2008

ATTT 2008 SUMMARY The 46th annual Advanced Technology Think Tank was a most interesting one in that it focused on where industry is expected to be in the very near future and the need for educational programs to develop an interest young people in science, technology, manufacturing, and the processes of developing inventions. It was held at Chippawa Cottage Resort in Barry’s Bay, ON from June 1 to 4 and proved to be one of the most exciting and informative conferences we have had in our 46 years of existence. Here some of the keenest minds in Canada, China, Holland, and the United States exchanged ideas on how industries must change in order to survive global competition. Another important aspect of the Conference was the emphasis on programs for updating practicing engineers to keep them up to date on recent manufacturing technologies. Some of the highlights of the ATTT 2008 Conference were presentations by:

• Peter de Jager on the Myths of Change Management www.technobility.com A speaker/writer/consultant, who has spoken in more than 35 countries and is recognized world wide as an exciting, humorous, proactive and engaging speaker. He has spoken to audiences that included the World Economic Forum, the World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements. He has a well-deserved reputation for being a provocative and entertaining speaker. His goal is to challenge your thinking about Change Management and entice the organization to think deeply about what happens during a change. His talk was on Organizational Change, Small and Large Change Transformational, Transitional, Incremental, Necessary and Unnecessary Change.

• Min Basadur on Applied Creativity www.basadur.com The Basadur Creative Problem Solving Profile is a proven, research-based instrument developed from fundamental theory and direct experience from a large sample of people working in a broad cross-section of organizations. Its aim is to describe how individuals solve problems, not to evaluate problem solving ability. It can also be applied to teams. How the Profile Connects to Teams and Organizations In a creative organization, everyone is responsible for doing at least one of the four stages. · The Generator gets things started by initiating new projects, opportunities, and problems for solving. · The Conceptualizer is responsible for defining and understanding new ideas, the opportunities, and its benefits. · The Optimizer who turns abstract ideas into practical solutions and plans. · The Implementer who is responsible for finishing things off, taking action to implement new solutions. Research provides evidence that teams with a heterogeneous mix of preferred creative process styles significantly outperform teams with a homogeneous mix in innovative work. In heterogeneous cases, all four stages of the process are readily available within the team. In contrast, research shows that members of homogeneous teams experience more satisfaction working with their like-minded teammates.

• Brian Malloch and Marco Horselenberg made a presentation on Asset Management Solutions www.stork.com/ams and how the proper application of these can assist a company to benchmark the organization and processes, design optimum preventive maintenance plans and optimize business processes to meet global standards. Many companies around the world are facing the challenges of reducing costs and improving asset performance while maintaining asset integrity. Stork can provide the support to optimize the asset’s performance without incurring large capital expenses. The services they offer companies can involve: · Benchmark Scan the organization and its processes. · Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) services as implementation, optimization or hosting your system on our own servers. · Design the optimum preventative maintenance plans for your assets. · Optimize your business processes based on our global best practices

• Bob Qua www.bobqua.com spoke on the Rotary Club NID (immunization) program in India as well as life in present day China. Bob had recently returned from living and working in China and made trips through Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, South Korea and Japan. He has volunteered in limb camps in India and Cambodia as well as the National Immunization Days in India and is presently looking for team members to participate in NID programs in Nov. 2008 in India. He told us what it is like to live and teach in China and what we must do to survive with countries such as China. This generated some very interesting discussions.

• Dave Heaslip on the Masters of Engineering Degree in Design and Engineering;www.admicanada.com ADMI (Advanced Design & Manufacturing Institute) presents an outstanding, award-winning part-time modular format master of engineering program specifically created for engineers working in industry. It is a remarkable, successful partnership of McMaster University, Queen's University, the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, the University of Western Ontario and Ontario Centres of Excellence Inc. The ADMI M.Eng. program was created in response to industry's stated need for engineers with enhanced skills in product design and development, manufacturing technologies and processes, and business management. Key elements of the ADMI program include a focus on industry application, flexible course selection, modular course format and the opportunity to learn from professors, recognized as leaders in their field, from all ADMI partner universities.

• Bob Dell and Don Cowgill of Wide Range Transportation; www.widerange.ca The Wide Range Group of companies provides services in brokerage, logistics, warehousing, fleet, and international freight. Our focus is on Lean Transportation, through application of freight management systems within our facility. Data accumulation is a core function of all divisions and the relationship with our clients. The ability to collect data relevant to the customer’s challenges allows us to design and implement client specific solutions for each challenge while continuing to monitor and measure the success of each implementation. One of the most popular functions of the Logistics division is the ability to reduce client freight costs while providing the management-reporting tools to measure and maintain control of those cost saving opportunities. Many other tools are available to our clients including “Cost Impact Modeling”, “Carrier Performance Monitoring”, “Strategic Decision Making”, “SOTA Industry Technologies”, and “Logistics Tools” for the transportation industry. In summary Wide Range has poised itself to approach customers with the goals to reduce cost, improve flow, and reduce or eliminate waste. Wide Range will continue to embrace the idea that transportation is the process of “getting the right things to the right place at the right time in the right quantity”, thereby benefiting those corporate clients that support the Wide Range group with a distinct competitive advantage.

• John Kohls of TechSolve www.techsolve.org on the Smart Machine Initiative Program; one of the organizations involved in bringing together research organizations, government laboratories, industry, academia, and technology suppliers to integrate advances in intelligent (Smart) machining to enable companies to achieve competitive advantages. The intent of the TechSolve Smart Machine Program is to identify, validate, demonstrate, and disseminate tools that enable industry to characterize, monitor, and improve the accuracy, reliability, and productivity of manufacturing operations, leading to the realization of autonomous intelligent (Smart) manufacturing systems. The mission of this initiative is that it be the framework for the identification, development and transition of technologies that recognize the goal of First Part Correct (FPC) manufacturing. (FPC) is the goal of manufacturing a defect-free component from the first to every part produced. This four year effort will continue the development of technologies focusing on the integration and marriage of individual system technologies into subsystems and finally a fully integrated smart system.

• Otto Schmidt and Jim Szabo on the Student Inventors program. www.AccentonSkills.com and www.InventorsCollege.org The Inventors College Organization inventing workshops have been highly successful after only 1 1/2 years. In three exhibitions, 59 new inventions were shown by elementary and secondary school inventors. Of those, 21 inventions were considered to be of interest to our growing industry/business-based support team whose members attend exhibitions. These people connect education and industry by helping take inventions into the marketplace. A letter of support went directly to the Minister of Education and that department has replied and is interested in hearing more from us. Future plans include corporate sponsorship so the workshops can be offered free of charge to all school boards. New instructors may be hired to expand the number of workshops. A collaborative effort with the Innovations Initiative Co-operative inventing group to create more adult inventors and get more inventions into the marketplace effectively is under way.

• Public Seminar The special Public seminar Tuesday evening focused on the effects technology and manufacturing have on the standard of living of the people and the wealth of the country. It attracted 80 of the general public who seemed very interested and joined into discussions with delegates long after the presentations. The first video Manufacturing Matters by The Association for Manufacturing Technology concentrated on 100 years of Building Global Productivity and showed the effects of technology and manufacturing on our lives in the past 100 years such as Wilbur and Orville Wright’s first flight, Ford’s Assembly System and the Model T, the Computer, Internet, Space Travel, etc. The next video, Touch the Future by the Mazak Corporation was a 20 year projection (from 1999 to 2019) on how life on this earth is expected to be by 2019. It covered Space Stations, Travel (air, land, sea, and rail), Power Generation, Personal Needs (shopping, health care) Information Technology, and Manufacturing Processes.