Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Detroit, MI: American Axle & Manufacturing

Friday, January 18th

The last day of our plant tour! We were left with only a half-day tour as well and this time it was of American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM). AAM treated us to a tour of one of their 8 plants at their Detroit facility. They have done a great job implementing lean and a pull manufacturing system. It was definitely impressive to see what they have done with their facility – they even showed before and after photos which were amazing to see.

After the tour, I drove out to my old facility in Ypsilanti and met up with a bunch of old friends. Two former bosses, three colleagues, and one of my old employees all came out to meet up with me at a local bar for some drinks and dinner. It was great being back and to see all these familiar faces. I definitely miss them all and (if you are reading this) hope that they are all able to make it out to Boston some day! Thank you for coming out, it meant a ton to me!

After dinner, I headed back to the hotel to meet up with my class and became the DD for the night as I transported classmates to CINQ in downtown Royal Oak. Our class partied it up that night shutting the club down at 2 am when we had to get on the bus at 4 am. I took a car full of people back to the hotel and then was enlisted to drive a hungry classmate over to White Castle for a bite to eat. What ended up being a car full of people and 45 minutes and a crave case later was a great last memory of the plant tour for the class of 2009. When we returned to the hotel, we had about 30 minutes to pack and get going to the airport. We all crashed on the plane and slept for both legs of our return flight home. Home. Two weeks gone and finally we were home. What an amazing trip!

Take care and more later…

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