Professional Development with SME Lean Bronze Certification – Fall 2025
In today’s competitive manufacturing landscape, companies often struggle with inefficiencies, high operational costs, and disengaged employees. These challenges can hinder growth and reduce overall performance. The Manufacturing Excellence professional development program offers a solution by equipping supervisors, managers, team leaders, and other motivated individuals with the skills needed to drive transformational change.
This intensive workshop focuses on lean principles, providing you with hands-on experience and professional mentoring to help you implement effective strategies and preparing you for the nationally recognized SME Lean Bronze certification. Companies that support their employees in achieving this certification can accelerate their journey towards operational excellence, engage more employees in performance improvement, and enhance their reputation as a top employer.
Certified employees can effectively implement lean principles, concepts, methods, and tools within work cells, work groups, and value streams, leading to significant improvements and measurable results. Historically, projects led by employees trained in operational excellence tools have shown a return on investment of over $10,000 per project.
Participants of NWIRC’s Fall 2024 cohort passed their Lean Bronze certification exam and had this to say about the training itself: “All class material will be extremely helpful in advancing my career. I found this class to be very helpful and presentation by Shane was wonderful and easy to take everything in!”; “I really enjoyed the practical examples where I could relate topics to my work.”; “The instructor was extremely well prepared – provided all the necessary materials. I enjoyed the exercises, especially the Lean LEGO simulation. Wonderful learning environment.”; and “The smaller class size allowed for good, shared problem solving.”
The next Manufacturing Excellence cohort starts in October in Meadville. The program includes six training sessions from 8:00am-12:00pm on October 8, 15, 22, 29, November 5, 12. Additionally, the certification exam preparation sessions are scheduled for November 19 and 20 from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, with the exam taking place on the 20th. Required reading for the course includes “Gemba Kaizen,” “Lean Production Simplified,” and “The Toyota Way.” These books will be provided in advance upon registration to help participants get a head start on the material. For more information about this program, visit nwirc.org/events.