Patrick Adams  00:00

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. We are excited to have everybody back here on the show. It’s just Andy and I today. So Andy Olrich, is one of our hosts for this season, as you know, and then myself, Patrick Adams. So we’re just going to have a conversation actually about the upcoming lean Solutions Summit. But we’re going to tie in some conversation around the theme, unleashing the power of continuous learning. And then also Andy’s going to be joining us in the US and speaking at the summit. So I’m excited for him to share just a little bit about how he’s been starting to put together some ideas for what he’s going to talk to us about in it when he comes in September. So Andy, welcome back. Excited to see you. I know it’s bright and early on your side of the world. But how you feeling today?

 

Andy Olrich  01:26

Good. I Patrick feeling great. My feeling great. How are you going? Okay, going? Well,

 

Patrick Adams  01:31

yeah, things are going well, the sun’s starting to shine here in Michigan, the snows melted. And we’re looking forward to the summer. So this this actually this recording will be. So we’re recording today. And it is in the beginning of April. So I don’t know when this episode we’ll drop. But we’re still very early in kind of planning the summit. So a lot of I mean, there’s a lot of details that are already in place. But I know Andy, I know you’re still putting together things for you for your speaking engagement. And and we have a lot that we’re putting together with the summit too. So that so some of what we may talk about today might get solidified in the next few months when this episode actually drops. But Andy, no, I’m excited. I’m looking forward to you coming and joining joining us in the US. And if you remind me you’ve been to the US once before, right? Or is this your first time?

 

Andy Olrich  02:26

No. So this will be my my second time to the mainland us. That’s a real thing. I’ve been to Hawaii a couple of times. But yeah, I went 1992 on a cultural exchange tennis program when I was at school. So that’s a while ago now when I stop and think of that. But yeah, we it was Sacramento, la places over the gearing that in that part of the world. So Disneyland Of course, it was fantastic. Great memories. But pretty sure it’s changed a bit but never been to like Michigan that that part of the US. So I’m super excited. It looks beautiful.

 

Patrick Adams  03:04

Yeah, no, I’m excited to have you here in September is a really great time a year. You know, it starts to cool down a little bit. So it’s summertime, it’s not too hot in Michigan, but it gets pretty warm. But September, things start to cool off. And then towards the end of September, beginning of October, which is right about the time when when you’ll be here, the leaves start to turn colors. And that’s really my favorite time of the year, the temperatures a little cooler. And we have so many trees and you drive up the lake shore, Lake Michigan and Lake Shore. And you can just see these just gorgeous views where you know, you see forever and all the trees are all these different colors. And you get the big lake there. And it’s just it’s a it’s just beautiful time of year to be in in Michigan. So I’m excited for you to come in and experience some of that with us. In fact, one of our team building excursions at the summit is a trip out on Lake Michigan, we’re actually we’re going to be in Lake Muskegon Lake on a boat together. And there’s going to be some live music and some appetizers and drinks. And we’re actually going to go see a lighthouse and a couple other things there. So I know you and I chat a little bit about that. That’ll be kind of exciting for you to be able to experience that along with all of our participants, it’s actually included in the regular price of the summit. So it’s one of the team that did both we have two team building excursions and that’s one of them. And the other one is a sociable which we’ll we’ll talk a little bit more about that but that’s included in your ticket and everyone’s ticket so that you know that’s not an add on or anything like that. We want the team we want people to come bring their teams and experience a really, really amazing summit and have a little bit of team building at the same time too. So

 

Andy Olrich  04:52

yeah, I have been googling like mad around images around Lake Shore and place is like that. And it’s, it’s going to be great. I’m going to learn lots learn learn lots, which is the point of the summer, but it’s also going to be a bit of a holiday. So I’m really excited about that. Nice.

 

Patrick Adams  05:11

That’s great. How long is the flight coming over?

 

Andy Olrich  05:16

On average, the flights are about 26 hours in total, if the layovers and everything go well, so yeah, that’ll be okay. I’ve given myself a date a couple of days either side to to adjust and back again, with the different times and things like that. So, hey, cruising around like Michigan, that will be certainly worth it.

