My company is planning budgets for the next fiscal year (starting in April) and I'm lucky enough to work for a boss that wants to continue my education. I'm curious if there are any conferences or training sessions out there that the experts (you guys) think are must haves.

I already have a fairly good understanding of all the concepts and have read multiple papers on the different Toyota subjects. I've also been very successful with implementing many of the concepts in the area of the plant that I work in. My company is fairly young in it's lean development.

I'm more interested in hearing directly from people who have been successful with lean. If there is something coming up in the next year that could seriously help to advance my knowledge in the lean arena, I'd be very interested.

Thanks in advance :thanx:

Check out the following websites:

LEAN.org (http://www.lean.org)

and

Productivity Inc. (http://www.productivityinc.com)

I think Lean.org has a conference coming up, but I have never been to one hosted by them so I can't provide any feedback, sorry.

Productivity will typically host two per year (Spring & Fall). The Spring session is usually geared toward Total Equipment Reliability/Maintenance, and the fall session is usually focused on Lean Management and the supporting methods. Having been to, and presented, at the last two Lean Management conferences I have always come away some very useful insights along with some good information. It has been a pretty friendly atmosphere with a lot of good side conversations in addition to the main topics. I still network and share information with a few people from two years ago.

There is also a Lean Accounting Summit (http://www.leanaccountingsummit.com/), but I don't know of anyone who has been, so again I can't offer any feedback.

I also believe that the a couple of the universities below also hold their own summits:

University of Michigan
University of Tennessee
University of Kentucky

I hope that helps....

Wayne

You might check out Industry Week's Best Plants conference or the Association for Manufacturing Excellence conference.

Moderators: I'm under the assumption that I can respond to this post. If this is not appropriate, by all means remove it.

I organize 3 events related to lean.

Lean Accounting Summit (which someone mentioned) www.leanaccountingsummit.com

TWI Summit (achieving standarized work through training within industry methods used by Toyota) www.twisummit.com

Lean and Green Summit (applying lean to environmental concerns - reducing waste in energy, waste-water, fuel, etc.) www.leanandgreensummit.com

Of course, there are many other great conferences out there as well. Check out the Singo Prize Conference, the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. I highly recommend these three!