The Binding Industries Association (BIA) Conference took place on OrlandoMay 23-25 for its largest event in more than five years. With a theme of “Make the Connection,” companies were able to experience significant networking opportunities. This was the definitive event for the binding, graphic finishing, and custom loose-leaf manufacturing.
Attendees from all over the country gathered to meet with peers and talk openly about important business issues, strategy, and hear practical tips that would help their companies.
The conference opened with a fantastic keynote session titled No Excuse! Incorporating Core Values, Accountability and Balance into Your Life and Career. This session gave attendees a better understanding of the importance of consistency in behavior, decisiveness, and personal honesty. The speaker, Jay Rifenbary, emphasized how this could help employees’ productivity and efficiency.
Attendees also learned how to drive a decisive competitive edge in production, supply chains, and new product introduction by addressing a company’s single biggest constraint. Gerald Kendall, Goldratt Institute, educated the audience about a process called The Five Focusing Steps. Theory of Constraints is based on the idea that in any complex system at any point in time, there is only one, or at most, very few aspects of the system keeping that system from achieving more of its goal:
1. IDENTIFY the system’s constraint
2. Decide how to best EXPLOIT the constraint
3. SUBORDINATE everything else to the above decision
4. ELEVATE the system’s constraint
5. If, in a previous step, a constraint has been broken, go back to step
1. PREVENT INERTIA from becoming the system’s constraint.
A consistent theme of every BIA conference is the close community. Throughout the year, The Binding Industries Association serves as a peer group that not only helps each other, but helps educate the industry. It was a successful conference, and we can’t wait to begin planning for next year!
For more information about the BIA, visit printing.org/bia.