Product development and other business improvement courses offered this fall through UB TCIE

BUFFALO, N.Y. – How can playing with Lego bricks improve product development? Find out at the Lean Product Design Workshop, part of University at Buffalo TCIE’s fall 2015 professional development courses targeted at improving business acumen and performance.

TCIE stands for The Center for Industrial Effectiveness, which links UB’s expert resources to the region’s business community.

Participants in the Lean Product Design Workshop will engage in a hands-on simulation to discover how applying Lean methodology to product design decreases cycle time. It is ideal for managers, engineers, project leaders, designers, sales and marketing staff, and anyone interested in minimizing post-launch changes.

The workshop will be led by UB TCIE Operational Excellence Director Peter Baumgartner, with assistance from Monica Rossi, PhD, postdoctoral associate at Politecnico di Milano in Italy and a research director of the LeanPD Italian Community. It will be held from noon-4:30 p.m. Sept. 22 at the Ramada Hotel & Conference Center, 2402 North Forest Rd., Amherst.

Other UB TCIE courses range from half-day seminars to a 9-month certification program. An early bird discount of $400 is available until Aug. 7 for the Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Transactional (CLSSBBT) training.

Registration is on a first-serve basis for all classes, with the deadline being one week before the respective start date. Course details are as follows:

• Focus on the Right Problem – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sept. 23 at the Ramada. This course is targeted for those who are overwhelmed by determining what problem to solve first, have tried to boost efficiency in the past but failed to see results or need guidance in keeping an improvement effort on track.
• Certified Lean Professional – 6-9 p.m. on Thursdays, Sept. 24 to Dec. 10 (except Nov. 26); and Jan. 7 and Feb. 4 for project mentoring. The 39-hour course is offered at UB’s Baird Research Park, 1576 Sweet Home Rd., Amherst. It introduces participants to the Lean methodology of saving money and reducing waste by identifying unnecessary processes.
• CLSSBBT – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sept. 28, Oct. 5-7, Nov. 2-5, Dec. 7-10, Jan. 11-14, and Feb. 1-4 at the Ramada. This 120-hour course is designed for people interested in mastering the Six Sigma methodology and process improvement tools at a high level. While applicable across all disciplines, it was developed with service industry businesses in mind and incorporates finance, government and health care examples.
• Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) – 8 a.m.-noon on Sept. 30 at the Ramada. Participants will learn about the ERM framework and opportunities, challenges and recent trends regarding risk management, control and governance processes.
• Minitab^® Software – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sept. 30 at the Ramada. This training navigates participants through the statistical tools of Minitab software so that they may comfortably manipulate data and solve problems.
• Intro to FMEA – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Oct. 6 at the Ramada. This course is recommended for design and manufacturing engineers who are involved in the product development process and want to learn how to avoid potential failures in design.
• Root Cause Analysis and Corrective Action – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Oct. 8 at the Ramada. This program is designed to improve the problem-solving skills of all employee levels by providing an understanding of the processes and techniques for determining the root cause of a nonconformance and the corrective action needed to prevent the problem from occurring again.
• Strategic Supply Chain Management – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Oct. 20 and Oct. 21 at the Ramada. The workshop focuses on global best practices in supply chain management, as well as how to organize and implement methods to reduce costs, improve quality, provide customized product and service offerings, and more quickly respond to customer needs.
• Choose Your Path to Excellence – 8 a.m.-noon on Oct. 21 at the Ramada. Participants will learn how to decipher which improvement platform (ISO, Lean or Six Sigma) is most appropriate to address their problems and opportunities, and will be equipped with a diagnostic tool to guide them toward the right decision.
• Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Oct. 22 at the Ramada. This course introduces a problem-solving method that uses logic, data and the work of others to drive innovation.
• Design of Experiments (DOE) – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Oct. 27 and 28 at the Ramada. This course educates participants in the Six Sigma problem-solving tool of DOE, which identifies factors most important to the success of an improvement project.
• Intro to Document Control – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Oct. 29 at the Ramada. Participants will learn the characteristics of effective instructional documentation (such as procedures, work instructions and standard operating procedures) and the process of document control.
• 3-Day ISO 9001:2008 Internal Auditor – 8 a.m.-5 p.m. from Dec. 1-3 at the Ramada. Participants learn about the ISO 9001:2008 standard, audit activities and techniques, objective evidence to gather, and expectations of third-party external auditors in determining compliance.

Course details and registration are available at http://www.tcie.buffalo.edu/what-we-do/professional-development/. For more information, contact Mariah Glass, UB TCIE training program coordinator, at 716-645-8840 or mariahgl@buffalo.edu.

UB TCIE is Western New York's bridge to excellence; it provides a dynamic link between UB’s expert resources and the region’s business community. Its core focus on engineering solutions and operational excellence drives continual improvements, and ignites innovation and technological advantages. For more information on how TCIE can assist Western New York businesses, visit www.tcie.buffalo.edu or call 716-645-8800.