The Sloan Foundation Forest Industries Center at Virginia will offer its fourth workshop in the wood management series on lean manufacturing. The workshop, held at the Wood Education and Resource Center in Princeton, West Va., has two modules. Module 1 will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Aug. 8; Module 2 will be held from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 9, and continues from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 10.

“Lean manufacturing encompasses business concepts that result in more from less,” said Earl Kline, Virginia Tech forest products professor and a Sloan Center coordinator. It includes concepts such as total quality management and just-in-time inventory while achieving optimal customer satisfaction. The course is designed for upper and mid-level production managers who want to learn how to successfully implement lean manufacturing concepts in their businesses.

Participants should possess knowledge of value flow through their operations from supplier to customer and have identified a particular product and/or group of similar products (products which travel through similar value streams) to be value stream mapped. Topics to be covered in the course include lean manufacturing principles, company culture, waste use, value stream mapping, “push” vs. “pull” production, smoothing production, cellular manufacturing, “standard work” concepts, and implementation of lean manufacturing.

Module 1 will discuss the basics of lean manufacturing, while module 2 is intended for managers already familiar with its concepts and are prepared to start using lean manufacturing. Module 2 includes an optional half-day tour of a plant that uses lean manufacturing.

Along with the Virginia Tech’s Sloan Foundation Forest Center, sponsors for the short course include the USDA Forest Service’s Wood Education and Resource Center, Virginia Tech’s Center for Forest Products Marketing and Management, and the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute.

Instructors for the workshop are Earl Kline, forest products manufacturing systems engineering professor; Dan Cumbo, research associate at the Virginia Tech marketing center; and Brian Brashaw, director of the Wood Materials and Manufacturing program at the Natural Resources Research Institute, University of Minnesota Duluth.

Those interested can register online.

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