APICS' Professional Dinner Meeting

Last October, APICS Orange County hosted their monthly Professional Dinner Meeting (PDM) featuring a presentation by LaneOPX associate, Dave Mock. The topic? “Bringing Order out of Chaos,” outlining how to achieve predictable efficiency by coupling Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) processes with a Lean operation. The interactive session also catered to supply chain, marketing/sales, and operations professionals. Following the presentation, Mock, Bob Lane (Founder of LaneOPX, a global professional services, education, and training consultancy firm), along with our very own Jim Cerra and Kenta Tomura, participated in a roundtable discussion on the benefits of APS software.

What is APICS?

The event was part of a series of PDMs hosted by the Orange County chapter of the American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS), the leading provider of research, education, and certification programs that elevate supply chain excellence, innovation, and resilience. The chapter’s mission is to increase the number of professionals capable of applying the Operations Management Body of Knowledge in the industry.

The Takeaway

Thanks to a thorough presentation and lively roundtable discussion, attendees left with several insights into the benefits of planning and scheduling software. These included:

• An understanding of APS software and its role in the enterprise.
• A simple, effective approach to Capacity Planning and Monitoring.
• How to improve manufacturing performance with metrics incorporated into visual systems within APS software.
• An introduction to a collection of effective tools for reducing Work-In-Progress (WIP) and improving lead times in the factory.
• How to keep order commitments and determine the “cost of saying yes” to a change in manufacturing flow.

About the Speaker

Presenter Dave Mock of LaneOPX has over 20 years of experience as a Product Development, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing Operations expert. He strategically and tactically consults for startups and works in project management and program execution at large enterprises. A sought-after speaker, Dave is the author of Tapping into Wireless and The QUALCOMM Equation. He’s sold more than 2,000 eBooks and bylined almost 2,000 published articles for publications around the globe.

The event took place Wednesday, November 18th at the DoubleTree Club Hotel in Santa Ana, CA. It featured a networking hour, elegant dinner service, a presentation, and round-table discussion.