Events

Conflict is a common problem in any organization that has people.  Often, leaders are uncomfortable dealing with conflict because they do not have a process that keeps emotions under control.  The good news is that an understanding of conflict, why it occurs, and how to manage it can help you turn a conflict situation into a positive opportunity for improvement.  Participants will also have the opportunity to identify the key skills that they can practice to improve their ability to handle conflict in a productive way.

Objectives:

• Explain why conflict occurs.
• Recognize effective and ineffective ways of handling conflict.
• Apply the correct conflict style to use when in various conflict situations.
• Apply knowledge of the three stages of conflict to prevent unnecessary escalations.
• Explain how listening styles can affect conflict resolution.
• List best practices for mediating and directly confronting employees.

Intended audience:   

• New and experienced managers and leaders who want to develop or improve their conflict resolution skills.  Also suitable for individuals who have experience resolving conflict but are in need of new practical ideas for dealing more effectively with conflict in the modern manufacturing environment.

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis, or FMEA, is a structured approach used to identify ways in which a product or process can fail, estimate risk associated with specific causes, and prioritize actions that should be taken to reduce risk. In this full-day workshop, you’ll learn about design FMEAs (DFMEA) as described by AIAG in the June 2019 publication Failure Mode and Effect Analysis – FMEA Handbook by AIAG and VDA, including the format and content of DFMEAs.

Objectives:

• Define FMEA and describe the purpose of FMEAs.
• Explain the 7-step approach to FMEAs.
• Define severity, detection, and occurrence as they relate to DFMEAs.
• Describe the DFMEA template and the information it contai

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, effective supply chain management and procurement are more essential than ever for organizational success. The ability to secure effective terms in supply agreements and negotiate strategically with suppliers can significantly help provide value and competitive advantage to a company.

This workshop will cover the principles of supply agreements and supplier negotiations. It is designed to provide an understanding of the legal concepts and considerations, contract elements, contract types, and supplier performance management to contracts. Critical components of a strong contract will be better understood and applied to create a win-win agreement outcome both in the short term and long term with supplier partners.

Daniel Goleman contends, “IQ determines the careers and professionals people enter, but EQ (emotional intelligence quotient) determines how far they get in that career or profession.”  Emotional intelligence is the ability to comprehend value and manage the emotions of one’s self and others.  It is an essential skill for leaders and for a project team environment.  Leaders need self-awareness, self-discipline, motivation, social competence, and empathy, but our society isn’t development people with these competencies.

This workshop explores the importance of using emotional intelligence for creating a stronger leadership model.

Objectives:

• Define emotional intelligence and explain why it is important.
• Discover your own level of emotional intelligence.
• Focus on building a new perspective around emotional intelligence.
• List ways to grow your own emotional intelligence.

Intended audience:   

• New and experienced managers and leaders who want to develop or improve their leadership knowledge and skills.

Operational Technology (OT) refers to the hardware and software systems designed to monitor and control physical processes with real-time data. As manufacturers strive to connect more of their machinery and manufacturing technology to their corporate network to gain operational insights, a secure OT network becomes critical.

Without proper precautions, a compromised or damaged OT could affect an entire network. Risks to OT can be reduced by understanding specific threats or vulnerabilities and implementing technical and non-technical controls to mitigate the vulnerabilities.

In this workshop, we will cover multiple threats to OT or Industrial Control Systems (ICS) including:

• OT/ICS Security “Must” Haves: OT/ICS-specific security policies, asset inventory, cross-functional team
• OT/ICS Security Architecture: Network segmentation, firewall rule guidance, authentication and authorization, monitoring, logging, auditing, incident detection, response, and system recovery
• Applying Security Controls to OT/ICS: MS Windows settings, media protections, malware protections, and intrusion detection.

Effective leadership is a key component to organizational success.  But what does it mean to lead effectively?

In this workshop, you’ll learn the keys to effective leadership and assess your own leadership strengths and weaknesses.

Objectives:

• Identify traits and behaviors of effective leaders.
• Identify different leadership styles and their characteristics.
• Know how the different leadership styles affect the organization and employees.
• Identify which leadership style is best suited to your environment.
• Deal with a changing and more diverse workforce (i.e., age, generational, incoming skills and abilities, etc.)
• Know how to apply the principles of various leadership models.
• Explain how to lead for continuous improvement.
• Improve awareness of individual leadership style(s).
• Identify your potential leadership strengths and weaknesses.

Intended audience:   

• New and experienced managers and leaders who want to develop or improve their leadership knowledge and skills.

Teamwork is recognized as an important aspect of modern manufacturing.  It is well known that people working together can accomplish more than individuals working in isolation.  This session will provide practical methods to help teams become more effective and successful.  Once an understanding of basic team dynamics is provided, participants will be able to recognize specific areas where teams need help and will also have sound methods to help teams improve.  Participants will have the opportunity to select the key skills that they can practice to improve the performance of their teams.

Objectives:

• Define “team” and list the considerations for identifying a team.
• List the stages of a team and appropriate leadership actions for each stage.
• List common team roles.
• Describe the connection between leadership and teams.
• List effective leader behaviors for encouraging effective teamwork.
• Describe how to build an effective team.
• Plan for hands-on application steps to practice key teambuilding skills to be developed.

8D, or Eight Disciplines, is a structured problem-solving process originally developed at Ford Motor Company.  8D problem-solving uses a team approach to define a problem, develop containment plans, determine root causes, define and validate corrective actions, take preventive measures, and celebrate success.

In this workshop, you’ll learn about each step in the 8D problem-solving process and see how a structured problem-solving process can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your problem-solving efforts.

Objectives:

• Define problem solving.
• Describe the process of 8D problem solving and explain what happens at each “step” in the process.
• Define root cause and root cause analysis.
• List tools and techniques used during problem solving.

Intended audience:   

• Manufacturing personnel, including technicians, engineers, and managers

Organizations today want employees with effective communication skills, or the ability to clearly send and receive messages to and from others.

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to effectively communicate verbally and nonverbally as well as how to listen for maximum understanding.  You can expect to leave this workshop with a better understanding of your own communication strengths and opportunities as well as practical ideas for improving your own communication.

Objectives:

• List the three channels of communication and what each consists of.
• Identify which channels of communication most affect communication.
• List common barriers to communication.
• Describe how to communicate effectively across generations or cultures.
• List the three parts of a message.
• Identify the three levels of listening.
• Explain the two listening tools: Paraphrasing and empathic listening.
• List guidelines for active listening.