Randy G. Darcy Retired Executive Vice President, Chief Technical Officer Worldwide Operations and Technology General Mills, Inc. Randy G. Darcy was named Executive Vice President in May, 2005, with responsibilities for Worldwide Supply Chain Operations, Research & Development, Quality & Regulatory Operations, and Engineering Technology. Supply Chain Operations includes the Purchasing, Manufacturing and Logistics functions. Darcy joined General Mills in September 1987 as Director of Cereal Manufacturing. He was named Senior Vice President, Supply Chain, in December 1994, responsible for Purchasing, Grain Merchandising, Engineering, Manufacturing, and Packaging. In May 1998, he was given expanded responsibilities for all aspects of the General Mills’ supply chain, including Distribution and Logistics. In March 2003, he assumed the additional responsibility for Research & Development and Quality & Regulatory Operations and was named Chief Technical Officer. In May, 2005, he was promoted to Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations and Technology. Darcy was responsible for overseeing over 9 billion dollars in annual operating budgets and 15,000 employees. He is credited with developing over 1 billion dollars in improved gross margins through his ability to find and implement innovative ideas across all aspects of General Mills. Darcy recently led the development and implementation of the company wide “Holistic Margin Management Process” that has more than doubled the companies cost management effectiveness. This work was the subject of a recent Harvard Business School Case Study. His best practice excercises with organizations like NASA, Sky Surfers, NASCAR, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Air Force has been celebrated in many business and popular publications. Mr. Darcy retired in August 2008 to pursue his passion for flying, competitive

Nancy Higley, PhD is Vice President, Food Safety and Regulatory Affairs at PepsiCo, Inc. In this role, Nancy is responsible for leading global food safety and regulatory policy to ensure PepsiCo products are compliant with appropriate international policies and regulations and ensure a globally aligned food safety program. More recently, Nancy developed the WWTO strategy on Safety and Regulatory Compliance, including policies, procedures, standards and systems. Nancy’s qualifications and experience in biology, biochemistry and toxicology are the foundations for her expertise in safety evaluation and risk management of food-borne toxins, food allergens and contaminants. Prior to joining PepsiCo Nancy conducted basic research in toxicology at the Food Research Institute, University of Wisconsin. She subsequently held positions in the food and flavor industry in the area of scientific and regulatory affairs, including a previous position at Pepsi, International Flavors and Fragrances, and Givaudan Flavors Inc. Dr. Higley earned her degrees in Biology and Biochemistry from State University of New York at Fredonia and the University of New Hampshire. Nancy conducted her postdoctoral work in toxicology at the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Higley has several peer-reviewed publications in the area of food safety, biochemistry, and toxicology and routinely presents at international food safety and regulatory conferences. Dr. Higley represents the company on key institutional boards such as the International Life Science Institute, the International Organization of Flavor Industry, the Calorie Control Council, the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute, the International Association of Color Manufacturers, and the John Hopkins Center for Alternative Animal Testing.

Bonifacio Sulprizio Quality Director of F.lli De Cecco, will discuss the Unique De Cecco way of producing pasta. De Cecco is distinguished from the others producers of semolina's pasta because represents a perfect union between tradition and modernity. In fact on the one hand De Cecco boasts 122 years of history during which it has been possible to preserve most of the native character that induced the Founder Mr Filippo De Cecco to start off with the activity. On the other hand, De Cecco embraced the modernity, providing itself of factories, production technologies among the newest. In that way it's possible then the effective control of the traditional qualitative parameters. It's just that union between the modern and technologic setting and the respect and conservation of a high level of the product quality that constitute the uniqueness of De Cecco. Today De Cecco is one of the few industrial pasta producers that is still using the bronze dies , slow drying process, select the wheat among those richest in gluten, low semolina extraction rate, coarse-grained semolina, cold water for the dough drawn directly from De Cecco spring

Michael Hempton is Lean Manufacturing Manager at Allied Bakeries, Belfast part of Associated British Foods plc a multibillion dollar international conglomerate. Allied Bakeries Ireland has 9 different manufacturing facilities under one roof making an average of 14 different products every day. With a focus on outputs and efficiencies Allied not only meets customer demands for 126 different products daily but also achieves world class efficiencies in the process. With increasing complexity and the problem of scheduling, changeovers and the need to keep costs low Allied will give an insight into how they achieved low costs while ensuring maximum efficiencies.