 

Patrick Adams  05:37

Yeah, absolutely. It’s going to be great. And I just kind of for those that are listening in, you can’t see the screen, but I just shared the the website, lean solutions, summit.com, you can go and see the website. But before we dive into kind of just talking about, you know, some of what you’re planning to present, I wanted to just talk a little bit about the theme of the summit, which is unleashing the power of continuous learning. Now, we, we chose this theme, just before last year Summit. And I think it’s an important piece for all of us in the continuous improvement world. Because a lot of what we’re doing as we’re developing true cultures of continuous improvement is we’re developing people, we’re developing learning organizations, organizations that are that where they shouldn’t be, there’s no fear based culture, right, where people should be free to experiment to try new things to learn, right. And that’s how we learn by trying new things. So I don’t know what your thoughts are on this theme, you think this will be a powerful theme for for the event for participants for the speakers.

 

Andy Olrich  06:54

100%. And what I like about Lean and the way that it’s approached and how we talk about it with our guests is there’s no expert level achieved, right? I always feel I feel vulnerable in the moment when I’m when I’m learning new things about this and going in and talking to others about it. But also it gives me confidence to know that, hey, you don’t have to have all the answers the answers. And it’s about continuously learning, no matter where you’re starting from or where you’re at. So I love it. And it really connects well with me around this is it’s all about learning and, and within the organization I work in, I am directly aligned with the learning and development team. And it’s seen as a learning and development program within an organization that delivers improvements as well. So that was a spot on theme for me and I connect with it well, so yeah, it’s good. Ya know, I’m

 

Patrick Adams  07:51

looking forward to it. I I see myself as a lifelong learner. I mean, I am just I love to learn. I mean, in fact, right now, um, I actually just kicked off. Well, I guess it’s been a couple months now. But like, I I’m working on my private pilot’s license, like I, it’s, it’s a huge learning curve. For me, I talked about this and a few episodes back, but I have the, you know, the train, the trainer is in the seat next to me, and he’s got his own yoke and pedals. And I feel like I’m six or 15, again, you know, with a driver, instructor next to me with their own foot pedals to hit the brake. And it’s, it’s been, it’s been a huge learning curve for me, something I’ve always wanted to do. And, and it’s, it’s exciting. But I see myself as a lifelong learner, you know, in a lot of different ways. And that’s why this is this theme is so important to me, because I am coming to the summit to learn me personally, I want to learn and I know, the other keynotes, the other speakers, the other workshop leads, participants, everyone is, you know, we’re sharing our expertise. But we’re also coming to learn as well. And so, so it’s gonna be exciting. I learned a ton at the last summit, from a lot of really, really great speakers. And this year, I’m looking forward to hearing you speak. And so let’s talk about that. Let’s, let’s talk about the, as you’re starting to kind of frame up what you want to talk about. I know that you’re you, all of us would love to do some hands on stuff. I mean, most of us lean practitioners use activities and all of our training. And I know one of the things you were thinking through was an activity that many of us in the Lean world are familiar with, but you are thinking about putting a an Australian spin on it. Is that Is that right?

 

Andy Olrich  09:57

Yeah, so I am too I’d love to be hands on and very visual with the learning. So there is a, there’s some activities that in the toolkit around if you’re going to do training with people in lean or continuous improvement, yeah, so there’s an activity there that’s around visual workplace and standards and quality customer voice of the customer. And as with the learning piece on the same, I’m coming over there to learn, but there’s some things and ways that we approach I think down here uniquely, that we can tie into what may be a common practice oil seen before type thing. So it’s around the teams, I’ve got some activities with, with T shirts, for example, we use that as the medium to, to get the hands on and, and start to move the thinking and outcomes. But there are some subtle differences down here that the more I talk to people around the world, and then we sort of bounce off each other is there any differences, there’s some things unique about Australia, the culture, and some of the approaches to lean and continuous improvement down here that I think will be new to many of the people there regardless of where they are on their learning journey. So that’s really the big idea is, look, let’s do something that’s fun and hands on and maybe seems familiar. However, there’ll be moments throughout that, where’s our, okay, well, that’s, that’s a bit different. I don’t call it that, or we’ve I haven’t done it like that before. And tying that into, hey, we’re all trying to get to a similar place using lean and those principles and things that we think we know about it. But there’s different ways or we can use those common common threads, but also those points of difference actually, can be powerful. So I’m trying to obviously, maybe not going to be in the majority being an Australian at the summit. So I want to try and tie in a few things here. So people can learn a bit more about not only how we do it down here, but maybe some things about the place in our culture, because I absolutely want to take the same away from the groups, but also in those moments, but also at the summit. Because, yeah, we do kind of do things a bit differently, depending on where we are. So that’s, that’s the general gist of it, Patrick. So

