Outside Connections and Increased Attendance
Connections
By Jessie States
Who:
Jack Parsons, senior staff engineer for supplier development at Honda of America
Carla Quercioli, convention services housing manager for the Northern Kentucky CVB
Event:
Lean Network Annual Conference
Northern Kentucky Convention Center
May 12-14
As the economy belched black exhaust and little else this spring, Jack Parsons worried about slipping attendance numbers at his annual Lean Network event for Honda’s top auto parts suppliers.
Jack Parsons, senior staff engineer for supplier development at Honda of America Carla Quercioli, convention services housing manager for the Northern Kentucky CVB Lean Network Annual Conference Northern Kentucky Convention Center May 12-14
The Lean conference specifically targets the suppliers who source more than 80 percent of parts used to make Honda cars. The event also provides the educational support, productivity advice and networking necessary for the manufacturers to streamline factory output.
But in January, the auto industry outlook was bleak, and many suppliers were looking at immediate, over long-term, survival. Parsons approached Carla Quercioli at the Northern Kentucky CVB and voiced his concerns that attendance might be down some 150 from his usual 300 people. His team even traveled from Marysville, Ohio-based Honda of America to Covington, Ky., on several occasions to meet with a core group of hoteliers, center staffers and CVB reps to assess attendance and ensure that all stakeholders were well aware of the situation.
On her part, Quercioli has become accustomed to last-minute changes due to economic challenges. She kept a careful eye on attendance numbers and even mitigated the situation with the conference hotels.
But, the Lean Network team was determined to rectify slumping numbers. After a little out-of-box thinking, the group opted to open the conference invitation to select companies outside of the Honda supplier family—bringing in appliance manufacturers and school uniform producers, small mom-and-pop shops—all of which could benefit from the education and connectivity he and his team provided.
It was an opportunity few companies turned down. Many of the new invitees had never experienced a trade show, much less an educational conference. Parsons says they were eager for the opportunity to gain insight into how larger companies created cost-savings and streamlined production.
Internationally renowned management expert James P. Womack proved an even greater draw when he agreed to keynote the conference. Womack is the founder and chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute Inc., a nonprofit training, publishing, conference and management research company chartered in August 1997 to advance a set of ideas known as lean production and lean thinking (basically a method allowing for both continuity in process flow and variety in products offered).
The conference also boasted 37 workshops (three in Japanese) in everything from operation standards and Yellow Belt Lean Sigma to eliminating defects and establishing a self-motivated workforce. Providing educational support was former Honda executive Toshikata Amino, distinguished fellow at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University and visiting professor at Kansai University of International Studies in Miki, Japan. His name means little to the layperson, but to auto industry gurus, Amino is a superstar.
Indeed, Womack, Amino and the Lean education agenda proved a little too popular. After months of handwringing and brow-wiping, Parsons was facing far more attendees than even he had originally anticipated. Quercioli was more than happy to help arrange extra rooms—and even an additional hotel—for the 452 attendees who arrived in Covington on May 12.
She says internal and external communication during the early spring was vital to the success of the conference. The Northern Kentucky CVB holds monthly meetings with its River Center team of hotels, venues and suppliers, which include discussions of upcoming conferences and potential challenges therein. Quercioli and the local Lean conference team thus met on a continuing basis to discuss the event’s progress and possible solutions to the attendance problem.
But, in the end, it was the Lean Network team that boosted attendance, which Quercioli says helped his group avoid what could have been hefty attrition costs. And, despite the hurried nature of the invite, the audience growth amounted to far more than filled seats, but empty numbers. Attendees from outside the Honda network stimulated discussion from outsider viewpoints and asked intriguing questions that in-network delegates might not ask, making the conference even more valuable for the manufacturers who had been attending year in and year out.
And that, says Parsons, made all the hassle and anxiety worthwhile.
JESSIE STATES is assistant editor for One+.