By Kevin Meyer
I just learned that Dave Hogg, one of my oldest friends and mentors in the lean world, has received the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for his work in promoting lean manufacturing. A remarkable, and well-deserved, achievement for a remarkable person.
I first met Dave in the mid-90s when I was struggling with trying to figure out how to turn around a large medical device manufacturing facility and I discovered The Association for Manufacturing Excellence – and lean. Through AME I almost immediately met Dave, and over the years he has instilled in me a passion for the human side of lean – the power of the oft-forgotten respect for people pillar. I've asked him to help train some of the organizations I've been fortunate enough to lead, and has always been available to offer advice. Dave is the person that encouraged me to start sharing my own lean experiences and knowledge, first through Superfactory and then through Lean CEO, Evolving Excellence, and more.
Dave Hogg is well known for the lean consortium model he created and implemented at the High Performance Manufacturing Consortium, which in 1998 was described by MIT's Sloan Management Review as a "leveraged learning network." This model spawned dozens of other successful consortia in Canada and throughout the rest of the world. In 2011 he was inducted into AME's Hall of Fame.
Congratulations Dave.
Dave Hogg says
Hi Kevin,
A very humble thankyou for all our win-win wonderful exchanges over the years. This Medal really caught me off-guard at the very opening of 550-person CDN Mfrs Nationl Lean Conference in Winnipeg. I had no clue.
What really inspired me about this is that it signals that the simple idea of Collaboratively Learning from each other in a organized way is finally gaining traction after 20 years. Heck, LEI named Collaborative Learning as the focus of their Summit in Jacksonville in March. (One sees the words popping up all over in the column-inches these days)
The world is a different place right now for maufactures – and leveragining each others thinking, and resources of all kind has never been more needed — especially for North America’s ‘go forward’ strategy. While it is still hard for so many to come to grips with it (that culture thing again) – those that have, survived the Recession better and are continuing to accelerate.
But a really interesting aspect of this 4-Day Lean Conference in Winnipeg (With keynoters like Liker, Bodek, Koenigsaecker, Price, and Spears) was that it was organized by the leaders of the 7 Lean Consortiums in that one city (No other city in the world has that many). Since 1998, Consortiums from across Canda have worked collaboratively with AME (Association for Manufacturing Excellence) to put on Best Practice learning events focused on networking, and especially Collaborative Learning.
With AME Canada totally focused this year on prep for next year’s 2013 Intl Conference in Toronto… the CME Winnipeg Manitoba Consortia team seized the opportunity compltely and executed a world class Conference. You could see lean thinking processes everywhere – in registration, programming, & at the special Consortia Night. The open exchanges were taken in by a standingroom-only crowd with US and UK folks on hand.
A well-seasoned attendee made my day completely when he earnestly said as I was packing up my booth, “This was not a conference – I have been to many conferences in my life and the was definatly NOT a conference… it was a Consortia Meeting.”
It seems that, at last, the Movement on the move.
Best