Events
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BELL’S BREWERY, INC
8938 Krum Ave., Galesburg, MI 49053.
Registration deadline is Thursday August 26th at noon.
Schedule: Tour begins at 5:30 PM.
Bell's Brewery, Inc. formerly Kalamazoo Brewing Company, founded by Larry Bell as a home-brewing supply shop in 1983, sold its first beer in 1985. Originally brewing in a 15-gallon soup kettle, the company has grown remarkably from its production of 135 barrels (1 bbl = 31 gal.) in 1986 to over 90,000 barrels in 2007. Bell's Brewery has grown from a tiny operation renting part of a former plumbing supply warehouse to a bustling, regional craft brewery. Over twenty years of brewing, Bell's Brewery has built a nationwide reputation as a creative and talented brewery, playing a significant role in changing the beerscape of the nation.
Although the "microbrewery" revolution began on the West Coast in the 1970s, the Midwest saw this brewing development much later. Bell's Brewery stands as the oldest craft-brewer east of Boulder, Colorado. Originally self-distributed, Larry and crew brewed, bottled and delivered all of the beer to market for the company's first four years. By 1989, Bell's was shipping over 500 barrels annually and assigned its first wholesaler to further establish itself across the State of Michigan. After struggling several years to produce and sell robust, full-bodied ales against a tide of a mass-market domestic beer, Bell's began to see the demand for craft beer grow dramatically. Bell's soon ventured outside Michigan, continuing its solid growth and developing a reputation across the Midwest for the unique style and flavor of its Bell's brands. The brewery currently sells its beer across a fifteen-state area, through a network of over fifty quality wholesalers.
In 2003, Bell's proudly opened a new production brewery in nearby Comstock, Michigan. The new brewery has now seen three major additions and encompasses 60,000 square feet of building on a 24 acre site The Quality Assurance department has thrived in the new facilities, implementing procedures and techniques that assure that Bell's is consistently putting out the very best beer possible. Total brewing capacity now stands at 140,000 bbls. At the Kalamazoo Avenue location, an historical rehabilitation has brought about a pleasant architectural change to the city landscape.
Our ongoing goal is to brew thoughtfully, creatively and artistically. We strive to bring an authentic and pleasant experience to all of our customers through our unique ales and beers. We look forward to sharing our beers with you.
October 12th Event-Sponsored by APICS
Schedule: 5:30 PM Hors d'oeuvres; 6:00 PM Speaker begins
Registration deadline is Thursday September 30th at noon.
Tuesday October 12, 2010 - Ken Shearer from the Gallup Organization. His topic will be "Building a Strengths-Based Organization. Specific details to follow.
November 9th Event-Sponsored by ISM
Reverse GlobalizationRegistration deadline is Thursday November 4th at noon.
Schedule: 5:30 PM Hors d'oeuvres; 6:00 PM Speaker begins
Lori Sisk is a Principal Consultant with Hewlett Packard based in Pontiac, Michigan. She has over twenty years experience in management and supply chain in various industries such as; automotive, aerospace and defense, retail and wholesale grocery, and home building. In her current and previous positions, she has worked with every region in the world. She has led several Fortune 50 organizations through major cost reduction supply chain efforts resulting in millions saved. She has worked for AutoAlliance, TRW, and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Consulting. Lori worked with Delphi Corporation as the Industrial Supplies Group Leader and is currently employed at HP as a Principal Consultant. Lori is currently a member of ISM and past member of APICS and MCWT (Michigan Council of Women in Technology). As an adjunct professor for Wayne State University, she taught the MBA class; Strategic Procurement and has taught the CPM Review Course at various locations. Lori has spoken at various conferences including ISM International Conference , APICS International Conferences, PanHellenic Purchasing Institute’s Conference in Greece, and the SAPICS Conference in South Africa. She has her CPM and Six Sigma Green Belt. Lori holds a MBA and BSBA from Bowling Green State University.
Many companies are now considering reverse globalization as they analyze the true costs of off-shoring products or services. With the uncertainty of the economy and many companies’ financials, there is a trend happening called Reverse Globalization. In this session, you will learn the impacts that Reverse Globalization may have on your organization, how total cost is continuing to play an ever more important role and understand the balance between risk and reward.
The business environment, today, requires closer analysis of total supply chain costs. A collaborative cross-functional effort is required for global strategic sourcing so that issues such as supply assurance, higher overall costs, and hidden costs are minimized. As companies embrace this collaborative approach along with a review of previous sourcing decisions, reverse globalization is occurring for services and products.
For example, a company in the high-tech business, was partially manufacturing the product in the US, shipping the partially completed product to Mexico due to a lower labor cost and then shipping it back to US for distribution to customers. This is a classic example of how a silo’d approach to a sourcing decision can cause increased supply chain costs.
With this example, the companies are being burdened with:
- Increased Logistics Costs,
- Increased Inventory which creates:
- Higher probability of obsolescence cost due to engineering changes
- Higher probability of price devaluation
- Higher administrative costs for warehousing
- Reduction of price protection to retailers due to new products being introduced and the old products dropping in price or old products being returned by retailers.
- Expedited freight costs
Reverse globalization is becoming more prevalent due to these increased costs. Strategic sourcing needs to take into consideration the risk of globalization and weighing that against any rewards that globalization may offer. There are tools which can provide optimization models in selecting the right supply chain strategy. In this session, all of these concepts will be covered so that the audience can take these concepts to their organization in order to make the right supply chain strategy decisions.