National management conference takes place in Dromoland Castle for first time

LEAN practitioners from all over Ireland attended Shannon Chamber’s Mid-West Lean Network Conference in Dromoland Castle Hotel last week, where an impressive line-up of speakers shared their experiences of maintaining lean momentum in their organisations.

Speakers at this one-day event, organised by Shannon Chamber, sponsored by real-time data management specialist WrxFlo, and supported by Enterprise Ireland, included An Post’s head of talent, diversity and organisation development, Heather Lowry; Limavady, Co. Derry-based Seating Matters’ director, Martin Tierney; Niamh Doherty, director of lean with STERIS and CEO of Ennis headquartered TTM Healthcare, Paula McDonnell. The keynote address was given by Paul Blahyj, a group senior leader and lean manufacturing coach at the Toyota Lean Manufacturing Centre in Toyota Manufacturing UK.

Reviewing the event, Shannon Chamber CEO Helen Downes described the energy in the room as magnetic.

“Attendees were engrossed in the day right through to the final keynote presentation by Paul Blahyj, whom we were delighted to have with us on the day. With customers in 33 countries, and over 8,000 delegates from over 500 companies supported by Toyota’s lean training, we are looking forward to enhancing the collaboration between Toyota and the Mid-West Lean Network," Ms Downes stated.

Previously held at the Analog Devices Building in the University of Limerick, the conference, the sixth annual lean conference held since the network was set up in 2016, moved to the county Clare venue to inject a new dynamism into the day, which it most certainly did.

The feedback from attendees is that it had ‘something for everyone’, from the operator on the floor to the manager striving for continuous improvement.

As well as keynote speakers, 11 projects featured in a street event, sponsored by LBS Partners. This event comprised an exhibition of display boards outlining how company-specific problems were solved using a technique called A3 storyboarding.

The entries were split into two categories, small and medium-sized enterprises and larger Irish or multinational company with the winners selected by attendees using a live online voting system.

Shannon-based Berka Solutions won the SME category and Element Six, the larger MNC category. Both winners received a crystal trophy, as well as visits to Toyota’s Lean Manufacturing Centre, Seating Matters in Limavady and a half-day’s consultancy with LBS Partners.

The main presentations on the day were multi-sectoral, which served to demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, lean is as applicable and beneficial in a service environment as it is in manufacturing.