E-mail: smilauskas@fs.fed.us
E-mail: dwanner@fs.fed.us

Wood Education and Resource Center Hosts
Lean Manufacturing Workshop

Princeton, WVa—The USDA Forest Service, Wood Education and Resource Center (WERC) hosted a Forest Industries Center Workshop August 8 through August 10. The workshop was sponsored by the Virginia Tech’s Sloan Foundation Forest Industries Center, Virginia Tech’s Center for Forest Products Marketing and Management, University of Minnesota Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute, and WERC. The workshop was designed to teach lean manufacturing techniques to produce high quality products with less effort, space, inventory, and product development time. The ultimate goal is to increase the economic competitiveness of the wood products industry.

This was Virginia Tech’s 4 th Lean Manufacturing workshop for the wood products industry. Instructors updated the workshop with new learning simulations and industry examples applied to primary and secondary wood products manufacturers.

Participants for the workshop were mainly from the Appalachian States including Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. One participant was from Canada. “The goal of the workshop was to help managers in wood products businesses identify target opportunity areas in their company for lean manufacturing, provide a step-by-step guide for the implementation of “lean systems” and direct them toward a philosophy of continuous improvement needed for today’s increasing business competition,” said WERC director Steve Milauskas.

The WERC, located in Princeton, WVa is administered by the USDA Forest Service agency's State and Private Forestry Northeastern Area Office. The center's mission is to work with the forest products industry toward sustainable forest products production for the eastern hardwood forest region. It provides state-of-the-art training, technology transfer, networking opportunities, applied research and information. For more information, visit www.na.fs.fed.us/ea/werc/werc.shtm.