Private Company Forum airs range of topical issues.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Conferences

FEI's semi-annual Private Companies Forum, held May 4-6 in Atlanta, drew some 115 participants from private companies around the country to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel for a wide-ranging program that tackled issues such as "lean" processes, healthcare costs, outsourcing, financial reporting and accounting, fraud and career management. The program was put together by the Committee on Private Companies' (CPC) Program Subcommittee, led by Deborah Wilson.

In one session, Orest J. "Orry" Fiume, a retired vice president/finance at the Wiremold Co., walked the audience through the basics of what a "lean" program is, and isn't.

It isn't a manufacturing tactic or a cost-reduction program, he said, but a business strategy. At Wire-mold, for instance, it was the backbone of an improvement program in the 1990s that dramatically increased assessed value, sales and inventory turns, yet sharply reduced product development time and throughput time.

Fiume argued that too many companies look for "silver bullet" solutions such as new computer systems or "quality" programs, but frequently end up with a "program of the month" approach that employees don't take seriously. For all that has been written about Six Sigma, he argued that it isn't an effective umbrella strategy and needs careful targeting.

Lean thinking does require drastic and perhaps traumatic change for the organization, Fiume said, and it requires senior management to set serious stretch goals and create an environment where it is safe to...