Remaining Competitive in Times of Global Uncertainty Thursday, June 25, 2020 9:30am–2:30pm
AGENDA 9:30AM
Event Starts
9:30AM
Exhibitors & Networking
10:00AM
Main Stage Program (Part 1) Including: Jan De Silva (Toronto Region Board of Trade) and Tony LaMantia (Waterloo EDC)
10:35AM
Interactive Engagement Break Including: Exhibitors in the Expo, Networking, and Live Q&A Sessions with Speakers from Part 1 of the Program.
11:15AM
Main Stage Program (Part 2) Including: Ray Fischer (KPMG), Bill Ciprick (BDC), Jeremey Koch (Polycon Industries/Magna International), and Dan Lawson (Blount Canada Ltd.)
12:05PM
Interactive Engagement Break Including: Exhibitors in the Expo, Networking, and Live Q&A Sessions with Speakers from Part 2 of the Program.
12:50PM
Main Stage Program (Part 3) Including: Charlene Hofbauer (Workforce Planning Board of Waterloo Wellington Dufferin), Brian Watson (Conestoga College), Caleb Connor (ATS Automation), and Andrew Dekker (Demtool Inc.)
1:45PM
Interactive Engagement Break Including: Exhibitors in the Expo, Networking, and Live Q&A Sessions with Speakers from Part 3 of the Program.
2:30PM
Event Ends
SPEAKERS Jan De Silva, President & CEO of the Toronto Region Board of Trade – one of the largest and most influential business organizations in North America. Jan brings to the role more than 14 years of international CEO experience building ambitious, highgrowth organizations. Anchored in her leadership is her belief in the power of economic development to lift communities. Prior to joining the Board, she served as CEO of Sun Life Financial’s Hong Kong and Mainland China businesses. Jan also served as Dean of Ivey Asia for Ivey Business School of Western University. Highly respected for her business advocacy and government engagement, in 2019, she was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to represent Canada on the APEC Business Advisory Council. Jan also sits on the boards of Intact Financial Corporation, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange; and, Blue Umbrella Limited, a global compliance technology company headquartered in Hong Kong.
Tony LaMantia, President & CEO of Waterloo EDC. A University of Waterloo alumnus, Tony had ties to the community for decades before helping to found Waterloo EDC as the organization’s inaugural leader in 2016. A community leader at heart, he relishes the opportunity to work with businesses, civic leaders, governments and organizations like chambers of commerce and tech ecosystem anchors to help build a strong, sustainable economy for the people of Waterloo Region. Tony is currently acting as Chair of the Business and Economic Support Team for Waterloo Region, the partnership created to advocate on behalf of the local business community during the COVID-19 crisis. A passionate leader, his career has spanned the public, private, and non-profit sectors with executive roles in investment marketing, technology sales and mining, as well as the Province of Ontario where he was Assistant Deputy Minister of Investment and Industry.
SPEAKERS Ray Fischer is a Senior Manager, Trade & Customs, who is part of the KPMG team located in Windsor. Having managed a large automotive manufacturing customs department, Ray’s areas of expertise are incorporating customs regulatory / compliance framework into robust processes that focus on Trusted Trader programs administered by Canada Border Services Agency. He has and continues to be part of CBSA’s Border Commercial Consultative Committee for the past 7 years, helping to improve customs policies and operational programs to optimize the free flow of legitimate goods and ensures compliance with customs laws and regulations that govern and affect Canada’s commercial trade and economy. He is also part of the CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management Working Group, an initiative under-taken by the Government of Canada, which will help simplify the importing process once fully implemented.
Charlene Hofbauer, Executive Director of the Workforce Planning Board of Waterloo Wellington Dufferin. With over 10 years’ experience in workforce planning, and entering her 9th year in the Region, Charlene has developed relationships with businesses in Manufacturing, Agriculture, Health Care, and Tourism to name a few. She is pressing beyond to meet her employers to understand and address their workforce challenges. Prior to becoming the Executive Director, she also worked in human resources, training and education. Since becoming Executive Director, she has worked with municipal partners to start the local job site findyourjob.ca, joined Communitech’s Future of Work and Learning Coalition to support workforce change, and steered her team and organization through the rapid changes happening as a result of the current pandemic.
