Today six professionals from the Brookings and Watertown manufacturing community completed the Lean + Leadership for Supervisors program, hosted at Bel Brands in Brookings, and facilitated by South Dakota Manufacturing and Technology Solutions (SDMTS).

Participants attended 12 half-day classes, over a period of 6 months.  Modules included Lean Manufacturing Principles, Personal Values, DiSC Profile, Listening Skills, Problem Solving, Root Cause Analysis, Coaching and Influence Skills, Motivation and Delegation, Priority Management, and Handling Difficult Conversations.

The graduation ceremony, held at Bel Brands, consisted of presentations by each participant on their course-long project, which was aligned with both influencing skills and process improvement.  The program is aligned with the principles of Lean Manufacturing from the Toyota Product System (TPS).  Emphasis here is primarily focused on the Lean principle of Respect for People, and also supports the other two principles of Continuous Improvement and Delivering Value to the Customer.

All six graduates were able to show improvements in cost, quality and delivery in their production operations.

Pictured are Austin Koepke (Bel Brands, Brookings), Koby Pust (Bel Brands, Brookings), Sam Slocum (Newava, Watertown), Chris McElroy (Bel Brands, Brookings), Tim Buterbaugh (Bel Brands, Brookings), Mark Kranz (Spartronics, Watertown), and Stuart Giere (class facilitator and Business Advisor for SDMTS).