Lean Practitioners Association
of Saskatchewan
2022 LPAS Speakers
PATRICK ADAMS
What Good Leadership Looks Like
Presenting Virtually
Change is hard. In his talk, Patrick will help you to uncover the truth about your culture, and how simple questions can help you develop a true culture of continuous improvement In his presentation, Patrick will define lean leadership, the skills, behaviors, and actions needed to be a good leader, and discuss how good leaders can promote and support good company culture. . At the conclusion of our time together, participants will understand the difference between a culture of continuous improvement and a culture of continuous “appearance.” Patrick will guide the participants to translate true continuous improvement to their organizations through simple, actionable steps.
Patrick Adams is the author of the best-selling book, Avoiding the Continuous Appearance Trap. Patrick is an internationally recognized leadership coach, consultant, and professional speaker, best known for his unique human approach to sound team-building practices, creating consensus and enabling empowerment. He motivates, inspires, and drives the right results at all points in business processes. Patrick has been delivering bottom-line results through specialized process improvement solutions for over 20 years. He’s worked with all types of businesses from private, non-profit, government, and manufacturing, ranging from small businesses to billion-dollar corporations.
Patrick is also the Host of The Lean Solutions Podcast. His podcast offers business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for lean process improvement and implement continuous improvement projects, cost reductions, product quality enhancements, and process effectiveness improvement.
The Lean Solutions Podcast: https://www.findleansolutions.com/podcast/
Level: Intermediate
About the Speaker:
Canada Post Lighthouse
Engaging People in Excellence
Presenting In-Person
The Prairie Region in Canada Post has 5 major urban plants, 46 delivery depots, and 1,393 offices served by over 12,864 staff. The region covers 3,317,545 square kilometres servicing 3,027,923 points of call every day. It is in this backdrop of how we strive to have operations excellence in the context of the companies scale, business challenges, and historical industrial relations.
This presentation will focus on the evolving nature of the company’s CI journey. There will be discussion on the context of excellence, and on the journey of applying CI principles through our development of the lighthouse program which was started in the Prairie Region. The goal of this work is tied to our vision of a stronger Canada delivered. Of particular note will be the discussion regarding improvements on the regions lettermail machinery which went from 55% performance to 90+% performance in 3 separate sites. The skills demonstrated will be culture activation, team formation, improvement blitz process, huddleboards, regional planning and rollout. We will also discuss lessons learned. There will also be the discussion on program building across a national front.
Presented By:
Himalaya Dong (P.Eng) - Regional Process Engineering Director, Canada Post
Himalaya Dong (P.Eng) is currently serving as Regional Process Engineering Director at Canada Post. His formative lean experience was obtained at Vansco Electronics (now Parker Hannifin). It was there over a course of 7 years where a ground up lean program was developed and started. Vansco and Canada Post were among the first members of the MCME lean consortium in Winnipeg in the early 2000’s. Himalaya has now been part of Canada Post for the last 15 years in in roles of increasing responsibility. The process engineering department is tasked with operations support, continuous improvement, and larger scale projects. He is a registered Professional Engineer, Lean Black Belt Certified, with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Industrial Engineering.
Joshua Ford (P.Eng) - Process Engineering Director, Canada Post
Joshua Ford (P.Eng) is the Process Engineering Director at Canada Post responsible for the Pacific Region – covering BC and Yukon. His first exposure to Lean Six Sigma was through the Lean transformation of several plants while working for Rio Tinto. He spent 6 years working for Rio Tinto, supporting different plants from Labrador to Quebec to northern British Columbia to Dubai. Joshua has now spent 5 years working for Canada Post, in different roles within the Process Engineering and Process Excellence teams, responsible for the team that manages the Lean Six Sigma training nationally for a time before recently moving to his director role. He is a registered Professional Engineer, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certified, and holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Materials Engineering as well as a Bachelor of Science in Physics.
Level: Intermediate
Deveraux Group of Companies
The Resident Experience Cycle
Presenting In-Person
The Deveraux Group of Companies embraces change, leveraging ideas, people and technology to continuously improve operations which enhances the ongoing customer experience. In Deveraux Apartment Communities, Deveraux’s largest customer facing division, the customer or ‘resident’ experience is paramount. With a focus to attract, retain and enhance the lifestyle of residents, the Deveraux team has crafted a Resident Experience Cycle aimed at optimizing every ‘touchpoint’ or interaction that an associate has with prospective or current residents. In this session, the presenters will share an overview of Deveraux’s strategic approach and commitment to embed continuous improvement into its’ culture, while sharing practical examples of how it comes to life in the Resident Experience Cycle and other facets of their business.
