Attending Networking Events, to learn of best practices Researching Industry Leaders, in Continuous Improvement/Lean/Quality Tracking Industry Trends, in the world of Continuous ImprovementParticipating in Industry Discussions, including which ones are most advanced in CI Culture

U.S. Director Continuous Improvement Operations

INDEPENDENT LEAN AND QUALITY CONSULTANT; PUBLIC SPEAKER; AUTHORHeaded a successful independent consulting / training company. Served as Motivating and Dynamic Keynote Speaker at many conferences and extremely popular Quality Digest magazine columnist. Facilitated dozens of Kaizen and Value Stream Mapping Events and facilitated top management of several Fortune 1000 companies in Strategic Product Planning Sessions, helping to launch successful new product lines. Authored Out of Another @#&*% Crisis! and Lean ISO 9001.Directed a VSM Team at a community college to standardize on invoicing process and greatly improve their cash flow by receiving payments from customers 45% faster.Directed another VSM at a motor assembly company that cut shop order errors 25%, reduced order confirmation time by 50%, thus reducing customer complaints by 16%, and on-time shipments by 32%. Increased material flow 40% for a valve manufacturing plant .Fully developed a lean and continuous improvement culture in a multi-site PVC roofing company, leading to a year of record sales, profits, while improving out-going quality .Helped dozens of companies reduce their Documentation System by 50–80%; made their processes and documentation more user-friendly, effective and efficient.Led more than 40 companies, from start to finish, to ISO 9001-based certification on the first attempt and assisted countless other companies to do the same.Trained thousands in Leadeship, Office and Manufacturing Simulations, 5S, TPM, Quick Changeovers, Lean Culture, Mistake-Proofing, Root Cause Analysis, Six Sigma tools, DOE, ISO 9001, ISO/TS 16949, FMEA, Control Plans, Teams, Creativity, QFD, VA/VE, Auditing, SPC.Developed New Innovative Products / Services including a very popular keynote presentation and impersonation of Dr. Deming’s and Lean’s Principles, stand-up comedy, and training videos including BATCHIN’, The ISO Auditors Are Coming!, and Auditing Nuts and Bolts.

Created a culture of continuous improvement throughout the organization by teaching and deploying Leader Standard Work, Daily Accountability Meetings, Visual Management, Leadership, Root Cause Analysis, TWI Job Instructions, Value Stream Mapping, and Gemba Walks, among other principles and tools.Allowed for sales growth of more than 40%, manufacturing personnel expansion of 53%, while boosting throughput 131% and first time yield rate at test to 99.4%.Created strong relationships with suppliers. Cut the overall number of burr rejects by 70%, formerly the top supplier quality problem.Lead, taught, facilitated, and/or coached many Value Stream Mapping teams generating at least one more VSM per month from those taught leading to record profits.Coached a VSM team to increase throughput in secondary operations by 42% while streamlining operations and reducing work in process inventory by 35%. Standardized operations between two sites in the US and UK, while opening up a site in China:Developed strong organizational ties between all sites and standardized improvement-related software, processes, documentation, metrics, Manufacturing Engineering Standards, and training.Standardized and reduced two lengthy Quality Manuals to 3 pages and cut the number of documents in some areas by 95%.Integrated process and communication flow between departments and created a process-focused organization.Mentored and taught dozens of employees and trainers, in the Job Instruction module of Training Within Industry (TWI) enabling and propelling unprecedented sales and employee growth. Created and led daily customer complaint accountability meetings to properly address complaints and greatly improve root cause analysis, actions, departmental communication, and accountability.Developed Global Supplier Quality Assurance Manual to ensure consistency in supplier expectations, proper needs communication, and a structured foundation for supplier audits and improvement.

“Go To” person for company’s top customer complaints, supplier issues, and installation of new systems. Lead teams to successfully resolve these issuesEliminated 4 sub-assembly machines and all the WIP they produced by converting assembly machines to perform their functions and installing poka-yoke devicesLead company to ISO 9001 Certification as the ISO CoordinatorCorrective Action Coordinator – increased employee involvement by over 300% Managed Quality TechniciansPerformed internal and supplier audits Trained many employees, suppliers, and customers in Design of Experiments, SPC, and FMEA

Completed optimization of critical fluid fill operations three years prior to Job #1Reduced the budgeted allocation of filling equipment by 40% through optimizationInternal Trainer and Consultant for many process improvement projects