Decade-long journey: people, values, discipline and understanding
Ramp up competitive strength and customer satisfaction through sustained continuous improvement; a lean management system, pull systems, heijunka and demand smoothing; an effective supplier partnership model; strategies for providing a perfect product that never fails, delivered to meet customer requirements; learnings from the AME Manufacturing Excellence Award audit; cultural change.
Get to the next level of performance improvement, using a lean management system encompassing leader standard work, visual controls and daily accountability. Discover strategies for boosting competitive advantage by achieving a target condition of perfect product that never fails, delivered when the customer wants it. Understand how lean is more than tools; it is fundamentally all about people, values, discipline and understanding. Learn how NovAtel transformed itself, reaping exceptional on-time delivery, a long-term supplier partnership model/relationships and happier customers. Hear about establishing pull everywhere (pull signals, kanban and shop floor material delivery), heijunka (leveling the work by product and resources) and demand smoothing (through work with customers). Gain insights about NovAtel’s learnings as it prepared for the AME Manufacturing Excellence Award audit, and how receiving the award reinforced its commitment to the next set of opportunities to learn and grow. The company will share information on its improvement efforts and cultural change since the audit and projected challenges for the business.
NovAtel Inc. designs, manufactures and sells high-precision OEM positioning technology. Its GPS products are used by system integrators in more than 60 countries to deliver precise positioning solutions in precision agriculture, defense, mapping, autonomous vehicles, survey and other industries. Its GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) products have set the quality/performance standard for more than 20 years. NovAtel’s award-winning (AME Manufacturing Excellence Award) Calgary headquarters produces the industry’s most extensive line of OEM receivers, antennas and subsystems. NovAtel is part of the Hexagon Group, Sweden. www.novatel.com
Mike McAloney has served as the vice president of operations at NovAtel for 13 years. He led the company’s lean transformation, starting in 2003. McAloney serves on the AME Canadian regional board as vice president western Canada. He has held diverse positions in high tech, including director of technical services, program manager, business development leader, system engineering manager, project engineer and design engineer. He has experience in full product life cycle, from customer idea through product development and serial production.
