EMS Summit 2017: Review

Posted: 30 November 2017

European Manufacturing Strategies Summit 2017 27th - 29th November, Berlin

This was Chartwell's 2nd year at EMS and a chance to connect with Manufacturing leaders from across Europe, indeed even the world, with individuals from as far away as the USA, Singapore and South Africa.

The summit was billed as a chance to focus on strategies that will help business  become more agile and responsive by looking at the processes implemented by Europe’s top manufacturers, the newest technologies on offer and the latest developments in lean & OpEx.

It was a great chance to meet industry leaders, network with them, understand their needs and challenges in more detail, as well as a forum to share knowledge.

The Supply Chain Management Strategies Summit was also taking place at the same time. Together, there were more than 600 individuals from across a number of sectors gathered together to share ideas, knowledge, experiences and best practices.

As part of the "Lean and Operational Excellence" stream, Adrian Howe presented a case study on implementing an improvement program in the face of massive sales growth, and how one of our clients made a permanent step change in productivity over a 9 month period to improve their SMART Gas Meter output by 72% without CAPEX.

The following points were touched on:

• Assessing performance and the underlying reasons why opportunity existed
• The dynamic de-bottlenecking roadmap
• Using John Kotter’s framework of change to engage leaders, employees and suppliers
• An example of technical constraint breaking
• Results and sustainability
• Key learning points

We also ran our "Plant De-bottlenecking Challenge" and attended the European Manufacturing and Supply Chain Awards Dinner at the Berlin Fernsehturm.