Lean Summit 2014 Speakers

Speakers are shown in order of appearance

Dave Brunt – Chief Executive, LEA

David Brunt is Senior Faculty Member at the Lean Enterprise Academy. The academy is dedicated to pushing forward the frontiers of lean thinking and helping others with its implementation. He is the co-author of “Creating Lean Dealers – The lean route to satisfied customers, productive employees and profitable retailers.”

David helps firms making a lean transformation. He conducts public workshops at the Lean Enterprise Academy and develops and delivers bespoke in-house workshops for firms. In addition David mentors firms making a lean transformation. He has walked and mapped over 300 value streams in both manufacturing and service sectors in businesses such as steel production, vehicle and component assembly, FMCG, retailing and banking and financial services.

David has been both applying and researching lean since 1990. He spent over three and a half years as the Porsche Verbessrungs Process (PVP – Porsche Improvement Process) Manager at Porsche Cars Great Britain and carried out work to develop lean in after sales, used car processing and parts operations as well as conducting a number of other business process improvement projects at dealer and national sales company level. His work on lean dealer operations formed the basis for several chapters in James P. Womack and Daniel Jones’ book, Lean Solutions, and his work has been implemented successfully by GFS, the “lean dealer” example in the book.

Prior to his work at Porsche, David was Senior Research Associate working for Daniel Jones at the Lean Enterprise Research Centre at Cardiff University Business School. There he was involved in a number of research projects:

  • The Lean Processing Programme (LEAP), a three-year initiative focused on mapping steel to component value streams to identify significant gains in competitive advantage for the UK upstream automotive industry.
  • Lean projects with individual firms to research and apply Lean Thinking outside the automotive industry in areas such as FMCG and non-automotive based manufacturing.
  • The International Car Distribution Programme (ICDP), the world’s leading co-operative research programme into the future of car distribution and retailing. Research focussed on the application of Lean Thinking to car distribution and car dealerships.

David has written a number of reports and publications including “Supply Chain Management And The British Metals Industry” for The Metals Industry Competitive Enterprise (MICE) and the books “Manufacturing Operations and Supply Chain Management – The Lean Approach” with David Taylor (2001) and “Creating Lean Dealers – the lean route to satisfied customers, productive employees and profitable retailers” with John Kiff (2007.)

David’s career started in the automotive industry at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars where he held a number of roles in the fields of Purchasing, Supplier Development, Quality and Customer Service.

He holds a Masters in Business Administration specialising in Supply Chain Management from Cardiff Business School.

Daniel Jones – Chairman, LEA

Daniel Jones is a management thought leader and advisor on applying lean, process thinking pioneered by Toyota to every type of business across the world. He is the founding Chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy www.leanuk.org in the UK, dedicated to pushing forward the frontiers of lean thinking and helping others with its implementation. His work has inspired the very successful implementation of lean by Tesco and many other companies.

He is the author with James P Womack of the influential, best-selling management books – The Machine that Changed the World, and Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Organisation – which describe the principles and practice of lean thinking in production. Their latest book Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers can Create Value and Wealth Together extends these ideas to consumption, provision and service delivery.

These books have triggered a worldwide movement of lean practitioners and the establishment of the Lean Global Network of Lean Institutes (including the Lean Enterprise Academy) which teach lean locally and have organised over 25 Lean Summits in the USA, UK, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, France, Holland, Denmark, Poland, Turkey, Israel, South Africa, India, China and Australia.

Dan Florizone – Deputy Minister of Education (Former Deputy Minister of Health), Government of Saskatachewan

Dan Florizone was appointed Deputy Minister of Education and Deputy Minister Responsible for the Lean Initiative effective July 1, 2013.  He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Regina and a Bachelor of Commerce degree (with Honours in Health Care Administration) from the University of Saskatchewan.  Mr. Florizone is dedicated to Student First and the pursuit of excellence in education and public service (through Lean).

Dan previously held the position of Deputy Minister of Health from August 1, 2008 to June 30, 2013.

Dan has participated in many national and international initiatives, committees and projects.  He served as the Chairperson of the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council, served as a Board Member on the Canadian Patient Safety Institute and the Mental Health Commission of Canada.  He is also a Policy Fellow with the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy.

