Dr. Christof Spathelf is Head of Manufacturing Overseas at Volkswagen. Dr. Spathelf will put forward the argument that an economic upturn is coming and that manufacturers need to be ready to reap the benefits. He will highlight Volkswagen’s approach to preparing for this impending upturn is to continue with a global strategy. Having recently opened a new factory in India, Dr. Spathelf will assert it globalisation remains key to ensuring competitive advantage after the crisis.

Nicole Pohl works as Program Manager for Volvo Construction Equipment, responsible for Volvo CE's MES solution. Nicole will share Volvo CE's vision of their "Factory Master Program" and highlight Volvo CE's overall approach to improve Manufacturing Efficiency with a "Core" package of tools and solutions driven "by the business - for the business" to share best in class processes.

Paul Neutjens is Lean Director for the Sapa Group. Paul brings a wealth of experience in lean implementation, and will advise that lean is a long-term journey; not simply a quick fix solution. He will highlight how lean at Sapa Group has been a journey of organisational learning, moving to all parts of the enterprise; not solely manufacturing. Paul will also emphasise how important it is to manage your workforce through the lean journey to ensure you achieve your lean goals and objectives.

Jose Bravo is the Chief Scientist at Shell, based in the USA. Jose will headline day two of the summit, revealing how Shell create competitive advantage through its use of innovative technologies. He will discuss how Shell embraces technology to pump Shell’s business by maximising visibility to facilitate better decision-making. Jose will illustrate the intelligent use of technology at Shell has improved manufacturing processes and driven new ideas for production.

John Bowling is Head of Planning, Risk and Information Management at General Dynamics. John will focus on optimising information flows throughout the business, emphasising the importance of product data management. He will highlight how General Dynamics defines and implements its PLM strategy to ensure one source of product data, in turn enabling General Dynamics to develop and deliver products and programmes faster.

Robert Claasen is Director for Corporate Manufacturing at DSM, based in the Netherlands. Robert will highlight how DSM are integrating their Manufacturing Execution System (MES) with the wider enterprise to ensure the business remains agile during what has been a volatile climate. He will highlight how MES exists as a strategic business lever to achieve integration with the enterprise, while he will also reveal how DSM are placing their MES platform at the forefront of its business growth strategy.

Kevin Duggan is Founder and President of the Institute for Operational Excellence, based in the USA. Kevin will host a masterclass at the Manufacturing Strategy Session, detailing how to go beyond lean and actually reach a destination with operational excellence to deliver business growth. He will emphasise that lean is not a never-ending journey, asserting that business growth can be achieved by managing operational excellence with a new wave of process-based scientific thinking.

Tapani Ryhänen is Head of Strategic Research at the Nokia Research Centre, based in the UK. While many companies have minimised Research & Development (R&D) budgets in light of the global climate, Tapani will highlight how a recession is in fact the time to invest in R&D to drive innovation and be ready for the upturn. He will emphasise the need to trust R&D in difficult economic times to gain competitive advantage, while asserting that if you are not developing new products in a downturn then you will not be ready for the upturn.

Pierfrancesco Manenti is Research Director EMEA at IDC Manufacturing Insights . Pierfrancesco will bring his experience and expertise to highlight how businesses now need to focus on balancing short-term aims of survival with longer-term plans to reap the benefits of renewed growth and an economic upturn.
In doing so, he will emphasise the importance of operational excellence in preparing for an expected upturn; highlighting the use of OEE metrics to measure operational excellence and "green" as the new paradigm.

Peter Wilson was, for 11 years, Group CIO and Logistics Director at Inchcape plc, the world’s largest independent, international automotive distributor and retailer and Toyota’s largest franchise distributor and retailer. Peter will describe how Inchcape piloted and then rolled out Toyota’s re-engineered downstream supply chain programme ‘Customer Orientated’ logistics. He will describe how Toyota’s tried and tested lean manufacturing philosophies and principles were applied in the distribution, logistics and retail environments, how the programme was managed and the benefits that were delivered to the stakeholder community including Toyota’s own manufacturing facilities.

Mariela Nino-Restrepo is the Environmental Manager for Europe, bases in the UK. In an era where cutting costs to drive bottom line benefit is vital, she will reveal how driving down your carbon footprint will indeed drive down costs. Arguing that green manufacturing is no longer a mere compliance issue, Mariela will illustrate how Cadbury has minimised costs by switching to renewable and low carbon energy sources.

