President's Message
May/June, 2009

With summer just around the corner, we have come to the end of another program year.  Looking back, it is obvious that this past year presented some interesting challenges for all of us involved in business and in APICS.  While admittedly there was plenty of bad news and poor results to be absorbed, there were also exciting opportunities to survive and even thrive for organizations that maintained their core principles and were willing to take some calculated risks.  I am particularly proud of the way that our APICS Society, in general, and your Western Massachusetts Chapter, in particular, applied this formula to overcome setbacks and accomplish our goals.

Following the strategy taken by many of our member companies, our International Society cut costs by reducing staff at corporate headquarters in Chicago and eliminating some of the more expensive peripheral programs, like the Scholars’ Program.  This provided the remaining staff with the requisite resources to enhance educational content like the Body of Knowledge, expand programs like CMSP Certification, and promote the APICS brand and expand its recognition within industry.

Locally, your Board of Directors pursued a strategy first instituted last year: to achieve the dual goals of maintaining our membership base and increasing member participation in our monthly programs.  The linchpin of this strategy is simple but ambitious: to present the highest quality programs possible, featuring nationally recognized speakers addressing topics of great relevance to our members.  This strategy was effective last year, and continued to produce results this year as well: we started the year with a great turn-out for the informative plant tour at OnCore Manufacturing Services in Springfield, and ended the year in style with another spectacular plant tour at Yankee Candle.  In between these two events, we experienced gratifying attendance numbers at all our other monthly PDMs.  In addition, we presented two special programs in the afternoons: a mini-seminar on S&OP by Bob Stahl in October and a forum on Getting the Most from Your ERP system in March.  All of our programs were well-received, highly attended, and garnered outstanding reviews from all attendees. 

I want to thank all of you who attended these educational programs, for recognizing their quality, and for supporting the Chapter through your participation in them.  I especially would like to express our appreciation to those forward-thinking member companies who believed that “the smart move” was to continue sending their associates to our programs during a year when cutting back on “non-essentials” seemed to a “no-brainer”.

Looking ahead, the programs group is already busily lining up speakers and venues for next season and we are excited about the way it is shaping up.  Next year’s programs will be designed around the theme of discovering and revealing ideas you can use to keep yourself and your firm competitive.  And we are going to be trying more new methods and approaches to keep the presentations fresh and relevant.  Watch this space in the month’s to come for more about this.

Next year, Chapter 19 may again face a business environment that will challenge our ability to maintain membership and increase participation in programs.  However, I am confident that, under the leadership of incoming President Bob Gagnon and with the support of you and your firm, we can make our 50th Anniversary year a memorable one.  It will be remarkable for programs and activities that will prove that APICS is still relevant and capable of providing value to members and the member companies of the Western Mass. business community.

I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank the other Officers and members of the Board of Directors for all of their support and hard work this past year.  It is truly a privilege to work with these talented and unselfish professionals: Bob Gagnon, Shirley Porter, Mark White, John Janus, Jack Perazella, Jodi Welch, Ed Kantor, Cheryl Denoncourt, and Tom Cantin.  The successes we enjoyed these past two years of my tenure as President are due entirely to their creativity and dedication.  Most of these folks have graciously consented to continue in their roles for another year.  I look forward with great pleasure to working with them once again, in my new capacity as Executive VP, to deliver the outstanding level of chapter management that you deserve.

Finally, I want to wish you and your loved ones a safe and happy summer season.  I hope you take advantage of all opportunities to relax and recharge so that you can come back to us in the fall energized and ready for a stimulating program year.  I hope to see every one of you again in September.

Best regards,

Bruce Chartier