Carlsberg Breweries, headquartered in Copenhagen Denmark initiated a supply chain management improvement process with a best practice program in 2006. Through this process the Group Supply Chain (responsible for production) began to realise that a significant improvement in productivity and quality could be achieved by combining Lean / Six Sigma initiatives with Manufacturing Execution Systems. ATS International was then appointed as a “sparring partner” for Carlsberg and a journey was started, which has resulted in the implementation of MES across 15 breweries in Europe. Following an introduction of ATS, the discovery assessment and the development of the business case, there followed an intensive product selection phase. The implementation includes a global Carlsberg MES Blueprint, Functional Design Specification followed by local installations. The Carlsberg Brewery in Northampton, UK is the first brewery to benefit . from the new Simatic IT MES layer: Achievements: standardisation, production performance visibilityacross multiple sites creating a faster response to demand.

HACCP has become increasingly important in the face of recent food scares which cost the food industry dearly, and could have been avoided if HACCP had been in place. Attend the session to update yourself on best practice in HACCP in terms of building food safety into the process and streamlining activities through the implementation of food safety management systems.

Traditional business models may be useful for resolving traditional business challenges. Obtaining a satisfactory control of the value chain in the food manufacturing business, thereby ensuring food traceability and safety, is not a traditional challenge. There is an increasing demand for advanced, scaleable and cost efficient solutions that provide accurate and timely information, yet is one hundred percent reliable. The solution developed by Matiq does all this. And more. And it is applicable across a wide range of industries.

Danisco’s innovation strategy, governed by “Unfolding the Potential”, and superseded by “Becoming First Choice” is progressing. By moving from knowledge-based technology driven to knowledge-based value driven (Blue Ocean) innovation, we create value for our customers. Open innovation leads paradoxically to greater idea creativity and begets the image shifting parallax necessary to achieve, “Becoming First Choice”. Combining natural ingredients with knowledge driven employees, we continually secure value and novelty to our customers. We offer high quality, safe, sustainable, healthy nutritional solutions, supported by world class innovation to the end user’s ultimate

“A Natural Extension of Our Business” Automation can, and does, play a huge role in enabling production sustainability. Because Rockwell Automation is already a leading provider of industrial automation power, control and information solutions, it is a natural extension of the company’s business to provide automation for sustainable production. Rockwell Automation invests heavily in hardware, software and solutions that help its customers in all industries and geographies to achieve results in all aspects of sustainable production – energy, environment, and product and workplace safety. Tim is a highly experienced and successful manufacturing consultant with significant expertise in business, operations and quality management. He also has strong practical knowledge of Lean, Kaizen, TPM and Six Sigma processes. His proven skills include the optimisation of operational and manufacturing performance; business value analysis to support investment; driving change to capture value from project implementation, all accompanied by strong interpersonal skills. Tim has 22 years of manufacturing and factory management experience gained with Nestle across many areas of food and beverage operations. He joined Rockwell Automation 7 years ago and has been instrumental in developing Rockwell Automation’s Consulting Services and is now the Global Lead for the Consumer Packaged Goods Competency Centre.

“A Natural Extension of Our Business” Automation can, and does, play a huge role in enabling production sustainability. Because Rockwell Automation is already a leading provider of industrial automation power, control and information solutions, it is a natural extension of the company’s business to provide automation for sustainable production. Rockwell Automation invests heavily in hardware, software and solutions that help its customers in all industries and geographies to achieve results in all aspects of sustainable production – energy, environment, and product and workplace safety. Tim is a highly experienced and successful manufacturing consultant with significant expertise in business, operations and quality management. He also has strong practical knowledge of Lean, Kaizen, TPM and Six Sigma processes. His proven skills include the optimisation of operational and manufacturing performance; business value analysis to support investment; driving change to capture value from project implementation, all accompanied by strong interpersonal skills. Tim has 22 years of manufacturing and factory management experience gained with Nestle across many areas of food and beverage operations. He joined Rockwell Automation 7 years ago and has been instrumental in developing Rockwell Automation’s Consulting Services and is now the Global Lead for the Consumer Packaged Goods Competency Centre.

The initial quality of agro-products is of vital importance for downstream chain decisions. Batch variation is often hard to measure or predict, however management decisions on market choice or storage planning directly depend on the estimated quality of the batch. Using innovative genomics technology, the Dutch company NSure – a spin-off from Wageningen University- developed a method to determine exactly the physiological status of fresh products. The diagnostic potential of genomics is already being exploited by the medical sector, for some years. NSure has adapted the method for use in vegetable produce. This resulted in a breakthrough technology for controlling quality in agro-food business.

Carlsberg Breweries asked Mike James 2 years ago to develop long term solutions to make Lean and Six Sigma implementations stick so that Carlsberg could lower the costs of production, improve quality and simply increase profitability. Working within the framework of business standardisation processes and best practices Mike’s proposals are leading to a business transformation at an already very successful company. Elements of the program will be presented during this workshop, groups will be formed based upon experience and interest and asked to report back to the workshop on their conclusions. Expect to be challenged, expect to participate. Get involved and share your best practice experiences and then walk away with new knowledge, new ideas and thought for food!