 

Patrick Adams  12:06

one in you know, we talk about this a lot, but Lean is relevant at any time, in any industry, in any place in the world, right. I mean, we might talk different, we might use different activities or different words for different things. But at the end of the day, continuous improvement is something that is universal for all of us. And, and that’s why I love what we do. And I love I love that that the fact that you’re coming, you know, we have T low shorts coming from Germany, you know, we have we have people coming from the UK, we have people coming from Ireland, you know, there’s going to be people from all over the world that are going to be at the summit, and sharing experiences that again, like you said, are similar, or maybe we’ve heard them or or experienced them in, in our own country and our own culture, but to hear it from somebody that’s you know, down under or, you know, from Germany, or wherever it might be and see how they’re utilizing some of these same tools to to improve their their processes is just like a whole whole nother experience for all of us. And again, that’s, that’s I’m super excited for the summit, it’s gonna be a lot

 

Andy Olrich  13:21

of fun. Yeah, and I haven’t think about it. So we’re drawing it, we’re talking about it sort of on a global scale at the moment. But I mean, just within a state. Here in Australia, if you go to different organizations or different industries, there’s that there’s a little bit of that there as well, it’s this particular organization does that does this but they call it that, or they apply it in this way. So another that’d be a cool thing for us to kick around the room, I think is okay, we’ve we’ve done this, or we do it this way, or this is how we presented or things like that. So I mean, it could it’s it is a it’s intended to be like a TED talk, type approach. However, it won’t be one way delivery. And me just directing the room. Like it’s real. As I said, it’s really about us all learning together. And I think I think there’ll be some fun in there as well. That’s how I, how I operate. So I really want it to be fun and a learning experience. And we’ll just as we do it, we’ll see how far we get.

 

Patrick Adams  14:19

Well fun is one of our five values at lean solutions. And so everything that we do, you know, we make sure that we we are having fun while we do it. So the Lean Solution Summit is is no different. So that’s why, you know, a big piece of what we do is, you know, obviously we’re here we’re going to be there to learn. But we’re also going to have a ton of fun. In fact, I’m going to go to the website here. I’m going to actually head over to the the team building excursions we already hit on that briefly and just talk you know, just a little bit about one of those team building excursions I’ll expand on that here just a minute and and then we’ll get into you know, A couple of the other things that are happening at the summit, some really, really great keynote speakers, some great workshops. Just some, some grid tours. We’ll talk here about the tours here in just a minute. And see the website is running a little slow here. There we go. All right. So teambuilding All right, here we go. So the boat cruise itself, Aqua star Boat, boat cruise, so we’re actually going to from the conference location, so the Conference Center, it’s actually a newer conference center, right on the lake shore, in West Michigan, in the city of Muskegon, which is kind of an up and coming city here in Michigan. It’s really cool. Anybody that that attended the conference last year, we had so much fun because you walk out of the Conference Center, and you’re in this little downtown area, and they have these amazing restaurants and just really cool vibe. There’s actually one restaurant that’s inside of an ice and a big ice arena. And that’s, that’s connected and right next door. So you literally walk into the restaurant, you’re sitting at the bar at your tables, and you’re watching hockey, you know, out on the out on the ice, right in the arena. It’s kind of cool. So it’s a really cool city, a really nice area. But the other cool thing is being right on the Lakeshore like this, we’re going to want to walk across the street basically to the dock and we’re going to get on the Aquastar and go throughout Muskegon Lake, we’re going to check out a couple other cool historical vessels out there in the water. There’s a world war two ship. There’s also the Milwaukee clippers out there. There’s a submarine that’s in the in the bay. So all kinds of cool stuff. And then we have a couple lighthouses Michigan is known for our lighthouses. And then we’ll get out on Lake Michigan as well and check out the coastline, which is you know, there’s dunes up and down the coastline. Beautiful sunset right off of Lake Michigan. They’re just a beautiful area. So this is a team building excursion, it actually happens on September 25th, which is the second day of the summit. So the 24th 25th and 26th. On the evening of the 25th. When we get done, we’ll actually be heading out to our team building excursion. So this is one choice. Again, it’s included in the ticket, which is really cool. And then the second one is the social bowl. We did this one last year and it was it was a big hit. There were appetizers there drinks. There’s a bunch of different entertainment options there. They have, there’s a beer garden, duck pin, bowling, arcade games, oversize yard games, all kinds of cool stuff. So again, it’s just a great team building opportunity. This is something that we want to we want teams to come we want you to learn together. We also want you to have fun together. And we’re going to do we’re going to do it all with everybody. Right. So Andy, you’ll be there. I think you were looking forward to the boat cruise.

