Charles Esterline ’21 LABB Intern – During the second week of the LABB Program at Wabash College we began the process of becoming Lean certified. The Human Resource Department from Indiana University Health came to show those who are participating in the LABB program how to use Lean processthinking. This all starts with the A3 model of thinking. This is a nine-step plan to go about solving a problem within a business. The benefit to lean is that it shifts the blame from being on a specific worker and over to the process that is broken. You ask questions like, “Is the amount of work equal for all employees along the distribution chain?” We had an opportunity to do an example in class by folding paper airplanes and the goal was to hit a target. Then we had to go back and use the A3 thinking model to improve the process to make it more efficient and my group saw a sixty percent increase in efficiency. After seeing the results of the example, it was clear to everyone in the room that being Lean certified is necessary to make yourself more marketable after college. Another thing that the LABB partners had the opportunity to participate in was the Big Bash of 2018. This is the class reunions of Wabash Alumni that gradated in a ‘3 or ‘8 ending year. I know many of our LABB partners had the opportunity to speak with recently graduated alumni that are currently working in Chamber of Commerce for the United States and others had the opportunity to network with quite a few alumni that were retired from our Armed Forces. The Wabash College LABB partners had the opportunity this past week to network, gain valuable business literacy skills, and test what they are learning in the classroom.