The Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership (GBMP) is transforming its annual Northeast Lean Conference into a new virtual learning experience to support Lean practitioners who play critical roles in continuous improvement within their organizations.

Boston, Mass. – GBMP is excited to announce its inaugural virtual conference will take place on October 7-8, 2020. This first-ever virtual conference is an online learning experience that provides important professional education and the opportunity to network and benchmark with other passionate Lean professionals. This virtual event will consist of thirteen total educational sessions including three exciting keynotes and ten breakout seminars. The two-day event will be held completely online so that participants can conveniently participate from anywhere. And registration is now open.

The theme of the 16th annual event is “21st Century Lean”. President of GBMP, Bruce Hamilton, explains:

Lean Thinking was born in the middle of the last century as a compelling alternative to less flexible and more costly mass production schemes. First viewed in the West as a system for continuous improvement suited mainly to large repetitive manufacturing, Lean methods and philosophy are now applied universally in organizations large and small, and in applications ranging from healthcare to manufacturing to service and government. In the first two decades of this century, Lean leaders have adapted the tools of Lean to provide greater customer value across a wide spectrum of applications. Over the same period, the emergence IoT, the Internet of things, has created a remarkable potential to interlink the components of complex systems in ways that are reshaping organizational structure and enhancing productive capability. From learning robots to multi- sensory technology and analytics to AI and digitization of everything and everyone, the Internet of things is ever-present seemingly all-knowing.

In a pre-pandemic world GBMP originally selected its conference theme to address questions concerning the harmonization of Lean and IoT:

How will Lean linking thinking influence the intelligent application of IoT; will it, as some pundits have claimed, produce Lean on steroids?

How will the IoT technology burst impact Lean thinking in the 21st century? Will it enhance or evolve Lean thinking?

Or will the fascination with technical capability eclipse Lean thinking and further diminish the emphasis on human development?

Ironically, Covid-19 challenges of the last several months have highlighted the critical need to speed innovation in delivery of products and services – central themes to both Lean and IoT. In that spirit, GBMP has pivoted our 16th annual Northeast Lean Conference to a virtual approach -- to bring our Lean community together in an engaging but safe environment. The event will feature LIVE presentations by Lean and IoT thought leaders and practitioners, benchmarking in a virtual Community of Lean Lounge, presentation of the Silver Toaster Award, and plenty of networking opportunities with industry experts and peers.

For more information about GBMP please visit www.gbmp.org.