 

Andy Olrich  17:57

I am but I’m intrigued. Let’s talk about differences. What is duck pin bowling?

 

Patrick Adams  18:03

Good question. Good question. So duckpin bowling is it’s actually fairly new for me too. But basically it’s like these mini bowl. You know bowling, right you guys bowl. Right? So just maybe, I don’t know. Just making sure but

 

Andy Olrich  18:21

10 pin bowling we call it Danny. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

 

Patrick Adams  18:24

So it’s basically these mini bowling lanes. They’re probably maybe eight feet long, maybe a little bit longer, eight to 10 feet long. And then the bowling pins are fairly small and you have a bowling ball that’s like, you know, I don’t know, two, three inches, just a small little bowling ball. And so it’s like, like, it’s like mini bowling. And then it resets for you in and just like normal bowling. You score at the same way and everything. Yeah.

 

Andy Olrich  18:57

Okay, they go. I’ve learned something. Well, yeah, I think yeah, we have like a, an arcade here called timezone. And they have this like little strings on these on the pins once you knock them down to just kind of raises up a little bit and then they come back down. It isn’t any type of bowling sort of thing that duck in bowling. Thanks, Mike. Yeah,

 

Patrick Adams  19:14

it’s fun. It’s fun. We did it last year. And I remember there we some of the teams get pretty competitive. So then then they start challenging each other. And then you know, people have a few drinks and you know, but it was a it was a lot of fun. It was a it was a great time. So, so that’s those are a couple of the team building activities that you can look forward to, you know, when you come to the summit. And, you know, just a couple other things that I want to mention, I mentioned that the summit is the 24th 25th and 26th of September. The, the 24th is actually our check in day. So there’s an it’s an add on, if you want to do a tour, or if you want to do there’s also we had a request last year for individuals that you know, are new to lean, you know, process improvement, lean continuous improvement. They’re beginners, this is new for us, a lot of students actually come to the summit as well. So they’re asking for, can we get like a lean boot camp or we you know, we’re doing a lean Yellow Belt certification on day one. So people that don’t know anything about Lean can come on that first day, they can get brought up to speed with what Lean is a little bit of the background basics, tools, techniques, principles, so they can get that on day one, or they can also choose to do a tour. And we’ll talk about the tours here in just a minute. And then we have the evening of the 24th is our panel discussion. So our panel discussion is with all of our keynote speakers we’re going to talk about here next. But the panel discussion is the evening that evening of the 24th. And we have some really, really solid discussions in our keynotes are amazing. So the conversations are going to be great. And after the panel discussion, we actually are having a cocktail hour. So we’ll go into the vendor area, we’ll have, you know, 20 plus vendors that have some really, really great tools and add ons for a lot of companies that are working on their continuous improvement or their Lean journey. So we’ll have our cocktail hour with appetizers and drinks, which again, are all included. And we’ll have some great conversations and a lot of fun on that Tuesday night. And then Wednesday, we have our first keynote. And our keynotes I have shown here on the screen, but TiVo Schwartz, as I mentioned earlier from Germany. He just published a book with Dr. Jeff liker, who was also involved in our summit, and with one of our tours, and they just published the book giving wings to her team, which is a story of an individual deploying Toyota kata into their organization. And Tila was just on the podcast not that long ago. So he’ll