2025 Manufacturer's Forum

The KABA Manufacturer’s Forum is a learning series specifically for local manufacturers. We partner with the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership (WMEP) to offer quarterly training sessions with knowledgeable subject matter experts paired with facilitated peer-to-peer learning. The goal of the forum is to learn from experts as well as each other. Each quarter will be focused on a different, timely topic. These events held four times a year in the KABA Training Center (unless otherwise noted).

Q2 | Wednesday, May 7: How to Set Your Front-Line Supervisors Up for Success

In the manufacturing industry, it’s common to promote outstanding operators to supervisory roles. However, excelling as an operator doesn’t necessarily translate to effective leadership. With today’s labor challenges, poor relationships with front-line supervisors are a leading cause of employee turnover.

Join WMEP’s Carol Crawford as she shares insights into what companies seek in front-line supervisors, balancing operator skills with essential people skills. See Carol’s bio below. This session will cover:

Key Leadership Qualities: Understanding the critical traits that make a successful supervisor.
Communication Skills: Techniques to enhance your supervisors’ ability to communicate effectively with their teams.
Building Trust and Relationships: Strategies to foster a positive work environment and improve team dynamics.
Conflict Management: Practical approaches to handle and resolve conflicts within the team.
Coaching and Feedback: Methods to provide constructive feedback and support continuous improvement.

Participants will leave with actionable ideas to implement within their teams, boosting supervisor effectiveness and overall team performance.

Please register by Friday, May 2nd at the link below. Questions? Contact KABA at info@kaba.org or 262.605.1100.

The 2025 Manufacturer’s Forum full event schedule:

MEET OUR SPEAKER

Barry brings over 25 years manufacturing experience working with management driving continual improvement and implementing quality management systems, in machining, foundry, assembly environments.

He has lead new and ongoing cross-functional initiatives related to customer, quality, regulatory, and continuous improvement.

Barry is a long term systems thinker with a proven track record of systems development and sustained improvement on key business issues including customer satisfaction, supplier performance, process performance, delivery, and scrap.

Read more about Barry’s skill set, certifications, and education here.

ALREADY HELD!

Q1 | Wednesday, February 12 : Sustainability solutions for mid-sized job shops

Most manufacturers that are based in Wisconsin are job shops – meaning they make products that are used by other (larger) manufacturers as pieces, components or ingredients of a final product. As a result, many of these job shops have customers that are large, muti-national or publicly traded companies.

If your company is a supplier to one of these large customers, what can or should you do when they ask you for a sustainability plan (and metrics to back it up)? WMEP’s Barry Messer will share ideas and potential options for you to think about if your company might need to prepare a sustainability plan, scorecard or even an audit.

MEET OUR SPEAKER

Carol brings a diverse management background including experience in Operations and Supply Chain Management, Lean Six Sigma, Quality Systems, New Product Development, and Multi-site Project Management in manufacturing and software environments.

Carol has worked for several large companies, including Brady Corp., a subsidiary of Rockwell Automation, 3M, and, prior to her arrival at the WMEP, Microchip Technology. Carol also managed a small touchscreen electronics manufacturer and experienced firsthand some of the unique challenges and opportunities, including championing the sale to a strategic buyer in the semiconductor industry.

Read more about Carol’s skill set, certifications, and education here.

Q2 | Wednesday, May 7: How to Set Your Front-Line Supervisors Up for Success

Join WMEP’s Carol Crawford as she shares insights into what companies seek in front-line supervisors, balancing operator skills with essential people skills. This session will cover:

Key Leadership Qualities: Understanding the critical traits that make a successful supervisor.
Communication Skills: Techniques to enhance your supervisors’ ability to communicate effectively with their teams.
Building Trust and Relationships: Strategies to foster a positive work environment and improve team dynamics.
Conflict Management: Practical approaches to handle and resolve conflicts within the team.
Coaching and Feedback: Methods to provide constructive feedback and support continuous improvement.

Participants will leave with actionable ideas to implement within their teams, boosting supervisor effectiveness and overall team performance.

MEET OUR SPEAKER

Read more about Carol’s skill set, certifications, and education here.

Q3 | Wednesday, September 17 : Engagement & Retention Strategies to Maximize Results Across the Employee Life Cycle

In this session, we will delve into effective strategies for enhancing employee engagement and retention, ensuring your organization maximizes results throughout the employee life cycle. We will focus on Engagement & Retention with proven methods to maintain high levels of employee engagement and reduce turnover – key topics include:

Building a Values-Based Culture: Creating an environment where employees feel valued and aligned with the organization’s mission and values.
Performance Development: Implementing systems that support continuous performance improvement and career growth.
Reward & Recognition Systems: Establishing programs that recognize and reward employee contributions, fostering a culture of appreciation.
Career Pathways: Developing clear career progression paths to motivate and retain top talent.
Engagement Assessment & Action Plans: Utilizing assessments to gauge employee engagement levels and creating actionable plans to address areas of improvement.
Participants will leave with actionable insights and tools to implement these strategies to support their engagement improvement journeys.

MEET OUR SPEAKER

Cory’s career spans over 10 years in automation engineering and manufacturing. Cory has designed custom automation for original equipment manufacturers and in-house use. His design experience includes robot integration, electrical construction, mechanical design, networking, and programming. In his most recent role, as an Automation Leader, he was responsible for getting machines from concept to implementation while working with multi-disciplinary groups.

Read more about Cory’s skill set, certifications, and education here.

Q4 | Tuesday, November 18: Artificial Intelligence – how can I learn about its uses and begin safely experimenting with this emerging technology in my manufacturing environment

WMEP’s Cory Larson, who leads their automation and cybersecurity service line, will lead an overview session focusing on:

1) What is AI?
2) What are some simple, safe and relatively low-cost ways I can start to use this tool in my manufacturing shop?

Note: This event is will be held in collaboration with the Racine County Economic Development Corporation’s Manufacturer’s Forum which includes many Racine-based manufacturers. It will be held at the iMet Center at Gateway Technical College’s Sturtevant campus with tours of the center following the session.