Mike Aroney
Principal Advisor
GPAllied

Mike Aroney has over 20 years of executive leadership experience with exceptional success developing and executing Business Strategy, Change Management, Organizational Transformations, Leadership Coaching and Maintenance and Reliability Excellence. Mike's expertise lie in providing customized solutions to achieve and sustain changes in an organization's culture and align the organization to optimize execution and drive results of new business approaches for maintenance and reliability.

Pat Crane
Vice President of Sales
Informance International

With more than two decades working with teams in supply chain and manufacturing operations for CPG, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, life sciences, and industrial clients, Pat Crane has focused the past seven years on helping manufacturers achieve their operations performance goals. Currently a senior executive with Informance International, Pat works with global companies as they leverage manufacturing business intelligence as part of their overall excellence objectives. Prior to Informance, Pat was an integral part of a client solutions team for manufacturing execution systems (MES). Prior to delivering manufacturing client solutions, Pat was a member of the manufacturing engineering team with Continental White Cap, where he was responsible for PLC control systems. Pat holds a BS in electrical engineering from Marquette University.

Tim DelVecchio
Director Supply Chain
Akzo Nobel Decorative Paints

A former naval officer, Tim Del Vecchio began his lean/CPI journey with the Ertl Company, continuing it with TRW Occupant Safety System prior to joining ICI Paints (now AkzoNobel) in 2000. Tim holds a bachelors degree in physics from Ithaca College and a masters of business administration from the University of Phoenix. He is ICI Paints Six Sigma Black Belt certified. A native of central New York, he remains a die-hard New York Yankees fan. Tim lives in Leesport, PA with his wife Sandie and their six boys-unfortunately only one of whom is a Yankees fan.

Timothy Goshert
Worldwide Reliability & Maintenance Manager
Cargill

Timothy Goshert has 30 years of experience working in the food processing industry. He has extensive experience in plant operations management, project engineering, construction management, and maintenance & reliability management. Tim holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Penn State University. Tim earned his CMRP (Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional) designation from SMRP in 2001.

Tim has served in his current role with Cargill since 2000. Cargill, Inc. is one of the world's largest food and agricultural processing companies with over 1,000 processing facilities worldwide. He is responsible for the company's worldwide reliability and maintenance initiatives and is chairman of the company's Worldwide Reliability and Maintenance Steering Committee. Tim and other Committee members educate and lead Cargill's business units in the company's reliability and maintenance vision, strategies and tactics.

Tim is an active member of the Society of Maintenance & Reliability Professionals (SMRP) and presently serves on its Board of Directors for the past five years. He has served as Chairman in 2008. Presently he is serving as SMRP Past Chairman. Additionally, he has served as Past Chairman of Society of Maintenance & Reliability Professionals Certification Organization (SMRPCO). He also has represented Cargill, Inc as a founding sponsor of ICML (International Council of Machinery Lubrication). He is active in many industry conferences as a presenter and a contributing author in several maintenance and reliability industry magazines.

Patricia Hatem
Supplier Development Manager
Johnson Diversey

With nearly 20 years dedicated to supply chain, manufacturing and process management, Ms. Hatem is a Six Sigma Black Belt and trained Lean practitioner. Formerly plant manager for the largest and showcase manufacturing facility for JohnsonDiversey, she successfully launched and maintained a lean initiative to support the company's objective to increase capacity and reduce contract manufacturing. Her teams increased productivity by 30% and reduced finished goods inventory by $1.5 million, resulting in an increase of cost savings by 3x for the business.

In her current role, she tackled the company's raw material rationalization, with the largest project to-date spaning the North American region, reducing raw materials from 1200 to 400, and estimated first-year system savings of $6 million. As part of the material rationalization process, she works with suppliers to leverage Lean techniques reduce inventory, improve lead times, and work together more efficiently. Prior to her role as plant manager, she was responsible for process improvement initiatives across JohnsonDiversey, leading kaizen waves and managing Lean and Six Sigma programs.

Previously, Ms. Hatem was responsible for JohnsonDiversey's raw materials planning, sourcing and negotiations across North America, reducing costs by $1 million annually. In her roles as production manager, process engineer and research engineer for JohnsonDiversey, SC Johnson, The Dial Corporation and Abbott Laboratories, she led teams and global manufacturing facilities toward success in operational and process excellence. Ms. Hatem holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla and has been a professor of chemistry at the collegiate level.

Peter T. Hock
Senior Director Continuous Improvement
ConAgra Foods

Peter Hock is a financial professional who focuses on helping large enterprises protect shareholder value and connect the dots between strategic activities and operational tactics. His insights enable businesses to transform typical business processes into value chain enablers and operational excellence. As the Senior Director of Continuous Improvement for ConAgra Foods, Peter has leveraged business intelligence to close the gap between current operations performance and what “could be” to deliver quantifiable savings. He has helped ConAgra forge new ground in manufacturing performance, so that the improvement effort yields sustainable results. Prior to ConAgra, Peter served in a variety of financial and sales management roles with Altivity Packaging (formed by Texas Pacific Group and Smurfit-Stone's Consumer Packaging Division). With an MBA from the University of Michigan, Peter also earned a B.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan.

Richard Jones
Vice President
L'Oreal

A graduate of the University of Wales with a BS in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Richard Jones started his career with Unilever PLC in 1989 by participating in the "Unilever Graduate Program", similar to the Explorer Program. He was actively involved with project engineering, production supervision and production planning. In 1991, he was promoted to Production Cell Manager, then took a position as Director ETNSHE in 1993, and became a UP Director in 1995.

