Seminar on lean principles in industry

A half-day seminar entitled 'Enhancing Maltese industrial competitiveness through lean principles' will be held on November 20.

The event, organised by the University of Malta, the US Embassy and Malta Enterprise, will allow industrial stakeholders to both learn through case-studies about lean manufacturing principles and to encourage them to come forward with typical product development issues or challenges.

Malta Enterprise's support stems from the organisation's awareness that lean manufacturing has been key to increasing quality, decreasing costs, improving delivery, and increasing agility for many manufacturers worldwide.

Last March, the University of Malta and the US Embassy signed a memorandum of understanding for Malta's participation in the new Ambassador's Scholar programme. Under the programme, the University nominates one US academic from an American educational institution to serve as 'Ambassador's Scholar', an expert consultant on curriculum development, programme design, continuing professional education and/or a special project to the University various faculties and departments.

Through the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, the University has nominated Prof. John Gershenson from Michigan Tech University to serve as 'Ambassador's Scholar' in the domain of lean manufacturing.

Prof. Gershenson will be visiting the University next month to familiarise himself with the local manufacturing industry scenario and be in a better position to understand typical challenges that the industry is facing at product development level and help him also outline where lean principles can be exploited.

For more information, visit http://www.eng.um.edu.mt/~dmeu/lean/.