Author: Alexander Sadowski


UConn Business School Announces New Hands-on Lean Business Process Improvement Interactive Workshop

Hands-On Lean Process ImprovementThe UConn School of Business has announced a new 2-day workshop – Hands-on Lean Business Process Improvement, designed to provide individuals at all levels of an organization with a solid foundation for using Lean to help achieve operational excellence from the top-down and the bottom-up.

The workshop will be held on February 27 & 28, 9am-4pm, at UConn’s Graduate Business Learning Center in downtown Hartford. The cost of the 2-day program is $1,200.

“The Hands-on Lean Business Process Improvement workshop enables individuals to quickly and easily follow a common roadmap and use simple tools to improve business processes by eliminating waste and improving flow to enhance value for your customers and stakeholders,” says David A. Burn, Chief Statistician in corporate operations for Boston Scientific Corporation and workshop instructor.

The workshop format is highly interactive and relies on simulation and competition to challenge individuals and teams to quickly learn concepts and skills and to reinforce their learning using a low-tech, high-touch approach. Features of the hands-on program include: real-time simulation of business processes; fast-paced competition between teams; and interactive discussion of relevant examples.

At the completion of Hands-on Lean Business Process Improvement, participants will be able to identify waste and flow problems in business processes, and design and follow a structured roadmap toward improvement. In other words, workshop participants will be able to cut costs and increase efficiencies within their organization.

“Lean processing is particularly important for Connecticut companies where the cost of doing business is one of the highest in the nation,” adds Colleen McGuire, director of UConn’s School of Business in Hartford. “We plan to offer more of these timely, relevant workshops in the months to come in support of a stronger, more competitive Connecticut economy.”


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Quarterly Connecticut Economic Outlook Released

The Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, led by Professor Fred Carstensen, released its latest Economic Outlook in mid-December.

Even while jobs are returning to Connecticut’s economy, the apparently encouraging seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate of 7.5% for 2013Q3 needs to be compared with the Seasonally adjusted (SA) unemployment rate of 7.9%. The improving unemployment rate is in large measure a result of declining participation in the workforce. Nearly 65,000 working-age adults simply stopped looking for employment since 2010Q2.

Continuing productivity gains often approaching (or even exceeding) 2% annually translate into no job creation unless the economy grows even faster. Even at the national level, job creation remains modest for this reason. Ironically, Connecticut’s strength in manufacturing, which typically delivers quite high productivity growth, is a concomitant of fewer jobs, and thus a challenge for job creation.

Full-time equivalents (FTEs) have risen 43,000 over the three years. With gains in FTEs and loses in the number jobs, the ratio of FTEs to jobs in Connecticut has risen, which can be an indicator of further job growth.

Read the Full December 2013 Outlook 


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