How to Break Down Departmental Silos with Quick Response Office Cells (Q-ROCs)

Implement Office Cells to Grow Your Business

Companies offering high-mix, low-volume or custom-engineered products often spend significant time and resources in processing quotes, finalizing engineering designs, establishing bills of materials, and purchasing critical components. The result is often long lead times, missed opportunities in quoting, delays in order processing, engineering changes, expediting, and high costs. Restructuring your operations into office cells could present a huge opportunity for your business to reduce lead times and grow market share.

This workshop is hosted by Gamber-Johnson – a supplier of mounting systems that safely secure mobile communication devices and other electronic equipment in fleet vehicles – at the company’s global headquarters in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. 

The agenda includes instruction on design and implementation of office cells by QRM Center director Charlene Yauch, a presentation by Gamber-Johnson executives about the company’s extensive use of office cells, and a tour of their new facility – including the Q-ROCs. 

A reception will follow, so there will be ample time for networking with peers.  Don’t miss this special event!

What you will learn:

• Overview: Explanation of the Core Principles of Quick Response Office Cells (Q-ROCs)
• The starting point: Focused Target Market Segment (FTMS) – the nucleus of an office cell and the tool that helps determine the optimal Q-ROC
• Implementation: Steps to start a Q-ROC at your company
• The secret of Gamber-Johnson’s success and their tips for duplicating it in your own organization

12:30-1:00    Check-in (coffee, waters & light snacks available)

1:00-1:20      Introduction by Gautam Malik, President, Gamber-Johnson and Rajan Suri, Founding Director, QRM Center

1:20-2:40     Q-ROC Theory by Charlene Yauch, Director, QRM Center

2:40-3:00     Coffee Break

3:00-4:00     Application of Q-ROCs by Gautam Malik, President, and Jason Lewandowski, VP. Engineering, Gamber-Johnson

4:00-4:30     Tour of Office Cells area

4:30-5:00     Reception and networking

Gautam Malik

President, Gamber-Johnson LLC

Jason Lewandowski

Vice President, Engineering, Gamber-Johnson

Rajan Suri

Rajan Suri is Emeritus Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Bachelors degree from Cambridge University (England) and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Professor Suri is the Founding Director of the Center for Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, through which around 300 companies have worked with the University on developing and implementing QRM and POLCA strategies. Dr. Suri is author of several books on QRM. He is also the inventor of POLCA and author of the first book on this system: "The Practitioner's Guide to POLCA".

Dr. Suri has consulted for leading firms including Alcoa, Boeing, AT&T, Danfoss, Ford, Harley-Davidson, Hewlett Packard, IBM, John Deere, National Oilwell Varco, Pratt & Whitney, Rockwell Automation and TREK Bicycle. Consulting assignments in Europe and the Far East have given him an international perspective on manufacturing competitiveness.

Professor Suri has received awards from the American Automatic Control Council, The Institute of Management Sciences and the IEEE. In 1999, Suri was made a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and in 2006 he received SME’s Albert M. Sargent Progress Award for the creation and implementation of the Quick Response Manufacturing philosophy. In 2010 Rajan Suri was inducted into the Industry Week 2010 Manufacturing Hall of Fame.

Charlene Yauch

Charlene A. Yauch, Ph.D., P.E., has been an engineering educator for over 20 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) and Oklahoma State University. Her notable honors include five teaching awards and a National Science Foundation Career grant. She has taught a wide variety of classes, including Manufacturing Systems Design & Analysis, Materials & Manufacturing Processes, Computer Numerical Control Machining, Automation Technologies, and Engineering Economy.

Her professional interests relate to the implementation of manufacturing system improvements, such as Quick Response, Lean, and Agile Manufacturing, with emphasis on the human, social, and organizational aspects. Prior to her doctoral degree, she worked in industry for six years, performing a wide variety of tasks for manufacturing firms, including simulation modeling, facility layout, and process improvement. She has also advised numerous student projects related to manufacturing system improvement.  Dr. Yauch has a multi-disciplinary educational background with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University, and graduate degrees in sociology (M.S.), manufacturing systems engineering (M.S.), and industrial engineering (Ph.D.) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.