Manufacturer of the Year Conference

Celebrating manufacturers committed to continuous improvement

Congratulations to this Year’s Winners!

Tuesday, October 6 / 7:30 – 11:30am / Heritage Center, Brooklyn Center MN

Click Here to Register

Complimentary for members

2026 Emerging CI Leader

Justin Adams

The purpose of the Emerging CI Leader award is to recognize an individual committed to implementing continuous improvement within their company and sharing best practices with fellow manufacturers in the community.

Tim Keran – Keynote Presenter

Getting Lean Out of the Toolbox and Into Your Culture

Lean tools can improve a process, but tools alone cannot create a culture of continuous improvement. In this keynote, Tim Keran shares how his company moved Lean out of the toolbox and made getting better part of everyone’s job—resulting in nearly 4,000 employee-led improvements, a 67% reduction in rework costs, and employee turnover falling from 18% to 6%. Attendees will learn how to involve everyone, connect everyday improvements to company performance and build a fun, rewarding, and winning work culture.

About Tim:

Tim Keran is a business improvement coach, former manufacturing CEO and owner, and peer group facilitator who helps CEOs build fun, rewarding, high-performing cultures. His upcoming newsletter, Self-Made CEO, is a practical field guide for leaders building better businesses.

PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS
WITH AI

Kacinda Ruiz – Breakout Speaker

Discover how Trystar is leveraging Artificial Intelligence to accelerate continuous improvement efforts and unlock new efficiencies across the business.
In this breakout session, you will learn about practical AI applications for:

Pareto analysis
Defect data summarization
Process mapping
Work instruction creation
Training documentation
Standardized documentation
Operational workflows
Value creation

About Kacinda:

Kacinda Ruiz is an operational excellence leader with more than 20 years of experience driving continuous improvement, culture transformation, and business performance across manufacturing, sales, service, and corporate environments. As Senior Manager of Continuous Improvement for Operations at Trystar, she partners with teams to build problem-solving capabilities, strengthen leadership, and deliver exceptional customer experiences through implementation of the Trystar Excellence System.

5S SUCCESS
WITH AI

Jeff Weber – Breakout Speaker

Many organizations successfully launch 5S initiatives but struggle to sustain and scale them over time. In this session, Jeff Weber of Graco will share the company’s 5S journey, the lessons learned while building a culture of workplace organization and continuous improvement. In this breakout session, you will learn about:

How AI is helping standardize and accelerate adoption across sites
Hear practical examples and case studies,
Learn how AI can support consistent execution, and strengthen accountability

About Jeff:

Jeff Weber is Director of Quality & Continuous Improvement at Graco Inc., where he leads initiatives focused on operational excellence, quality systems, leadership development, and digital transformation. Throughout his career, he has led manufacturing operations, cross-functional teams across Operations, Customer Service, and Distribution, and enterprise-wide transformation efforts. Jeff is passionate about developing leaders, creating process-driven organizations, making fact-based decisions, and empowering teams to achieve incremental improvements every day.

KAIZEN EVENTS
WITH AI

Eugene Arrington – Breakout Speaker

Discover how artificial intelligence can enhance traditional Kaizen events by:

Automating time-consuming tasks
Uncovering hidden insights
Improving the speed and quality of problem-solving.

This session will explore practical ways to integrate AI before, during, and after a Kaizen event while maintaining Lean principles without replacing the human collaboration that drives a successful Kaizen. Through practical examples and demonstrated use cases, attendees will learn how to combine the power of AI with Lean thinking to achieve better results in less time.

About Eugene:

As a Senior Lean Process Specialist at Starkey Hearing Technologies, Eugene Arrington leads global continuous improvement initiatives across manufacturing and business functions. With six years of experience in aerospace and medical device industries, he has led more than 30 Kaizen and Lean events across Starkey’s global operations. Eugene specializes in Kaizen facilitation, problem solving, and strategic business improvement initiatives.