Midwest Gateway Chapter

Welcome to the Midwest Gateway Chapter

Welcome to the Midwest Gateway Chapter of INCOSE. We are based in the St Louis region, from Rolla to the Metro East. The Midwest Gateway Chapter of INCOSE was founded in St. Louis in 1992. Over the years we've hosted the INCOSE Symposium and the Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER), and been the home chapter of national and regional INCOSE leaders.

Bronze Chapter Award 2004
2004
Bronze Chapter Award 2004
2005
Bronze Chapter Award 2004
2020
Bronze Chapter Award 2004
2021
Bronze Chapter Award 2004
2022
Silver Chapter Award 2006
2006
Silver Chapter Award 2007
2007
Silver Chapter Award 2008
2008
Silver Chapter Award 2009
2009
Silver Chapter Award 2010
2010
Silver Chapter Award 2011
2011

2024 Board of Directors

President: Mike Franco, Boeing
President-Elect (Vice President): Mike McCarthy, Paragon Technology Group
Secretary (2023/2024): Kirk Kittell, Bayer
Treasurer (2024/2025): Lou Pape, Boeing
Director (2024/2025): Dr. Mary Malast, Leonardo DRS
Director (2024/2023): Caleb Klapp, Boeing
Director (2023/2024): Bob Scheurer, Boeing
Director (2023/2024): Dr. Cihan Dagli, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Past President: John Thompson, Boeing

Contact the MGC Board of Directors at midwest-gateway@incose.net.


Upcoming Chapter Events

Speaker Event

When:  Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024

Where:  Ferguson Brewing Company, 418 S. Florissant Rd, Ferguson, MO  63135

Who:  Rich Massey, Boeing Senior Technical Fellow - Biography

What:  The value of system security engineering (SSE) including emerging standardization as well as an introduction to the INCOSE SSE working group

RSVP:  Mike McCarthy - mike.franco@boeing.com

 

 

Wasatch Chapter Meeting @ Weber State University -- The Principle Driven Development (PDD) ‘Open-Windows’ Tool by Howard Cooper

Ogden , USA
Weber State University, 1447 Edvalson St
Paul White
385-393-2137
903-900-9609
paulwhite849@gmail.com

Drive to the Weber State University campus in Ogden, and park in Lot A2. Meeting will be held in Room 104 (Dean's Conference Room) in the Engineering Technology (ET) Building.

For our September meeting, the INCOSE Wasatch chapter will meet at Weber State University in Ogden! We invite you to join us as Howard Cooper discusses "How to predict, forecast and develop the next ‘big thing,’ customers will adopt and embrace, before the competition does, using the Principle Driven Development (PDD) ‘Open-Windows’ tool".

Incose Wasatch Logo - 720x258

For our September meeting, the INCOSE Wasatch chapter will meet at Weber State University in Ogden!

We invite you to join us as Howard Cooper discusses "How to predict, forecast and develop the next ‘big thing,’ customers will adopt and embrace, before the competition does, using  the Principle Driven Development (PDD) ‘Open-Windows’ tool".

Weber State University



Date: Thursday, September 9, 2021

Times: 6:00-8:00 p.m. (Mountain Time)
  • 6:00 - 6:30 p.m. -- Dinner & Networking
  • 6:30 - 6:45 p.m. -- Chapter Announcements
  • 6:45 - 8:00 p.m. -- "How to predict, forecast and develop the next ‘big thing,’ customers will adopt and embrace, before the competition does, using  the Principle Driven Development (PDD) ‘Open-Windows’ tool" by Howard Cooper
Building & Room Number
Weber State University
Engineering Technology (ET) Building
1447 Edvalson St
Ogden, UT 84408

Room 104 - Dean's Conference Room

Enter thru the front of the ET building.  When in the lobby, the deans conference room is the first hallway/door on the left. The conference room itself is on the right

Parking Information
Lot A2
Parking is free after 6:00 p.m.
Parking information is available at https://www.weber.edu/financialservices/Parking_Information.html.

Campus Map
A campus map is available at https://www.weber.edu/wsuimages/financialservices/wsu-map-may2016print.jpg.
This map has the Engineering Technology (ET) Building and Lot A2 Parking Lot circled. (Click to enlarge and download.)
Weber Campus Map

Note
We recommend arriving 15 minutes early to allow time for parking and locating the conference room.

Dinner
Dinner will be served to those who attend at Weber State.

RSVP:

https://incose_wasatch_2021_09.eventbrite.com -- You may attend in person or virtually.

Abstract:

This presentation introduces a model-based, structured approach to isolate and identify the way(s) your legacy or current product/system will need to improve, in order to lead the market and provide the value your customer will be looking for in the future. So, you can begin making tomorrow today.