Dr. Olaf Sauer studied Industrial Engineering at the Karlsruhe Technical University. After two years in a small company in Karlsruhe he moved to Berlin where in 1996 he took his PhD in Production Engineering from Prof. Spur. After his time at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK) he became part of Bombardier Transportation, where he was in charge of the introduction of the Digital Mock-up and first applications of digital manufacturing. After his time at Bombardier Dr. Sauer started his own business within the METROPLAN group dealing with production and material flow planning, manufacturing control and logistics, e.g. for DaimlerChrysler, smart, the GEA group and STILL. He is today in charge of Fraunhofer IITB’s business unit production monitoring & control, developing, supplying and maintaining ProVis.Agent®, an agent based production monitoring and control system to Daimler plants in Bremen, Woerth and Sindelfingen.

Robert Weigl is responsible for Services within the Consumer Goods, Consumer Packaged Goods, Retail and High Tech industries in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at Dassault Systèmes, a Paris-based software company, world leader in product lifecycle management (PLM) software.
As the Industry Services Leader, Robert has vast interests and knowledge of all areas of PLM, including a focus on services in the emerging industries.
Robert contributes to the growth plan for CG, CPG, Retail, High Tech industries by ensuring the successful deployment of key projects in DACH, by teaming with our Sales, Brand teams and Partners to build new business opportunities and by providing the teams with the appropriate skills and expertise.

Andrei Nassanov is a qualified manager and engineer with 20+ year`s industry experience in high tech multinational companies on the different positions as executive management, business and corporate development, planning and forecasting, operation management, project management, sales and marketing. Andrei has been involved in manufacturing of electronics, instruments, machine building, shipbuilding and energy sector (nuclear energy, renewable energy) as well as engineering, research and development, project management, management consulting.

Within the Dassault Systèmes DELMIA organization, Heinz Pirlich is responsible for promoting and selling the Digital Factory solution at strategic accounts in different industries in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Dassault Systèmes, a Paris-based software company, is the world leader in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software. With the Digital Factory software-tools and methods, companies drive the optimization of their Manufacturing processes. Heinz Pirlich has 18 years experience in PLM with focus on Digital Factory in the last 8 years.

Mike James is a Board Member of MESA Europe, a non-profit making organisation developing technical standards for Manufacturing Execution Systems and development of MES awareness. Mike is a leading MES Consultant and is a member of the MES Governance Boards at Rolls-Royce Aerospace and at Carlsberg Breweries. Mike is a regular speaker at the EMS and specialises in combing Lean, Six Sigma and MES techniques to improve productivity and quality, a combination which Mike refers to as “Sticky Lean”.

Ramji Mani is the Practice Director of the Consumer Goods vertical at Cognizant. Ramji has eighteen years of experience in Supply Chain Management (SCM), supply chain execution, Advanced Planning Systems (APS), Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) and high-tech manufacturing. His track record spans the roles of leadership, programme management of global system implementations and business process re-engineering for various Fortune 500 companies. In his present role he leads all consulting engagements in SCM/CRM/WMS for large customers in Europe and the USA.

Douglas Kent is the European Chair for the Supply Chain Council and President of eKnowtion. With nearly 20 years of supply chain experience, Douglas Kent brings proven expertise in creating, implementing, and operating complex supply chain projects by "unlocking value" within client companies. Through formalised business process re-engineering techniques, Douglas drives this improvement by utilising the SCOR model as the baseline for all improvement activities ranging from the initial diagnostic, through re-engineering and change management, benchmarking and continuing education. His approach stems from the unique combination of experiences as a successful practitioner, consultant and educator of SCOR since the model's inception.

Former Managing Director at VT Flagship, Tara Gullett was responsible for delivering Royal Navy Training across nine establishments and was also Operations Director at VT Shipbuilding’s 33 acre manufacturing facility in Portsmouth. In these roles she led operational and cultural change programmes that delivered significant cost, delivery and quality improvements. Tara will talk about the importance of a blended strategy that takes into account the impact of leadership, culture and people, whilst focusing on the process and equipment needs for productivity improvement.