be one of our keynotes. The amazing Katie Anderson, you guys know Katie and I are good friends. And she wrote the foreword for my book, I did a trip to Japan with her this last year, we’re doing another one in 2025. Sidenote, if you’re interested, reach out to me. But we’re heading back to Australia or back to Australia, back to Japan in next year, spring of 2025. So Katie, is the author of learning to lead leading to learn, which was just just given the Shingo publication award. So congratulations to Katie on that, she’ll be keynoting She’s amazing. If you don’t know her, she’ll, she’ll definitely knock your socks off. And then Billy Ray Taylor, is just my gosh, man, if you haven’t heard Billy talk, he’s the author of the winning link. He is just crazy, amazing. The stories that he tells the emotion that he brings to the stage is just, it’s uncanny. It’s, you know, you’ll be crying, and you’ll be laughing. He does an amazing job at just bringing some of his own personal stories into the, you know, to the stage and to talk about transformation and the challenges and the successes that come with it. So and then obviously, I’ll be on stage as well. You know, really just helping to emcee the event and talking, speaking on a couple of different things, leading a couple activities, having fun, and that kind of thing. So any, what do you think about the lineup here, Andy?

 

Andy Olrich  24:24

Very impressive. I will say very intimidating, as well, for someone like me, I just yeah, there’s some power in the room there. That is fantastic. And I just wanted to step back a little bit in. And what I like about this summit is the you talked about the Lean boot camp or for people to come along and learn for the first time. That is something that’s a little bit unique, because sometimes people look at these things and go Well, I don’t even know anything about this. I’ll go in there. It’s all going to be experts, and they’ll be talking in some language that I won’t understand. Yeah, maybe not that one. So looking at this this year, that first day is if you No nothing welcome. And we’ve we’ve got these people who are coming along to share their learnings and stories. I think that’s a pretty good accelerated first step to get in and be inspired. Yeah, not so much about the technical pieces, but the journeys, the stories, the emotion that the real stories. I think that’s a that’s an excellent way to kick it off. But I’m really looking forward to we interviewed TLO the other day, that episode dropped fairly soon, and I’ve got his book. And it’s just such an exciting time for me too. I’m really pleased I got on this lane, bus, right, because now it’s, it’s coming together quite well. And I’m going to get to meet these people in person and me going there to present some things that hopefully, I might, in some way might be able to share some learnings with them. And that’s the type of people that are as they will be. They’ll be open and seeking that. So the panel, the workshops, and everything, it’s it’s exciting. So well done. Yeah,

 

Patrick Adams  26:02

it’s gonna be a lot of fun, for sure. And you also, were able to interview not just tillow but also Katie, right? It Yeah.

 

Andy Olrich  26:12

Yeah, she was down here. And I was going along to her workshop anyway, because I bought a book in 2020, like when it first came out, groups of locked down, and it was such to an eye opener and really, really well pulled together around. She knows story. And so I got to see Katie, and I thought, well, she’s down here. And she used to live here as well, a time ago. So yeah, we jumped on the couch and Hatton and did a couple of interviews and about one and a part two, and that’s going to drop really soon, this month in April. She is as I said, pure energy. She brings the fun to the room. And it was such a great workshop that she ran and she does all over the world. So it’d be great to catch up with Katie again. She’s lots of fun.

