Seems hard to believe that it's been almost 4 years since I wrote about the flatness of our little VC world. Time certainly flys when you're having fun...

In those 4 years, I've spent a fair amount of time talking to various folks in the far eastern portion of the globe. I must admit, when I worte the original CWG Review article (found here;http://www.configuration-workgroup.com/node/73 ) I didn't realize just how long it would take to be realized.

We met on January 19 at Steelcase. Our topics were;

External Configurators (presented by Configura)

Impacts of VC on Materials Management

PDR (Presented by Espline)

Engineering Change Management

We had one of our beter meetings  (in my opinion). Many thanks to the folks from Configura and Espline for being willing to present to our little group. Espline presented via Livemeeting and conference call, which worked very well.

Well, here we are in 2010.

As I tend to do, I took a look at my goals during the month of December. No, not to make resolutions as I don't believe in them. I believe in goals, which are different than resolutions and possibly the subject of a whole nother blog (if you can find my old MySpace account, there is plenty there)...

Hi,

I was listening to a Podcast about Russell Ackoff who was one of the original pioneers of Operations Research and had some interesting ideas on how business works.  If you look at Operations Research it is about optimising the parts - using stopwatches, algorithms etc.  But as time went on he saw things with a more big picture view.

Nov 2, 2009 Meeting Update: A Networking event is being planned for November 2, 2009 from 4pm - 7pm.

This event will be held at Max and Erma's restaurant in Grandville MI (3940 Rivertown Pkwy. S.W. Grandville, MI 49418)

If you would like to join us at this event, please send a RSVP email to me at sschneid@steelcase.com

Well, there we were again in Marco Island. What a sacrifice we make for our companies;The CWG returned to beautiful Marco Island yet again, and a great conference was held, hopefully for all!

If you couldn't be there, the program committee did a wonderful job of bringing together a multitude of different topics for us to consider.

And then there were the networking dinners on Monday evening;

If you find yourself  bored with the "ho hum"modeling tasks at your companytake a peek at the 2009 CWG Modeling challenge! The scenarios depicted in the challenge are coming from real life SAP customers, so it's not just an abstract exercise.

Ah yes....Summer is winding down with the coldest day during August recorded in 2009..What a strange year it's been for weather..As well as the Midwest chapter...One can only wonder what winter brings..

As you may know, the 4 hour meeting of this chapter was cancelled due to low registration. That didn't stop us though!! Just like a bunch of bad pennies, a few of us gathered at Curraghs Irish Pub in Holland for a networking event.

Hello everyone,

this blog will teach you how to use a new model documentation tool I am very excited about, hoping it will spark more modeling activities on the sandbox. Have you ever wished you could have your entire VC model in one easily navigable document? I did many times, especially when it came to training new modelers, or when trying to share a model with a larger business audience (marketing/engineering).