FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Christine Pietryla
Telephone: 1.630.305.0003
The Association for Manufacturing ExcellenceAnnounces New Members to Benchmarking CoPSteering Committee
ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill.—May 30, 2012—The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), the premier not-for-profit organization dedicated to continuous improvement and enterprise excellence, together with American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC), welcomes three new members to its Benchmarking Community of Practice (CoP) steering committee. Deanne Davidson,Dr. Paulette DeGard and Lynda Braksiek will join eight existing members of this group,made up of individuals interested in benchmarking and Knowledge Management related topics.The committeeleads the sharing of best practices as well as discovering methods of improvement and development skills from CoP members, while it adheres to the code of conduct for sharing and protecting information.
As manager of Operational Excellence at Eaton Corporation, Deanne Davidson is focused on developing and deploying strategies for knowledge management and collaboration at 46 Eaton Vehicle Group sites. She has extensive leadership and program management experience in global manufacturing footprint strategy, facility start-up and shutdown, new product development and industrialization, advanced manufacturing technology and new process implementations. Davidson brings to the committee experience serving in various roles with a strong emphasis on driving standardization and continuous improvement in manufacturing plants and business processes.
Dr. Paulette DeGard serves as a Knowledge Strategist for Boeing Commercial Airplanes(BCA) Supplier Management. Her responsibilities include planning and leading an effort to capture, store and retrieve knowledge internally and then, eventually, across the supply base. Before joining Supplier Management, DeGardspentfive and half years in BCA Engineering conducting Knowledge Management activities. First in Flight Deck, then Airplane Systems,eventually, her work was adopted by all of BCA Engineering. DeGard was alsocritical in the development of University Alliance for BCA Engineering. Before joining Boeing, DeGard worked with the U.S. Navy as well as numerous Fortune 500 companies around North America conducting knowledge management, process management and software deployments. Additionally, she started a management training school in northern Poland, worked on the world's largest re-engineering project at Boeing, and created a knowledge transfer method to keep 40,000end-users informed about software changes. DeGard has published on the topic of Knowledge Management internationally for more than 20 years.
Lynda Braksiek is in her third year as the Manager of Knowledge & Critical Skills Management in Engineering & Technology at Rockwell Collins. Her responsibilities include planning and leading the effort for knowledge management strategies and practices for the enterprise, as well as leading the School of Engineering for formal training as part of the Rockwell Collins Corporate University. Braksiek has been with Rockwell Collins for 11 years and has spent half of her time in Information Technology and the other half in Engineering & Technology on the KM team. She was introduced to Knowledge Management just two years into the Rockwell Collins KM journey and while serving in various roles, has been an advocate
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for knowledge transfer and a disciplined approached to KM inside her organization since then. She has participated with others from Rockwell Collins in two Advanced Working Groups at APQC on the topics of KM in Innovation, Social Media and Learning, Knowledge Analytics and Seamless Collaboration. She has also been a part of numerous best practice studies with APQC over her eight years in KM, including Expertise Location Systems, Communities of Practice and Knowledge Flow in a Product Development Environment.
About APQC
APQC is a member-based nonprofit and one of the world’s leading proponents of benchmarking, best practices, and knowledge management. Working with more than 500 member organizations worldwide in all industries, APQC provides organizations with the information they need to work smarter, faster, and with greater confidence. Visit call +1-713-681-4020 for more information.
About the Association for Manufacturing Excellence
The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) is the premier not-for-profit organization dedicated to the journey of continuous improvement and enterprise excellence. AME’s membership is composed of a trusted network of volunteers who are committed to leveraging the practitioner-to-practitioner and company-to-company shared-learning experience. Through engaging workshops, seminars and plant tours, and industry-leading conferences, AME members are continually discovering and implementing new continuous improvement strategies and best practices. AME offers its members a multitude of valuable resources to help them stay abreast of current industry developments, and improve the skills, competitiveness, and overall success of their organizations. Join AME in leading the “Growing Manufacturing in North America.” For more information, visit or email .
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