CEO Kimberlee Humphrey, Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME)

woman who now heads up The Association for Manufacturing Excellence, President and CEO Kim Humphrey.  We asked her three questions that we think cover US industry’s current feverish dilemma.   

Question 1:

As head of a manufacturing operation (AME), what changes have you had to make because of the pandemic?  Do you feel that the mission of AME has changed because of the pandemic?

 CEO Humphrey - The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) is the premier organization for the exchange of knowledge in enterprise excellence. Members come together to explore lean thinking and other enterprise improvement methods, exchange practitioner to practitioner best practices and network in order to advance their careers and improve their organizations. Our mission is to inspire a manufacturing renaissance driven by people-centric leadership and enterprise excellence. AME’s power is in the mentoring relationships that take place among our members. We are the only organization that provides company leaders with educational opportunities to learn leading-edge topics from fellow leaders and practitioners by attending events and through networking. We offer a forum whereby members can stay current with new and developing management and operational techniques. We do this through thought-leadership content, lean assessments and assessor trainings, our annual international conference, and more than 100 summits, workshops, tours, seminars and events each year. AME is led by volunteers from business and academia who relentlessly provide their support, energy and resources to help member companies and associates prosper in today’s challenging global marketplace!

We see the pandemic as an opportunity to help organizations during this changing time – not a change in our mission. In fact, the pandemic has only heightened the need for AME and our thought leadership. We have always encouraged the sharing of best practices and recently, the focus has been on how industries align their manufacturing processes with the new social distancing requirements.

Many companies remained open during this pandemic. U.S. defense contractors, for example, are required to stay open, while making changes to keep their employees safe. In one example, we’ve seen a 26,000 employee workforce go from three shifts to two shifts with several hours in between to limit virus exposure between employees. Obviously, industry’s primary goal is to provide a safe manufacturing environment for their employees.

Agility is very important for lean. Organizations are having to make changes very quickly to support this new norm. In addition, company supply chains are also fragile and facing the same challenges. A lot of things we are doing now will help create the manufacturing renaissance as companies re-shore or near-shore manufacturing capabilities. AME is primed to be able to support these organizations through sharing, learning and growing. Because organizations are not traveling, we now offer increased opportunities for virtual learning. We also have a weekly virtual coffee break when companies can share lessons learned with each other. Finally we have regional consortia made up of local companies working together to solve issues and improve their process, and a Champions Club comprised of senior executives from large and small companies representing a large cross section of industries. The objective of the Champions Club is to provide its members with state-of-the-art management techniques and skill development opportunities that will help them help their companies compete more effectively in an increasingly globally competitive marketplace.

Question 2:  What should US companies work on more now?  R & D, lean manufacturing methods, labor, robotics, IT, supply chain, or something else?

 COVID-19 has altered every one’s way of life and is sending a wake-up call about what the “new normal” will look like moving forward. The digital age will and has changed the way we think, learn, and work. The pandemic crisis has presented opportunities for more sophisticated and flexible use of technology – moving forward people, their devices and organizations will have a powerful COVID-19 legacy. Organizations and their associates are finding new ways to conduct business with virtual face-to-face communication and meetings enabled by Zoom. Tele-working environments and other conferencing applications are providing even more timely and effective communications requiring less wasted time and travel expenses, in most cases. 

The time has come to launch a strategic repurposing of the industrial base along with the need to reconstitute a skilled workforce to revitalize the economy and grow the middle class like what was achieved following World War II. We’ve already had a shortage of workers, so I see this as an opportunity to focus on training a new skilled workforce. 

Question 3:  What do you think will happen next?

I am very positive about what will happen next. We will be near-shoring more jobs in North America, and I feel strongly that there will be much more respect for those workers, and an increased respect for manufacturing jobs.

The biggest result coming out of this is more collaboration. This is a really challenging time for everybody, but we clearly see how well this collaboration is working and we will all come out stronger.