LVC Consulting Client Garners Lean Award

Association for Manufacturing Excellence Names
Ventana Medical Systems Best Company Winner for 2007

The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) honored Ventana Medical Systems with its Best Company award for 2007. According to AME, Ventana exhibited company-wide lean thinking, even in its approach to the customer and in R&D. This, in addition to the Culture of Accountability to which every employee must commit, distinguished Ventana among the year’s recipients.

Ventana has had associations with LVC Consulting team members since 2005 when Mark Oakeson was personally invited to participate with the internal Ventana team on operational strategy.

“Most of my internal team was already well-versed in lean basics,” said TJ Johnson, former Senior Vice President of Operations and Corporate Development for Ventana. “I needed someone who could provide strategic value chain support.”

Johnson found that person in Mark Oakeson. “Mark brought broad experience, strong interpersonal skills and the ability to see the big picture. And he put these into action, from the shop floor to the executive suite.”

Kendall Hendrick, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing Operations, echoed Johnson’s comments, stating, “Mark is insightful, clearly seeing through the minutiae to opportunities for improvement. He deals very well with organizational boundaries and barriers, pushing change through.”

In particular, Hendrick points to a five-year manufacturing strategy Oakeson helped shape in September 2006. “By prioritizing investments to support growth over next five years, Mark helped us to reduce the cost of growth and move toward our next visionary state.”

Oakeson’s impact continues to be felt at Ventana, lauded by the AME manufacturing excellence review team for “a commitment to continuous improvements over a period of time, which has led to significant gains in operational performance.”

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LVC Consulting Shares Groundbreaking Lean Approach

Founder, Mark Oakeson, Speaks at Lean Wave Regional Conference
LVC Consulting founder and senior partner, Mark Oakeson, conducted an advanced workshop on a
novel lean concept – reducing the cost of growth – at the Lean Wave Regional Conference,
June 9-11, 2008, in San Diego.

According to conference sponsor, Association for Manufacturing Excellence, the hands-on workshops were designed to introduce new and innovative ways to apply lean tools and thinking into organizations, and to provide insight into new creative ways to tackle difficult challenges. Mr. Oakeson was one of the international lean thought leaders invited to present.

The workshop, “Reducing the Cost of Growth through Lean” taught attendees how to maximize growth potential while simultaneously increasing profit margins and returns on capital. This marks a paradigm shift in lean implementation – from simply reducing waste and improving quality on the manufacturing floor to actually driving enterprise-wide sales and market share growth. Mr. Oakeson presented several case studies on how LVC Consulting has guided companies through the process.

For more information, visit the Lean Wave Conference website at http://ameregionalconferences.org/sanDworkshops.html

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