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September 2017
Newsletter
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President's Message | New Le
aders & Conferences
Hello SEMS friends,
By the time you read this newsletter, our friends at universities
and colleges would have started their Fall semesters, and our friends in the industry are getting ready for the fourth quarter. I also hope many of you had a chance to see the solar eclipse on August 21. I admit that I am an astronomy geek, so I was very intrigued by the event. Out here in San Jose, CA, I witnessed a partial eclipse, and it was fun explaining the magnitude of the event to my inquisitive four- year- old daughter as well as to some of my friends who are not as much into astronomy as I am.
As I was reflecting on the day, it occurred to me that to get their attention and to communicate with them, you really need to empathize with them. As engineering managers and practitioners, it is indeed a great skill to be able to empathize with the stakeholders before we suggest solutions or actions to improve their processes. To read more click here .
Your questions, comments, feedback, and involvement in SEMS are strongly encouraged. Please feel free to contact one or all of us at any time. Thanks!!
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SEMS Says | For aspiring managers, SEMS is the place to be
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Kira Hansen
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I am excited to have been elected as a new board member of SEMS. Let me take this opportunity to tell you a bit about my background and share my vision for the SEMS community.
For the past three years I have been working in the Technical Excellence Program (TEP) with Harley-Davidson Motor Co. as an industrial engineer, quality engineer and production supervisor, moving around to various manufacturing sites in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; York, Pennsylvania; and Kansas City, Missouri.
I was heavily involved in IISE during college, where I served on the student chapter board for two years and continued my membership after graduation. I have been active on three IISE boards, including the Kansas City professional chapter, SEMS and Young Professionals (YP). I was also a SEMS liaison with the YPs, which helped prepare me for my board position with SEMS.
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Gene Dixon
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SEMS Says | A circuitious route brought me to IISE and SEMS.
Back in grad school, Don Tippett, a former U.S. Navy pilot and now a retired University of Alabama-Huntsville professor, told me, "It's about people." That summed up engineering management better than anything else in my studies, work and career. Whether it's ISE/EM, SEMS or any kind of engineers, it really is about people. Whether we are executives, managers or lower level Louies or Louises, it is all about people. We can't ever lose sight of that. All the tools of engineering that we have, all the technologies and all the lean systems are still about people.
Our employees, our peers, our engineering managers, the public, the children of the world - they are our customers, friends, enemies, colleagues, family and strangers. And our work, products and services are all about them. Whether through self-critiquing, coaching engineering managers or teaching future SEMS'ers, people are always on my mind.
Read more about Gene.
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Member Spotlight | Mateus Lima (Universidade Federal Rio Grande do Sul | Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
In this newsletter, we highlight the winner of the SEMS Student Paper Competition sponsored by Missouri Science & Technology University from this year's IISE Annual Conference & Expo.
Mateus Jose do Rêgo Ferreira Lima, a Brazilian postgraduate
student, won the prize.
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Mateus Lima |
His paper entitled "A Methodological Approach for Kaizen Events in Assembly Cells," was influenced by his summer internship for a US manufacturer (Phoenix Products), where he was responsible for improving the efficiency of an assembly line. He applied Lean Manufacturing methodology in a Kaizen event. His paper explored how he adapted the methodological approaches for the performances of the Kaizen events in the assembly lines.
In Brazil, Mateus studied Industrial Engineering at the State University of Maranhão; however, he completed his senior year at Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE). While enrolled in his UG degree, he became a research assistant where he worked on a project investigating the use of discarded tires in his home city of São Luís. At present, he is a Master's student at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. He is working on his dissertation with the aim to complete in the next six months. He has focused on innovation, information & communications technologies, collaborative product development and lean manufacturing. Mateus Lima continued.
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IISE Annual Conference & Expo 2017 | SEMS Student Paper Competition sponsored by Missouri Science & technology University
1st Place: A methodological Approach for Kaizen Events in Assembly Cells by Mateus Lima, Univeridade Federal Rio Grande Sul
This paper proposes a methodology for the planning and execution of a Kaizen event in a manufacturing assembly cell. The method consists in 3 steps each one divided into 2 others: Planning (Project + data collection);
Execution (participants training and in loco analysis) and results (benefits and future propositions)
The methodology was tested in 2015 during a Kaizen event on a manufacturing lighting fixtures firm located in the industrial district of Milwaukee, WI, and applied to a cell whose problem consisted in excessive lead times and high mismatch times between workstations. The results show a successful application of this methodology. The Kaizen event promoted a lead time improvement of 17.8% and a reduction of 91.13% mismatch time between workstations, besides improvements regarding human aspects. In this way, we provide evidence of a powerful tool that can be used to help firms to get their own human resources to solve problems and improve the work environment. Future research consists on the application of this methodology in other manufacturing industries, and beyond this environment such as services and other sectors of the economy, such as the public one.
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Outstanding Management Achievement in Industrial and Systems Engineering Award sponsored by SEMS
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This award recognizes industrial and systems engineers who have created a management climate that has permitted industrial and systems engineering techniques to be utilized and has created outstanding results. Click
here for information on the institute level award sponsored by SEMS.
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Lend a Helping Hand | Call for Volunteers
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