 

Patrick Adams  26:57

Awesome. Well, obviously in addition to our keynotes, we have many other great breakout speakers and workshop leads Andy you’re one of them. Dave Kip, and he was with us last year actually leads a great facilitation workshop, and Heather scavo. From here in West Michigan, she’ll be actually sharing a case study with a company that she worked with that she was actually a Operations Manager and she’ll be sharing a case study. Shane will be coming in from Nebraska. He’s one of our Lean solutions. Podcast hosts, Shane’s amazing he’s he’s great. Got some really good stories. He’s worked for the state of Nebraska for a number of years. So he’ll be great Ruth Archer, coming back again. She was with us last year. Sharing alongside Deb Lev and tross are on lean in higher ed. So Deb comes from the University of Michigan along with Dr. Jeffery liker, and Ruth is up at at Northern Michigan. And then Dan, for me, she actually talked to us. I mentioned a few stories about Dan, in one of our previous podcast episodes. He was the plant manager at a company here in Grand Rapids and led an amazing Lean transformation there and for when you talk about servant leaders Man, this guy, he’s he’s up there. So he’s great. And he’ll be there. Alex Vermeer, as Alex worked right alongside Paul Akers in implementing to second lien we just had him on the podcast not that long ago as well. He’ll be coming up he actually leads operations for a large oil and gas global company. So he’s, you know, powerful speaker Chad birther. He was with us last year. Amazing speaker just released a book. He’s he’s doing some amazing work when it comes to strategic deployment in organizations. So he’ll be one to see for sure. We already talked about the amazing Andy all Rick here sharing some amazing stuff. So I’m excited for you, Andy. Nigel Thurlow. Now Nigel is going to be here along with Turner. They just released a book actually have it on my on my table table here the flow system playbook that John was talking about that last year when he was here. Well, Nigel is going to come now he’s going to be with us along with John Turner. And and actually, I believe Nigel might even be keynoting. So I think there’s still again, we’re still early in the planning phases for the summit at this point. So some of that will probably be worked out by the time this this publishes. But so those are that’s that’s just the beginning. This doesn’t even list all of our speakers and workshop leads yet. John Dyer is coming back to to do the red bead experiment, and I’ll talk about him here in a minute. Because we’re going to talk about the the World Championship, the lean World Championship that’s going to be part of the summit this year. John Tyler is going to be helping to lead that. So we can chat about that here in just a minute. But what do you think about the lineup here? Any thoughts? Yeah,

 

Andy Olrich  30:08

really great, great mix. And I liked it. There’s higher ed, there’s oil and gas, there’s all of these different industries and experiences. So it’s not as the struggle can be real for somebody who practices or is coaching others is it’s not just about the manufacturing or the origins obviously there that’s something that I still come up against the times and it’s, it’s going to be fascinating with with their again, lived experiences, real stories, not just on booksmart. I read it in a book somewhere, and he’s what I think we should do, it’s, it’s the real deal and the opportunity to talk to them after their presentations and keynotes as well. That’s where I find the power and the networking. So great job, as I said, kind of intimidating lineup for someone like me, I’m there with next Nigel Thurlow and people like that. So I I just really excited and it’s going to be fantastic.

 

Patrick Adams  31:00

Absolutely. It’s going to be fun. Two more things I want to talk about real quick, the the tours, and the competition. So you can see here on the screen. Tour number one is so there’s two tours that you can choose from these are add ons. If you’re interested, they do happen on the 24th. And then the summit begins that night of the 24th with the panel discussion. So you can choose to do the the the yellow Yellow Belt certification or one of these two tours during the day, and then be back for the panel discussion in the evening. And then the summit happens the next two days but the first two are is Menlo innovations and Zingerman’s mail order. These are two two locations you do you do not want to miss out on if you’ve never been to to these before. Menlo is amazing. The group they’re at Menlo, they call themselves Menlo nians. They, they are creating an intentional, joyful culture and they do some great work with Visual Management. They’re just just a place that’s different than any other I’ve ever been in a really cool place to go visit and learn about what it means to have a joyful work culture and then Zingerman’s. The cool thing about Zingerman’s. We actually have Dr. Jeff liker, and Mike rather, both are going to be part of this tour. And I believe Mike is going to be in the morning and Jeff is going to be in the afternoon. So you’ll hit one or the other on this tour, depending on which which bus you’re on. But they’ll be there to lead the group through some q&a has some discussions about what you see at Zingerman’s. Zingerman’s doing some amazing work from from a product perspective and just from continuous improvement in general a lot of good visual management. But they they do some pretty cool stuff there and you just can’t miss this Dr. Jeff Laker and Mike rather one or the other, you’ll you’ll be able to rub elbows and have some conversations with one of them too, during that tour. So that’s a pretty cool add on right there. For sure.