In 1997, Rich moved to Rotterdam, where he held several corporate supply chain roles for Unilever Holland during 3 years. There he worked on various optimization projects across Western Europe, Poland, Russia, Asia and Middle East. In 2000, Rich joined L'Oreal as a UP Director. Later he worked with the DGO Production and Logistics department in Paris and on several projects in Belgium, France and China. In 2003, he became Plant Manager in Florence, Kentucky, where he worked on the major capital investment plan to support the Fructis post launch growth. He also developed a future vision for the site to achieve 250Mu capacity as well as a new distribution center model.

Since 2007, Rich has been the managing executive in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He implemented a new vision and strategy for the plant. His team worked with Teamtrek, created a compass and the TPM and Cell management structure. All these innovations are now being adopted by the other L'Oreal plants throughout the US. Richard's geographical mobility, his charisma and innovative ideas allowed him to develop an incomparable expertise in the multi facets of the L'Oreal business. He thrives with change and strongly believes in team work.

Marc Mailman
Product Manager
Informance International

With more than a decade in business process applications, Marc Mailman is currently the product Manager for the Informance suite of enterprise manufacturing intelligence solutions. In this role, he has spearheaded custom development for clients, ensured close alignment with industry EMI trends, and defined product strategy against manufacturing operations best practices. Prior to his role as product manager, Marc was an Informance client services engineer, working with key customers to ensure fast time-to-value with Informance EMI solutions. Prior to Informance, Marc was a systems engineer with Control Associates in Allendale, NJ. A graduate of Purdue University with a B.S. in computer integrated manufacturing technology, Marc currently resides in Redwood City, CA.

Richard Mosgrove
Vice President of Operations & Special Projects
Ventura Foods

Richard Mosgrove, a twenty-year veteran of manufacturing operations, is currently Vice President of Operations and Special Projects with Ventura Foods, a firm recognized for its ability to deliver quality products, efficiencies and economies of scale that enhance customers' growth and sales opportunities. Mr. Mosgrove has been instrumental in institutionalizing the firm's Lean/Six Sigma initiative as part of his team's cost analysis and mapping projects, and he championed the company's Six Sigma training program. He has worked to drive manufacturing efficiencies and excellence for Ventura through process mapping, capacity analysis, and organization reengineering. As a respected member of the Ventura Foods management team, he has spent time affecting change from the vantage points of operations management, plant management, operations development, logistics and supply chain systems.

Prior to Ventura, Richard Mosgrove was the Vice President of Operations for Timber Creek, Inc. Shaw Industries, where he was instrumental in the firm's 35% reduction in costs and 30.8% improvement in OEE - a turnaround that drove the company from bankruptcy to profitability in just one year. Earlier, Mosgrove was Vice President of Operations with Osceola Foods where he developed and implemented a strategic improvement plan that reduced manufacturing costs by 45%, cut operating inventory by 50%, increased productivity by 49% and improved product yield by 35%. A graduate of Kent State University who holds a BS in Business Administration and Economics, Mr. Mosgrove is also formerly an OMB Associates consultant responsible for helping manufacturing clients improve manufacturing costs.

Ish Ahamed
Vice President of Supply
Diageo

With nearly 20 years expertise in manufacturing operations spanning site management, logistics, change management, and performance improvement, Ish Ahamed has led local teams and global strategic initiatives for GlaxoSmithKline, HJ Heinz, Campbell Grocery Products, and currently Diageo. Early in his career, Ish was responsible for a number of projects that focused on site expansions and transfer of production to meet the demands for innovative new products, successfully meeting production goals by improving line and facility productivity. Later, in roles focused specifically on logistics, he was a key driver in performance improvement initiatives and led customer service improvement from 60% to over 90% on time orders. Since 2004, he has worked with Diageo in plant management and conversion leadership to guide teams toward world-class performance, exceeding corporate expectations and contributing to significant savings in workforce, material and capital investment.

John Oskin
Executive Vice President
Informance International

John Oskin has more than 20 years' experience in manufacturing, lean manufacturing, design for manufacturability and six-sigma methodology. Oskin spent 12 years driving manufacturing excellence at General Electric, where he doubled the output of one facility and influenced GE improvement initiatives globally. In 1995 he leveraged his reputation as a thought leader in manufacturing performance and founded FactoryWare, a company dedicated to helping global manufacturers improve line performance. He grew FactoryWare into a leading enterprise manufacturing intelligence firm, known today as Informance, an acknowledged leader in helping manufacturing companies accelerate operational performance initiatives, drive operating strategies for manufacturing performance. John remains with Informance as a guiding presence and to give customers and the manufacturing community access to his broad expertise. A graduate of the University of Louisville in mechanical engineering, Oskin publishes benchmark study reports by manufacturing industry every 18 to 24 months.

Sunil Singh
President & CEO
Informance International

Sunil Singh has been an innovator and a leader in the software industry for nearly 20 years, primarily in the Enterprise Software space. Prior to Informance, he was a co-founder of Mokume (a factory floor-to-enterprise integration company, acquired by Versant (VSNT). Other venture-funded start-ups, where he helped launch enterprise software products as the Chief Technologist and VP Engineering, include enterprise software platforms in areas such as New Product Development (Chingari), insurance and financial services (nuServe) and Demand Supply Synchronization (UCCNet at AppNet, for the food and packaged goods industry, acquired by CommerceOne (CMRC). He was also the founder and technology Director at IIS VisionWorks (acquired by UK-based FI Group), working on the industryÕs first Engineering Change Order (ECO) for PDM systems. Mr. Singh holds an MS and Ph.D. from Cornell University. He has strong interests in promoting technology entrepreneurship and serves on technology advisory and Board positions of several companies in India and Silicon Valley.