North America Lean Manufacturing Study Tour
Operational Excellence & Professional Development Program
26 September to 9 October 2025
Join us for an unforgettable journey through North America’s leading Lean plants at the 20th Annual North America Lean Manufacturing Study Tour. Network with top practitioners from Australia, New Zealand, and Vietnam as you gain insights from world class site visits.
The tour is timed to precede the 41st Association of Manufacturing Excellence (AME) Annual Conference held in St. Louis, Missouri. This is an unmissable event for manufacturing and operational excellence. Guided by international Lean experts, this is your chance to ignite new ideas and elevate your continuous improvement journey.
Professional Development
Tour preparation: Using the A3 format provided, you will document your learning and development objectives from each of the tour visits, and conference sessions and activities. This will be agreed with your manager/sponsor.
Daily coaching: At the conclusion of each day, a debrief session will be facilitated by your coaches to discuss key observations and how they apply to the A3 learning and development activities.
Post tour: Regular updates and reviews with your sponsor to confirm and implement agreed actions and activities.
Why Canada?
The region immediately west of Toronto is a rich manufacturing belt that has developed as a low cost exporter to the US auto and associated industries. Supply chain globalisation in the 1980’s and 90’s resulted in some of the earliest adoption of Lean thinking outside of Japan and the auto industry. Their culture and social structure is almost identical to ours, and their willingness to share their experience with us makes them ideal benchmarking partners.
Study Tour, Conference, and Travel
While Conference attendance is optional, preference will be given to AME conference attendees. A discounted price for the AME conference will be available to Tour attendees. We will advise on tour travel logistics, arrange itinerary, reserve hotel rooms for the week and provide ground transport while in Canada.
Pricing
Study Tour Pricing: AUD $4000 per person
AME Conference Pricing: USD $1440 booked direct with AME (Discount Code provided on Tour Confirmation)
Note : Attendees will book and pay for flights, pay for hotel rooms, personal expenses and meals. AME Conference Week expenses are payable directly by participants.
World Class Site Visits
Niagara Parks Power Station: The oldest hydroelectric power station in Canada and the second oldest in Nth America. Famous entrepreneur, Nikola Tesla, was the consulting engineer on this project which opened in 1905 and was a part of the national grid until it closed in 2006.
Jefferson Elora Co: This private Tier one automotive components manufacturer opened in Elora in 1997 and now employs over 300 people . While many of the region’s auto-parts manufacturers are downsizing, Jefferson are continuing their growth. With customers Toyota and Honda you can expect to see advanced Lean thinking throughout.
Teledyne Flir: Founded in 2007 this plant manufactures small unmanned aerial systems for military and commercial applications.
FJE Shoji Power: This Japanese owned / major global supplier of electrical steels, transformer cores and components design and manufacture to order. Advanced Lean thinking and employee engagement is evident throughout.
ATS Life Sciences: Provide synergy of experience, automation technology, and scale to advance factory automation solutions for the world’s leading manufacturers.
Parker Hannifin: World leader in the design and manufacture of hydraulic and pneumatic systems.
Eaton Electric: Eaton’s Milton plant consistently rates as one of Eaton’s best Lean plants in Nth America. You will see value flow through their clear value streams with ingenious integration through their state of the art cabinet line.
Bombardier Aerospace: We will tour the newly opened, state of the art facility for the Global Express business jets. Learn how their CI systems and people engagement systems work together.
Your tour hosts:
Kevin Bennett
Director
KB Business Solutions
Kevin is an accomplished senior manager with extensive experience in both public and private sectors, specialising in performance and process improvement, strategic planning, and leadership development. He holds a Master’s in Quality and Environmental Management, Graduate Diploma in Operational Excellence, is a certified Lead Auditor for ISO9001, a graduate of the AICD, and a key contributor to the Manufacturing Excellence Forum. Kevin has been an AME member since 2010 and co-host of the International Study Tour since 2016.
Gary Kerr
Lean Coach
Leveraged Lean
Gary is an engineer with a Master’s in Business and Technology and extensive experience in operations management and Lean implementation. He has worked with leading organisations like Rio Tinto, Toyota, and CSR to improve efficiency and strategic alignment. A former AME Australian President and current Board Director at Milspec Manufacturing, Gary offers coaching at all organisational levels, from senior leadership to shop-floor training. He is a sought-after speaker and has attended over 20 AME Annual Conferences, helping companies maximise their learning experiences.
“The 2024 Best Practice tour was my first real opportunity to see how well-developed businesses have transformed themselves through best practises, culminating in a lifelong memorable experience at the bombardier factory in Toronto. Moving into the AME conference in the second week of our tour the workshops and keynote speakers left me deep in thought about many factors I hadn’t considered both personally and for our workplace. This combined with enough time to get some touring done means that if I was presented with the opportunity to attend again I will be jumping at it and encourage anyone in manufacturing to do the same.“
– Jason, Gason
The study tour was incredibly useful. Seeing the practical application of LEAN to the extent that some of the places in Canada have has really encouraged me to champion this in our own business. It really highlighted that while we are doing some of the practical side of these things, we have some gaps. We’re not auditing and documenting a lot of things to the extent we should be, and the potential benefits of doing so were pretty clear by the end of that week.The conference had several useful workshops and presentations that were relevant to our business, primarily in the realm of developing engagement within the business towards continuous improvement, innovation, problem solving, goal setting, and overcoming obstacles. There were also several insightful sessions on harnessing AI to improve analytics and reduce busy-work to free up people for more impactful tasks.Overall, a fantastic experience which I would highly recommend for any of my peers in this industry.