 

Andy Olrich  33:14

Absolutely. The toy other way, the books just if anybody’s thinking of or has been reading up on this stuff, that the names that are just getting dropped here. It’s it’s an all star lineup. So I’ll definitely be a blast on it’s gonna be

 

Patrick Adams  33:30

it’s gonna be a great, great time for sure. The other two are is is right down the lake or Well, it’ll be West Michigan based tour. Coastal Automotive is just they’re an up and coming. I mean, they’re doing some crazy good stuff. They just implemented an amazing Kanban system at their facility. They got some great visual management, the culture there is just crazy amazing. You talk with the director of operations Toby curry, and he’ll just blow your mind on the kinds of things that they’re doing to develop a high performing engaged work culture, they developed high performing work teams, they blew up their entire plant, because they were set up in these different departments. And they created these kind of these high performing work team areas where you know, instead of being in a separate department, now they have these teams that work together. And it’s it’s crazy amazing. So that’d be a cool tour. And then dematic was with us last year, they lead and obey a workshop, they’re actually going to be doing a tour at their facility. They have an AGV factory, as well as a really really cool cutting edge cutting edge automation area where they’re showing off some of their warehouse automation solutions, which are pretty amazing as well. So that’ll be a great tour to be on and it’d be hard to choose between the two of them Andy has any any any thoughts? When you want to do You

 

Andy Olrich  35:01

will from uh, you know, like I talked about Jeff liker and Mike, Mike rather, is that the year? Definitely the the tour around the Dometic is if that’s how you pronounce it, sorry, but yeah, this. Can I do 4444 for visits? I don’t know. And I think either either one will be will be very engaging, and there’ll be lots of great things. You’re lucky to have these places close by, right? Yeah. Yeah, that’s one thing. I’m taking aways. It’s happening in Michigan.

 

Patrick Adams  35:34

It’s happening. Yeah, in fact, next year, and we thought about shifting to the other side of the state out near Detroit, because there’s a lot of really good stuff happening out there, too. But we’ll see. We’ll see how that goes. For sure. But yeah, we have a lot of really good stuff going on. I mean, you can see here, you know, three networking days for inspirational keynotes, over 10, breakout sessions, over eight workshops, great tours, just some just some amazing stuff. The last thing I want to mention, before we kind of wrap up, Andy is the Lean World Championship. This is a competition, where teams, teams of eight are going to be competing against each other. And if anyone is familiar with Lean frontiers does as a skill point workshop, and sometimes you see them listed out on LinkedIn, I would also recommend that if anyone is interested, we’ve put fliers out last year at the summit for the skill point. But it is this the Steve on on Sweeney does a lean in environment simulator. So Le s is what they call it, but they have this this amazing simulation, where you’re building these basically these Work Chat, these truck chassis, these kind of mini truck chassis, he’s on conveyors, well, Steve is actually bringing his simulation to this to the summit, there’s going to be many simulations in all different areas of a room, and these teams are going to compete against each other to create the best possible output or outcome for so they’re going to basically start with, you know, a really terrible, they’re going to watch, they’re gonna observe a really terrible setup, right? No standard work, lots of quality issues a lot, you know, terrible output, they’re going to be able to see this, and then the participants at the summit are actually going to have the opportunity to observe and watch these teams, while they’re working, like live live, they’re working to improve each of these processes. So everything that they do has to be made visual. So they’ll have all of their experiments up on the wall, they’ll have their their maps there, they’re planning their spaghetti diagrams there, they’re problem solving will all be made visual, and it all has to happen live in visual for all the participants of the summit. So no, I’ve never seen anything like this done before it actually, John Dyer helped kind of create this idea. And there’s going to be judges. So John is one of the judges. And each of the teams will be evaluated not just on the output, but not just on the quality not just on output, but also on how their work, how they work as a team, and how they actually are able to come up with the solutions that they come up with. Not only that, but each of the teams has to have a frontline employee on the team. This isn’t these aren’t just, you know, professional expert process improvement consultants that are on these are these are, you know, managers team leads frontline employees that are coming together on this team. And they’re going to compete for the championship. So I’m, I’m super excited about this. It’s going to be the highlight of the of the summit for sure. I

