Alabama Operations Management Institute

    The Alabama Operations Management Institute (AOMI), an initiative with which the University’s Alabama Productivity Center is assisting, promises to help spread that success to other Alabama companies from manufacturing to health care by teaching business leaders to apply the principles of Mercedes’s lean, holistic manufacturing model to all enterprises. The Mercedes Benz manufacturing operation in Vance is one of Alabama’s brightest economic success stories. The program includes aspects of both long-term workforce development and direct economic development, according to Dr. David Miller, director of the Productivity Center.

     AOMI began with the desire to give back to the state of Alabama on the part of Mercedes and retired Mercedes Benz US International president Bill Taylor, who now serves as executive director of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama. Discussion with Gov. Bob Riley led to creation of a steering committee and course design, culminating in the graduation of the first AOMI class in November 2009. AOMI is a four-month program in which participants, selected by application and interview, are immersed for one week each month in learning and applying in a practical “classroom” the principles of the Mercedes model. This education promises cascading workforce development: first of current managers and workers, and as the benefits of the model are proven, of secondary and college courses preparing graduates to use the model immediately with their employers.