Mark Davies – Senior Manager, Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK)
Mark Davies has been with Toyota Motor Manufacturing for 17 years. His initial experience was gained in a plant operations role at Toyota’s vehicle plant in Derby. He transferred to the Engine plant, 13 years ago, and has developed skill and experience in a variety of roles, applying TPS principles in Project Management – (new engine introduction and engineering change instructions), all facets of the Supply Chain – Internal and external logistics, materials and parts management, production planning, supplier development, and for the last 2 years running the Toyota Lean Management Centre, applying and coaching lean transformation programmes to a variety of non automotive companies.
Keith Edwards – Section Manager, Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK)
Have been at Toyota 23 years, joined maintenance department as team member and progressed to section manager of the group until moving to the TLMC group. Was integral part of moving maintenance dept from Re-active (firefighting) to Pro-active(Planned Maintenance) using many lean tools ie waste elimination, visualisation, standardisation and ability to problem solve. Have also been trained as global auditor in Toyota standards, more recently have been working with various clients to coach lean techniques.
Peter Watkins – Operational Systems & Business Excellence Director , GKN Land Systems
Joined newly formed division to support strategic growth into a global provider of Power Management technology and solutions. As part of executive team I am currently developing and deploying the divisional Operational Excellence approach to support execution of our strategic plan. Developing the Operating system, principles and standards for managing effective change, while focusing leadership to create and share knowledge through learning by doing and reflection.
As Global Lean Enterprise & Business Excellence Director for GKN Plc I was responsible for developing, directing and implementing the Lean Thinking in 150 facilities, 30 countries with over 45000 employees. Operated as lead for board Lean Sub Committee chaired directly by CEO . Introduced “Flow of Value” thinking to breakthrough traditional management culture.
Developed Lean Enterprise Strategic direction on structure, knowledge and deployment framework with leaders and introduced global CI planning process. Delivered learning by doing “CI Leadership” programmes for top 100 CEO’s\executives & 500 plant Leaders and trained over 600 employees on Site & Process CI leader’s development programme.
Global Best Practise Director for GKN Driveline Responsible for developing, directing & deploying the Lean Enterprise approach in GKN Driveline Automotive in 25 countries with 44 plants & 25000 employees. Developed and rolled out a common approach to Lean Thinking and Sharing of Best Practise globally within GKN.
ArvinMeritor Intl Operations as Director of CI Strategy, Europe, Asia & Africa. Implemented Operational Excellence concepts across 29 Air & Emissions Manufacturing facilities, in 10 countries with 13,000 employees. Developed and improved CI activities in the extended value chain and supplier base. Gained MSc In Lean Operations from Cardiff.
Operations & CI Manager for ArvinMeritor Air & Emissions Technology, implemented CI in a technical Engineering & production environment. Involved in a large number of shop floor flow Kaizen & business improvement projects. Won quality gold achievement award & graduated from Continuous Improvement Leader program.
QA Team Leader & Project QA Engineer for Arvin Exhaust Ltd – responsible for customer product development quality systems and Arvin Total Quality Philosophies. Worked with Ford, BMW, Jaguar, Toyota, Renault etc.
Quality Controller and Prototype Sample Maker at TI Cheswick and completed Apprentice Sheet Metal Worker for Greenbank Engineering Group.
David Marriott – Lean Enterprise & Quality Director, GKN
David Marriott has been with GKN for just over 5 years. He is currently the Land Systems Lean Enterprise and Quality Director and is responsible for developing and deploying the divisional Operational Excellence approach. This has involved creating the operating system, principles and standards for managing change and improvement to support the execution of the divisional strategic plan.
Most recently, he has been responsible for establishing Teamworking within Land Systems. This is a structured forum to help leaders solve business problems, together, in a common way. Promoting mutual self-help and development, whilst learning by doing.
Initially he joined as a Global Continuous Improvement Leader as part of the Central Team responsible for the training and deployment of GKN’s Lean Enterprise Model. He has delivered over 30 weeks of training, to over 300 leaders within the business.
Prior to joining GKN, David worked for Toyota Motor Europe Manufacturing for more than 13 years. Initially he worked at the vehicle plant in Derby, supporting their European suppliers in the production preparation of new products. He then spent 2 years in Brussels, to help establish and prepare the supplier base for the start-up of the French plant and the Yaris vehicle.
His last role was as Senior Manager-Supplier Development, helping the more chronic suppliers improve their quality and delivery performance by applying TPS principles. He was also responsible for running the Supplier Association made up of 44 key strategic companies.
David’s career started at Triumph Motorcycles Ltd after graduating from Loughborough University. During that time he held roles in Production and Project Engineering.