Using the 14 stages of innovation and a simple tool called Open Windows, attendees will learn how to analyze and process their own product or system to forecast and see how it must be improved to meet the needs of tomorrows customer(s). These two tools replace the need for time consuming brainstorming, ‘thinking outside the box’, mind-mapping and other wasteful  innovation activities.  SE’s can now facilitate 1-2 hour innovation workshop sessions to help advance;  
a. design, 
b. development, 
c. overcome system constraints and 
d. help working groups to rapidly find innovative solutions to safety, reliability, useability and other specialty-engineering gap-risks. 

These principles were recently used at General Dynamics Land Systems, over a 5 year period, with 26 different design & development teams to transform “unsolvable problems” into innovative solutions. The result was $233 million savings for their customer, the U.S. Army.  

Implementing an SE-PDD Innovation System within a company, fills an important gap in SE capability, rapid innovative problem solving.  Discover Structured Innovation – the Innovator’s Engine – so you can predict and characterize the next innovation your customers will embraced, before your competitor does it. 
 
Professional Biography:

Howard Cooper, is an Innovation ‘methods & tools’ trainer and consultant.  He is a Six Sigma certified DFSS Black Belt, a certified innovation coach and DfR Reliability engineer.  Howard recently spent 6 years helping General Dynamics, a Defense & Aerospace company, in developing and facilitating innovation tools for their Innovation Center and with their systems engineering work groups.  He also served as lead DfR Reliability Engineer.  Mr. Cooper is also a 28-year veteran automation equipment reliability consultant where he enjoyed helping companies innovatively eliminate 70% - 92% of their unscheduled equipment downtime, usually in 30-60 days!  
In 2005 he trademarked the acronym FISH™ and FISHing™ (Functional Interface Stress Hardening) to explain his method for achieving such marked reliability improvements, both through Design for Reliability (DfR) and on after-market fielded  equipment, working with manufacturing engineers, design teams, hospitals, telecom and data centers, medical teams, oil companies and high security facilities to achieve increased uptime, “lean capable” machine tools and automated equipment reliability. Clients have realized hundreds of millions in increased profits. His seminar:
 “How To Eliminate 70-92% of Your Equipment Downtime in 30-60 Days” (How to FISH)
 has been rated as “most valued seminar of my career” by technicians, engineers and managers.  

Mr. Cooper’s BS and MS degrees in electronics and industrial technology led him to first serve as a  Fabrication Supervisor for Signetics Semiconductor, then as Chief Maintenance and Reliability Engineer for John Deere Co, then for Hughes/Baker EIMCO.  He then consulted full time for 22 years, until 2005 when GE called him to help apply Six Sigma DfR to the design of a portable 3D xRay system for hospitals. 2006-2016 found Mr. Cooper helping General Dynamics facilitate DfR and a structured process to generate rapid problem solving and innovative solutions for systems under development. Later in 2016 he independently formed i3DAY Innovation to help product/system development companies across the U.S. to understand and implement their own PDD-System to start developing 15X more hits than misses and often do it in 1/3rd the time.

Questions:
Please contact Paul White, Chapter President, at 385-393-2137 (office), 903-900-9609 (mobile), or paulwhite849@gmail.com.

Chapter News

New Chapter Members - 2023

Austin Renwick, The Boeing Company, Feb 27
Rachel Harlan, Student - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Mar 13
Caleb Klapp, Leonardo DRS, Apr 19
Kyle Thayer, The Boeing Company, Apr 19
Jessica Stevons, Medtronic, Apr 24|
Philip Hoff, United States Air Force, May 9
Peter Cichacz, Leonardo DRS, Jun 1
Deborah Keller, Nothrop Grumman Corporation, Jun 2
Sarah Ehlen, The Boeing Company, Jun 12
Brett Chase, Student - Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Jun 27
David Ware, Olin, Jun 27
Andrew Nixon, The Boeing Company, July 4
Thomas Fehr, Student, Aug 7
Kaleb Rockwell, Student - Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Aug 7
John Combs II, AWS, Aug 8
Matthew Freeman, Student - Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Aug 10
Thomas McKinney, Student, Aug 13
Maggie Hummel, Aug 21
Waylon Lindseth, John Deere, Sep 11
Ruchi Bhatia, Caterpillar, Inc., Sep 25
Aaron Kenkel, John Deere, Sep 25
Aaron Wasson, Charter Communications, Oct 12
Yvette Smith, The Boeing Company, Oct 17
Daniel Huck, SGRE, Oct 21
Aaron Simpson, Oct 31
Eleni Schock,Northrop Grumman, Nov 13   

The Midwest Gateway Chapter of INCOSE was founded in St. Louis in 1992. Over the years we've hosted the INCOSE Symposium and the Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER), and been the home chapter of national and regional INCOSE leaders. Many of our members are engaged in defense, biotech, connected devices, and academia. Most members are located in St. Louis and the surrounding area (from Missouri S&T in Rolla to Scott Air Force Base in the Metro East), but all are welcome to affiliate with us.

For more information about joining INCOSE, please visit the incose.org website: Join INCOSE. If you're not sure about joining yet, come out and visit us at one of our events.

Connect

If you have any questions for us, get in touch: midwest-gateway@incose.net. You can also get in touch with our Board of Directors.

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