Northeast Supply Chain Conference & Exhibition  Author Biographies and Presentations

Robert  A. Abair, CPIM
Robert Abair Associates, Inc.

As Senior Partner, Bob has managed his own consulting firm, Robert Abair Associates, Inc., for over 25 years. He has guided large and small clients on ERP/MRP II, Lean/Agile Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, JIT, TQM, and major cost reduction initiatives. In 1997, the firm became consulting partners with Agility Forum, in Bethlehem, PA, and with the Bose JIT II Education and Research Center in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Prior positions include Plant Manager for a plastics extrusion company, Director of Materials with a high-volume valve company, as well as Production Control Manager, and MRP II Project Leader at a large cutting tool company. Bob was instrumental in the design and implementation of their high-volume manufacturing and warehouse distribution, MRP II and DRP Systems.

Mr. Abair has more than thirty years of management experience in various manufacturing, distribution, and service companies, including management positions as Plant Manager, Director of Materials, Production Control Manager, as well as Information Processing, and Sales. Industry experience includes electronics, defense, textiles, food processing, rubber, metals, heavy machinery, distribution, printing, chemical processing, biotech, high-performance ceramics, packaging, insurance, toys and games, medical, and fiber optics. 

He has a BSBA from Clark University. In addition, he is a graduate from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute School of Industrial Management and the Emery School of Computer Science. Also, Mr. Abair is a Certified Practitioner in the field of Production and Inventory Management. 

For over thirty years, he has been an active member of APICS. He, also, served for eighteen years on the Worcester County Chapter Board of Directors, including the position of President. He has been a frequent speaker and educator on the local, national and international level. In addition to local workshops and seminars, his speaking experience includes: keynote speaker at National Agility Conferences, National IBM Manufacturing Conference, the APICS International Conferences, APICS Regional Seminars, Motorola University, Six-Sigma Quality Symposium, International AME/Lean Conferences, as well as frequent international speaking engagements. He is also a past Six-Sigma instructor at Motorola University.

Awards at past conferences include, the APICS International Award for "Best Advanced Skill Speaker".

He is known as an industry leader, in his field, working with companies from entrepreneurial start-ups to Fortune 500 Companies such as IBM, Norton, Friendly Ice Cream, Dupont, Malden Mills, GE, AT&T, Lucent, Raytheon, Titleist, Eastman Kodak, Hasbro, Bemis, Gerber, Speedline, Lego, Teradyne, Savage Sports, and Bayer Corporation.

Description of Session
Integrating Lean and ERP on the Supplier's Factory Floor (Rebuilding your database for Advanced Demand Signaling Control)

Objective of Presentation:
This presentation will outline the detailed steps that must be taken to analyze and build a state-of-the-art Lean advanced shop floor planning system, for suppliers and internal factory operations. It will cover shop floor strategies for you and your suppliers, such as Database development, Order Modifiers, Mixed-Model Scheduling, Kanban, and Business Rules.

Material to be Covered:
• Preparing order modifiers for the combined database 
• Developing a mixed-model for discrete manufacturing (both facilities)
• Developing a Kanban (run frequency) strategy
• Developing a safety stock strategy, such as: (Kanban two bin, buffers, etc.)
• Developing a shop floor and supplier loading strategy
• Assemble-to-order
• Make-to-stock
• Make-to-order
• Developing a setup matrix strategy
• Developing a customer allocation matrix strategy
• Examples of types of Business Rules

Three Benefits:
• Attendees will better understand Lean advanced shop loading principles
• Attendees will learn new Supply Chain planning strategies
• Attendees will understand implementation path for new Supply Chain planning concepts (detailed checklists will be presented)

2005 Conference Presentation
Integrating Lean and ERP on the Supplier's Factory Floor 
(Rebuilding your database for Advanced Demand Signaling Control)