Dan has extensive experience across the province having held senior positions in the health sector in the province of Saskatchewan.  He previously served as the CEO of the Five Hills Health Region.  He held the position of Assistant Deputy Minister in Saskatchewan Health, was CEO for Moose Jaw-Thunder Creek Health District, as well as the South-East Health District.

Dan received the IPAC – SK Lieutenant Governor’s Gold Medal Award in 2008 and the Excellence through Evidence Award from the Canadian Health Research Foundation in 2011. 

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. 

Sandrine Olivencia – Lean Coach, Operae Partners and European Lean IT Summit Organiser

Sandrine joined Operae Partners in 2009 as a lean coach. Her specialties are lean and improving performance within IT departments, back office and business functions. She coaches IT teams (software and operations) in managing their projects using the Obeya method, for both colocalized and distributed teams. She also coaches managers through the “Hoshin Kanri” strategic alignment method.

She is a regular speaker at lean IT and agile conferences. She has been teaching lean management and Oobeya at various top-10 French universities- ESIEE engineering school, Telecom Paritech, Ecole Centrale. She organized the first three European Lean IT Summit in 2011-2013, and Agile conferences in 2008 and in 2009. She is a former board member of Agile France and an active member of the international agile community. She co-authored the first French book about lean for agile teams. Finally, she co-founded the “leanedge.org” website, which gathers international lean thinkers.

Previously, she worked as a software engineer and project manager / coach on Agile IT projects in the United States and France. She has 19 years of professional experience.

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.

John Kiff – Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy Limited

After an early career in strategic marketing in the car and consumer-durable industries, John joined Professor Dan Jones at the Lean Enterprise Research Centre at Cardiff Business School in 1994 as the Senior Researcher and subsequently Director for the ICDP (International Car Distribution Programme). ICDP was co-founded by Dan Jones and set up not only to study the future directions for car distribution, retailing and after sales but also to investigate how Lean principles could be applied to all the activities ‘downstream of the factory gate’.

From 1994 to 2007 John led ICDP’s research in various areas including After-Sales, Parts Supply Systems, Used Cars, Business Cars, Dealer Standards and Lean Dealer Processes and participated in all its other research projects including studies of New Car Supply and Stocking. His work with ICDP included hundreds of in-depth research interviews with executives in dealers, manufacturers and suppliers all of which have contributed to his considerable knowledge of car distribution.

John has given papers at numerous ICDP conferences, academic conferences and other motor industry manufacturer and dealer meetings across Europe. His papers have been published both by ICDP and in academic journals and include:

  • Parts Supply Systems in the Franchise After-Market, ICDP Research Report 08/98 (with Thomas Chieux and David Simons)
  • The Concept of Customer Fulfilment: Beyond Customer Satisfaction, ICDP Management Briefing 5 (with Prof. Dan Jones)
  • Transformation to a Lean Dealership – Stage One, ICDP Research Report 07/00 (with David Brunt)
  • Customer Fulfilment: Right First Time on Time, Every Time, ICDP Research Report 04/01
  • Transformation to a Lean Dealership – Stage Two, ICDP Research Report 06/01 (with David Brunt)
  • After-Sales and Parts Supply Systems, ICDP Research Report 07/02 (with David Simons)

He has also delivered courses to dealers at Cardiff University Business School, the Catholic University, Lisbon, and for ICDP Australia. He has chaired numerous industry conferences in the UK, contributed to the UK Government’s Automotive Innovation and Growth Team Report and co-chaired its Working Group on Car Servicing and Repair Standards.

In addition to his work with ICDP, John has also carried out numerous individual client research and advisory projects including a series of projects since 2000 in various European countries enabling car dealers to implement Lean principles in their businesses. This experience has led him to co-author a workbook with David Brunt entitled ‘Creating Lean Dealers’ which was published in November 2007 by Professor Dan Jones at the Lean Enterprise Academy (LEA) www.leanuk.org. Creating Lean Dealers was awarded a Shingo Prize for Research and Professional Publication in 2010.

John now spends his time working with firms, primarily in car distribution but also in Sales and Service, to improve business performance through lean transformations as well as carrying out other advisory projects One of John and David’s clients, Jaegerbil in Norway, won the overall Lean Prize for Norway in 2011.

