure necessary to help create a great and long-lasting customer experience.

Is your culture what you want it to be or what you have allowed it to become? If you’re not talking about it and working on it every day, chances are it’s the latter. At the foundation of any successful company is a strong culture, driven by the spirit of continuous improvement, and powered by passionate leaders. If you’re lacking any of those elements, you’re missing an opportunity to create lasting growth with your most important asset – your people. In this presentation, Brett Wood, the President & CEO of Toyota Material Handling North America, will provide leadership principles and practices that you can implement to create a culture of continuous improvement, and he will give tangible examples of Toyota’s Kaizen culture in action.

Many experienced leaders know the importance of designing an interactive customer experience program, but often fail to connect the experience across the entire value-chain. This session will showcase the power of creating an exceptional experience for customers, suppliers and cost savings it can bring your organization.

Karen Norheim, President & CEO, American Crane & Equipment, will share her leadership philosophies and how to develop a highly productive workforce. Karen will discuss challenges faced and tips to create a successful work/life balance.

AB-InBev, the world’s largest beer brewer has been transforming their entire supply chain. Innovating through discovery, development, and scaling of technology has enabled AB-InBev Brewmasters to deliver fresh beer to markets across the globe keeping sustainability as a top priority

The presentation will be focused on the impacts of the COVID crisis and sociopolitical issues. I will show how the COVID crisis changed the marketplace using beer as an example, but also speak about how to motivate essential factory workers at a time when most others were working from home and how to operate in a post-COVID world. How focusing on Safety and Health as your first priority guarantees business continuity, service, quality and cost.