Minoru Tanaka is a board member of JMA Consultants Inc. Tokyo and President/CEO of JMAC Europe in Paris. Mr Tanaka graduated in 1976 from Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan, with an Engineering degree. He spent the first part of professional career in the design and development division of a Japanese car manufacturer, before joining JMA. First engagements of Mr Tanaka were in Japan and in South Korea, then he spent the last twenty years working in the Netherlands, Italy and pan-European area, where he has been promoted to senior positions of JMA Consultants Amsterdam B.V. and JMA Consultants Europe Milano S.p.A., which are subsidiaries of JMA Consultants Inc. and a member of the JMA (Japan Management Association) group. Mr.Tanaka has been supporting European companies to improve mainly Innovation and Operation processes, applying Japanese methodologies such as TPS/JIT, KI/VP, Kaizen, TPM, all of them originated in JMA group. Mr Tanaka published the books “Re-design the production system” with Italian publishers Il sole 24 ore, 1996 , ‘The secret of Kaizen’ ) with Italian publishers Franco Angeli, 1998, “The Toyota Model, with Italian publishers Il sole 24 ore. 2006. In 2003, Mr Tanaka served as an editor of the book From Lean to Profit by Peter Hines. He holds lectures and seminars on “Operation and Innovation Management” in several universities and schools (University of Bologna, MBA Bocconi Milano, Politecnico Milano, MBA CUOA, MBA Istituto Adriano Olivetti)

Giovanni Polvani was born in Genoa and is 49 years old. He Graduated in 1986 as Mechanical Engineer, specialised in Thermodynamics of Nuclear Plant, got 1st employment in Planning and logistics in a Petrochemical Plant ( ERG Petroli ). He joined JMAC in 1989, at very early start up of European operations and is today is COO of Jmac Europe B.V. , coordinating 6 JMAC offices in Europe and managing cross business development. He is a Senior Consultant with 2 decades of experience in TPM (appointed Instructor by JIPM in 1993) and Lean. He was responsible in large projects for Emerson Group, Avio, Fiat Iveco, Ermenegildo Zegna, Sagit Unilever, Colgate Palmolive, Trenitalia; (high speed Italian railways), Ansaldo, Heineken, Leaf, CSM, Datalogic, Sogefi. He dealt also with R&D and Product Development, using japanese tenniques as VRP –Variety Reduction Program and VP - Visible Planning. He guided 10 executive study tours in Japan.

Ton Aerdts started working for Blom Consultancy in 1993 after he spend several years working in Tanzania as general manager of a manufacturing company. After successfully implementing continuous improvement programs in several factories, he became CEO of Blom in 2002.
Mr. Aerdts has expertise across a wide range of industries, leading major improvement programs.

Kevin Whelan helped co-found CCI 20 years ago. He filled the role of CCI Group CEO for 14 years and played a prominent role in driving CCI’s international expansion and in the development of TRACC®, a Continuous Improvement Management System.
Mr. Whelan has led many major change interventions in blue chip organisations and has developed specialist expertise in the Food and Beverage Industry. He now leads CCI’s business development in Europe and Latin America, still actively heading up TRACC® implementation projects with major multi-national clients like, Kellogg’s, SABMiller, HJ Heinz and various Coca-Cola Bottlers round the world.

Carlo was one of the promoter partners of Efeso and has more than 25 yrs experience in Operations Strategy and World Class Operation Management, leading programs for multinational companies, from Product Development to Supply Chain domain. His experience encompasses many industrial sectors, from Automotive to Pharma, Packaging, Mechanical, Paper, Steel, and Public Administration. The most relevant experiences fall into the field of Manufacturing.
He has been responsible for Manufacturing and Logistics' Area at the School of Management of the Università di Genova, he has teached at ISTUD and MIP (Master of the Politecnico di Milano) and for 'Università' di Bergamo.

Bas Koetsier has worked with the company since 2004 and has led World Class Operation Management projects for multinational companies and local medium sized factories. Prior to joining Solving Efeso, he worked as consultant within Operations Management and as a business analyst in the dairy industry. His experience encompasses many sectors from food to chemical, oil & gas, mechanical & engineering and public transport.

Giorgio Levati is the Managing Director of Solving Efeso Iberia and Member of the Group Executive Committee. He specialises in engineering and operational excellence program implementation.
He has over 25 years’ consulting experience and he has managed more than 300 operations performance improvement projects using World Class Operations Management systems and techniques.

Michele Bonfiglioli is CEO of Bonfiglioli Consulting.
His subject matter expert is Operational Excellence. The first part of his career was focused on lean thinking applications, then he moved to a more holistic approach for a real operational excellence in all processes and in all industry sectors implementing various techniques: lean thinking, TPM, six sigma, lean six sigma, project management.
He is regularly invited as an expert in related topics arranged by National and International associations as Tampere Manufacturing Summit (Finland, 2007), The Manufacturer Live (UK, 2005), CNR (equivalent of Italian National Research Centre), Lean Summit (Italy, 2003-2005-2007-2009)