 

Andy Olrich  38:57

laugh because I can just, I can just think about some of the people I know down here that are in this space or are going to be like if we if we had to compete against each other in. But I think Steve and John For example, if they’re managing the room there that they’re going to have their work cut out for them at times, I think because they’ll it’ll I think it’ll go a bit crazy in parts and people will be competitive. And yeah, if you didn’t, maybe, I don’t know whether it’s before or after the duck pin bowling. Might be a little bit of that all I missed it last night and I’m gonna get you today. It was I just the Lean World Championship. I am quite excited. My mind is going in a few different directions for how but it’s going to be really really fun and engaging but also be here when you put some some people in split the team’s up a little bit. I just think that’s going to be really good to watch. That’ll go down. So bring it on. Well,

 

Patrick Adams  39:53

I’ll tell you what, Andy, for those that are listening in that say man I would that sounds really fun. I would love to do that. If you don’t worry, if you don’t have your team of eight, that’s okay, show up to the summit. Because when you get there, you’ll be asked if you want to be part of a team that we’re going to put together of participants at the summit. So and then obviously, once those spots are full, they’re full. But when you get there and you check in you, you could have the opportunity to be on one of those teams. So, you know, just look forward to that.

 

Andy Olrich  40:27

I think that’s great. Yeah. And it will be super hands on I’ve seen Steve’s les Nico, the simulator have seen some some things, and we interviewed him as well on the podcast. And that is, that’s going to be great. It’s going to

 

Patrick Adams  40:42

be amazing, for sure. Well, Andy, we got to wrap this up, man. You we I’m sure we could talk about a lot of other crazy amazing things that are gonna happen at the summit. But I’m excited for you to fly over and and be part of the summit this year. It’s going to be amazing. It’ll be great just to sit down and have a chat with you in person. And yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing you and for you to be in here and presenting and us being able to learn from you. So appreciate thanks, fine,

 

Andy Olrich  41:13

and well done for pulling this all together. I am really excited to about the getting to meet you guys in person. It’s been it’s been a few years since we first connected on LinkedIn. And here we are now. And yeah, it’s it’s it’s going to be great to get in and be able to chat not over the airwaves and get to meet all these great people and in person and learn and and I just think whereas where am I going to be like, what’s my head going to be like when I’m on the plane back home, there’s just going to be that many things coming on. And I’ll get back to work and people think of Yeah, I could just see me jumping in my skin. So pretty sure that’s gonna happen. Thanks, Mike and cowboy. Absolutely.

 

Patrick Adams  41:53

Well, if anyone’s listening in, go to if you’re listening in and you’re interested in the summit, we want you to come anywhere in the world, you’re invited, if you’re if you’re listening to this podcast, and you hear this and you you heard something that we talked about today that interests you, check us out at lean solutions summit.com We’ll put a link to that in the show notes, lean solutions. summit.com, you can register. I’m not sure if earlybird pricing will still be open when this episode drops. But there’s definitely lots of different ways especially you bring in your whole team, just shoot us an email, there’s some discounted pricing for group, you know, group pricing, things like that their student discounted pricing. Also some of our track partners, including the University of Arkansas, who’s our higher higher ed track partner, though they have some discounted tickets as well. So you could if you you know, once you know who the track partners are in your industry, you can reach out to them and get some discounted tickets. So again, we would love to have you here. Don’t don’t allow money to be the reason you don’t come. Just give us a call. Let’s figure it out. We’d love for you to be here in attendance in person. It’s going to be a great event and a great time of sharing and networking and just having fun together. So you’re invited lean solution summit.com. We hope to see you here, register right on the website and we’ll see you in September.