Eli Latak, Founder of Smart Lean Manufacturing, will be a featured speaker at the second annual Maintenance and the Environment virtual event, taking place on June 26 at 1PM ET. This year’s event brings together maintenance practitioners, reliability engineers and operations leaders from across Canada’s industrial sectors to explore how modern maintenance strategies can drive environmental sustainability. With a focus on reducing waste, lowering energy use and minimizing environmental impact, the event will highlight maintenance as a powerful lever for achieving both operational excellence and climate goals. Speaker spotlight: Eli Latak Workshop: Integrating TPM for Optimal OEE & Maintenance for Environmental Performance Latak is a seasoned leader and coach in Lean transformation, smart manufacturing and process improvement, with over 25 years of experience driving sustainable change across North America’s manufacturing sector. As the founder of Smart Lean Manufacturing, he has led numerous organizations through successful continuous improvement initiatives, focusing on OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) and quality systems implementation. Latak’s workshop will explore how a lack of preventive maintenance can negatively impact OEE and contribute to environmental inefficiencies. He will demonstrate how integrating TPM practices can reduce downtime, improve energy efficiency and support sustainability goals. “Smart Lean isn’t about doing more work—it’s about doing the right work at the right time, with clarity and purpose,” says Latak. “By applying Lean principles and digital tools, Smart Lean manufacturing teams can significantly reduce waste, improve environmental performance and deliver measurable results. When a company adopts a Smart Lean mindset, operational and environmental excellence go hand in hand.”

Why attend? The Maintenance and the Environment event is designed to provide practical insights for professionals seeking to align their operations with sustainability objectives, without compromising performance or reliability. Sessions will cover: Predictive and condition-based maintenance Circular economy principles Energy efficiency strategies Data-driven decision-making Cross-functional collaboration for environmental impact reduction Join us for this timely and impactful event to discover how maintenance can be a catalyst for environmental and operational transformation.