Presented By:
Jamie McDougald, Chief Operating Officer, Deveraux Group of Companies
Jamie has been the Chief Operating Officer of the Deveraux Group of Companies since 2013, providing guidance and oversight to a growing professional team across Western Canada. Jamie earned his Master’s in Educational Leadership from Michigan State University and draws on a wealth of senior leadership experience in both private education and real estate to provide expertise in the areas of human resources, marketing, policy development, continuous improvement and strategic planning. Jamie has served as the President and Past President of the Saskatchewan Landlord Association and has been a Board member of Habitat for Humanity Regina, as well as the Canadian Federation of Apartment Associations.
Laurissa Janssen, Director of Leasing and Customer Service, Deveraux Apartment Communities
Laurissa has been the Director of Leasing and Customer Service with Deveraux Apartment Communities since 2019, leading the overarching customer experience strategy in both prospective and existing tenant relations. With a background in public relations, and 20 years of customer service experience, Laurissa has navigated and analyzed the customer journey in a variety of sectors, which include restaurant, retail, finance and housing. Her passion for creating a seamless customer experience cycle, through continuous research and development, has recently contributed to Deveraux Apartment Communities being awarded the 2022 Rental Housing Provider of the Year in both Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Level: Intermediate
Continuous Improvement – Why Culture and the Proper Process/Tools matter
One company’s journey towards becoming leaner, and more efficient
Presenting In-Person
Lean Machine is known to customers for problem solving. With over 35 years of combined production and engineering experience, Lean Machine applies past successes to each new project. Having created everything from sales order systems, full Department of Transportation compliance, and a full-scale lean implementation, Lean Machine knows manufacturing inside and out. The owners love manufacturing; there is nothing more exciting to the Lean Machine team than to put their years of experience to work on a customer's product.
Presented By:
Jeff Bubyn, CPL Production / Quality / CI Manager, Lean Machine
Jeff Bubyn graduated from the University of Regina Engineering in 2000. Right from the beginning, he enjoyed poking holes in people’s products and processes, a lot more than he enjoyed creating things. He has worked in the field of Quality Assurance in many different industries, including networking hardware, medical devices (both hardware and software), intelligent transportation systems, cannabis, and most recently in metal fabrication
In 2015, he realized that it was not enough to find process issues, but also wanted to develop the capability to propose better solutions. Since acquiring his Greenbelt Lean Champion certification, he has learned about the tools, techniques, and thinking necessary to develop a continuously improvement culture, rather than just auditing results and poking holes in them.
In his current position, he leads the continuous improvement initiative at Lean Machine.
Level: Intermediate
James Simon
Lean When it Matters
Presenting In-Person
Culture eats strategy for breakfast, but do you have the plan and processes to achieve the culture your organization desires?
Learn how practicing the right daily behaviours will build your foundation for the culture that will eat any challenge for breakfast.
Presented By:
James Simon, Program Manager, Continuous Improvement, UAH, Cardiac Sciences, KEC at Alberta Health Services
In his current role, James leads continuous improvement at the University of Alberta Hospital (UAH), within Alberta Health Services, the largest integrated health system in Canada.
With almost 2 decades of experience, James Simon has devoted both his personal, and professional life to coaching people, teams and organizations, in understanding improvement methodology, leadership and the people side of change. James is a student of continuous improvement, studying Lean Systems at the University of Kentucky and learning life lessons from his valued mentors along his journey. James has a diverse background in sales, manufacturing, non-profits and healthcare and is a published author, speaker, and entrepreneur. But his true passion will always come out in one-on-one coaching, especially over a good cup of coffee.
Giving back and sharing knowledge are values James embodies through his volunteer work with Innovative Canadians for Change (ICChange), a Canadian global non-profit organization. James is playing a key role in designing and launching ICChange’s most recent initiative in Kenya, an innovative manufacturing space to incubate local startups, including a ceramic water filter production company. James’ skills will also be utilized in coaching and mentoring those involved to guide their success, embrace and learn from their failures.
James has recently founded Headwaters to Change, a coaching and consulting business where he can impact more people and teams to achieve sustainable success both personally and professionally and support organizations in laying the foundation to develop a true improvement culture.
James also has a passion for youth development, support and providing a positive role model, always making time for coaching local basketball, soccer, and boxing.
Despite James’ busy schedule, his family is #1, ensuring he can practice what he preaches both at home and professionally, but you might also find him with a guitar in hand playing with his band or fly fishing a local stream.
Level: Intermediate