Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Time: 5:30PM to 7:30PM
Location: UAB School of Business, 1150 10th Avenue South, Room 320, Birmingham, Alabama.
Cost: $20

Reflections on Build-to-Order (BTO) Manufacturing: What we learned at the APICS 2006 Conference

Our speaker this month will be Eric P. Jack, PhD, CFPIM, CSCP, Assistant Professor of Management Graduate School at the Management School of Business, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

This presentation will summarize what we learned at the APICS 2006 Conference and will focus generally on BTO manufacturing challenges. The presentation will also discuss the strategic tradeoffs necessary to implement rapid flexible BTO. Then, it will discuss a very interesting example of operational tradeoffs that are being implemented by a manufacturer of semiconductor test equipment. Finally, we will discuss the lessons learned and the applicability of such tradeoffs in other industries.

President's Message

Happy New Year!  As we start the New Year, our January PDM, to be held on Tuesday, January 24th at UAB, is especially appropriate.  Dr. Eric Jack, professor of operations management in the graduate school of business at UAB, will be sharing a tactical explanation of BTO he recently provided to members of the Engineering school that is a continuation of the recent APICS international conference.  Feedback from the conference indicated many of the attendees wanted practical solutions to their real world demand driven challenges.  Dr. Jack will be providing many of those, as well as real life applications of those companies who have successfully addressed BTO in some really exceptional industries not previously known for their BTO capabilities. 

Following January, we're looking forward to a plant tour of the Mercedes assembly plant and will be providing more detail over the coming weeks.  We also are working on having a follow-up presentation from Mercedes to explain some of the challenges and opportunities caused by the addition of a new model to the assembly plant.

The alliance with UAB is in place.  We've made joint visits with Bruce Nichols, the director of executive education at UAB to a number of companies in the area and have others scheduled for this month.  It is very exciting to see the potential this alliance has for the central Alabama business community.

We look forward to seeing you all at our next PDM.