PANELISTS Jeremey Koch, World Class Manufacturing Manager at Polycon Industries, a division of Magna International. Polycon is a tier one automotive parts supplier of fully assembled painted fascias and other exterior components. In his role he leads a team of employees in executing the company’s continuous improvement and health & safety initiatives. His goal is to keep Polycon on the leading edge of technology and strive to become a World Class Manufacturer.
Dan Lawson, Operational Excellence Manager at Blount Canada Ltd. Dan graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. He began his career at Blount in 1986, where over the years, he shifted responsibilities within the company. In 2010, he assumed the role of Continuous Improvement Manager to implement Lean Manufacturing methods and Kaizen activities in the facility. Dan and his team conducted over 75 week-long Kaizen events that involved over 80% of the workforce in identifying and removing waste from operations. After 2 years supporting the improvements across the 8 manufacturing plants Blount owns world-wide, he returned to Blount Canada to his current role of Operational Excellence Manager. His role now encompasses the Quality, Environmental, Continuous Improvement and Health and Safety roles at Blount.
PANELISTS Brian Watson, Director of the Magna Centre for Supply Chain Excellence at Conestoga College. He is a results-oriented seasoned professional and educator with 21 years of manufacturing operations management experience, combined with over twenty years as a Professor, Program Coordinator, and now Director. Brian has a proven record of delivering growth and bottom-line results in industry and delivering excellence in education at Conestoga. Brian’s areas of expertise include system thinking and its application in identifying untapped capacity, productivity, operational and financial performance improvement opportunities. Brian employs the Theory of Constraints, value stream mapping and lean concepts in identifying the path to achieve elevated firm performance and competitiveness.
Caleb Connor, ATS Business Model Champion, Mobility, Nuclear & Specialty Automation, with ATS Automation. Caleb comes from a retail management background but changed career paths through Conestoga College’s Supply Chain and Operations Management Co-op program. He spent all of his co-op semesters working with ATS Automation, fulfilling roles including Supply Chain Expediter, Buyer, Analyst and Project Procurement Lead. After completing a number of improvement projects during his “down time”, he was drafted by the Corporate Leadership to fill a brand new position, ABM Champion. Now his time is spent, facilitating continuous improvement projects including Value Stream Mapping across the MNSA divisions as well as teaching, training and implementing Lean Concepts and tools at ATS divisions in Europe and the US.
PANELISTS Andrew Dekker, Operations Manager at Demtool Inc. Andrew has spent the last 12 years immersed in the custom metal fabrication and machining industry where he has gained a deep understanding of manufacturing processes in a fast paced and rapidly changing environment. He got his start operating a band saw and since, has become a Red Seal Millwright Journeyman; with firsthand experience in operating, maintaining, and repairing all the shop floor equipment from Laser cutting through welding and all operations in between. This invaluable exposure has given him keen insight and perspective into the manufacturing business. His passion lies in solving complex challenges, and as the Operations Manager at Demtool he takes a systems’ thinking approach to provide creative and effective solutions.
EXPO PASSPORT CONTEST Visit a variety of exhibitors in the Expo during the 2020 Manufacturing Summit to collect a minimum of 8 different Code Words (each exhibitor will have a unique code word that they'll share with you).
Once you've collected at least 8, submit them here for your chance to win one of two $100 Pre-Paid Credit Cards!
Sponsors Salesforce
Cushman & Wakefield Waterloo Region Ltd.
BDC
CKX Training On-The-Go
Cowan Insurance
Traces Screen Printing
TD Commercial Banking
Centre For Family Business
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc.
Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium
Kuntz Electroplating Inc.
Manufacturing Innovation Network
Exhibitors Advanced Manufacturing Consortium (AMC)
Mahr Inc.
Arcadian Projects
Mentor Works Ltd.
Berlin Kraftworks Inc.
RidgeTech Automation Inc.
Conestoga College ITAL
SMART Centre (Conestoga College)
Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
Stesco Global Packaging The Owl Solutions
FMF Metal Fabrication
University of Guelph Immigration Partnership
University of Waterloo, Co-operative Education
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