Steve Brunker, CIO at LSI Industries

What are the top 2 challenges facing IT organizations this year? What are the top 2 opportunities?

"LSI has just celebrated its 40^th anniversary and we have been going through a significant transformation in the last year or two. The Board of Directors made a great decision in bringing in Dennis Wells, who has very deep experience in lean manufacturing, and we want to shift gears and really take off. So we are now looking at our whole organization and business through the lens of lean manufacturing. Now, employees who were very good at what they did are being unleashed to do it even better. They are collaborating within Kaizen events to radically change and improve how we do things. The factory floor is constantly shifting now in new modes. Our IT people are participating in these Kaizen events with people from the manufacturing floor to develop quick turnaround projects. The transformation is multi-dimensional; it’s fail fast-succeed fast trying things. Manufacturing itself is changing, but it is the mental change, the thought process change in the people that has sent the energy level through the roof. When employees are creating the changes, there is great empowerment that comes from it. It is very exciting to see people stepping up to the challenge and the responsibility and to see the benefits that are forthcoming. Employees now feel like they are more than just part of the machine, they now have a hand in our destiny.

Dennis Wells took over as CEO in October 2014 and the Business Courier had published an article about the best and worst stocks in Cincinnati in December of that year. LSI was at the bottom of the list. Dennis pinned the article to his credenza, and called the reporter, not to complain, the numbers were what they were, but to let him know that his objective was to be on the other end of that list. So time passed and literally six months later, in June 2015, the Business Courier published another article titled "Worst to First" and LSI was actually the top performing stock in Cincinnati. So now we want to see that trajectory continue – we have a lot to be proud of and a lot to live up to."