John is a graduate of the University of Wales, holds a Diploma in Management Studies and a Diploma in Marketing. He is a Chartered Marketer and Fellow of the Institute of the Motor Industry.

Torgeir Halvorsen – Managing Director, Jæger Automobil

Torgeir was born and lives in Bergen, the second largest city in Norway. After completing his studies, he worked in the paint industry for 10 years as product manager and sales manager, with industry customers. This was followed by 10 years in IT (Esselte, NIT/ IBM/ CMA) as a regional manager, product manager and managing director, with customers in industry, commerce and government departments.

For the past 15 years Torgeir has been Managing Director of Jæger Automobil, a regional Dealer for Toyota and market leader for the past 30 years. The company is a family owned business which has been going for 80 years. It has been involved in implementing lean systems since 2006 and co-operates with the Lean Institute in this work. 
As a Toyota dealer Jæger Automobil also works on implementing TSM, and TPS in Service, practically 5s, standardisation, express service, visual management and problem solving methods.

Torgeir has been on the board of Jæger Automobil since 1996 and has been president of the Norwegian Toyota Dealers Association for the past 5 years.

Marc Baker – Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy Limited

Marc, who holds a degree in Process Engineering, is a Chartered Engineer and holds an MBA from Cardiff Business School, started his lean journey as a Process Engineer during the start-up and validation of a new pharmaceutical facility, where he first began applying lean concepts and principles in a regulated industry.

He led various Engineering organisations in Research & Development and Operations in a Johnson & Johnson company. He then became Head of Process Excellence (Umbrella term for Lean Thinking and Six Sigma)

This is where Marc and Ian Taylor first joined forces 2000.

While working together at J&J, Marc and Ian developed a robust, standardised and scientific approach to both applying and de-mystifying lean thinking. The company has enjoyed substantial increases in sales per employee, market share and profit margins through its application of Lean Thinking and Six Sigma.

Working at J&J also provided Marc and Ian the opportunity to work with its customers in the healthcare industry, where they began their first experiments in the application of lean to healthcare processes.

Since leaving J&J Ian and Marc have spent the last seven years working both with the Lean Enterprise Academy and as Interim Line Managers specialising in large Health Trusts in Acute and Community settings in addition to operationalising Integrated Care Pathways across multiple organisations.

Marc and Ian are the authors of LEA’s latest publication, the book ‘Making Hospitals Work’ which both, seeks to de-mystify lean thinking and explains their approach to the application of lean in healthcare.

Ian Taylor – Lean Coach, Lean Enterprise Academy Limited

A qualified Production Engineer with considerable experience in Operational Management, Ian started his lean journey whilst managing Operations within the highly competitive Tier One, Automotive Industry supplying the likes of Toyota, Ford and General Motors. Assisting Tier Two businesses (the organisation’s own suppliers) in making their own successful Lean transformations became a major part of his role.

More recently Ian worked as a Value Stream Manager in a Johnson & Johnson company. This is where Ian and Marc Baker first joined forces 2000.

While working together at J&J, Marc and Ian developed a robust, standardised and scientific approach to both applying and de-mystifying lean thinking. The company has enjoyed substantial increases in sales per employee, market share and profit margins through its application of Lean Thinking and Six Sigma.

Working at J&J also provided Marc and Ian the opportunity to work with its customers in the healthcare industry, where they began their first experiments in the application of lean to healthcare processes.

Since leaving J&J Ian and Marc have spent the last seven years working both with the Lean Enterprise Academy and as Interim Line Managers specialising in large Health Trusts in Acute and Community settings in addition to operationalising Integrated Care Pathways across multiple organisations.

Marc and Ian are the authors of LEA’s latest publication, the book ‘Making Hospitals Work’ which both seeks to de-mystify lean thinking and explains their approach to the application of lean in healthcare.

Steve Warren – Supply Chain Development Director, AkzoNobel Decorative Coatings

Steve Warren is the Supply Chain Development Director for AkzoNobel Decorative Coatings, the makers of Dulux and Sikkens paints. Over the last 28 years, Steve has held a variety of roles in both R&D and Supply chain which have seen him based in China, America and the UK. Being based in different regions of the world has provided Steve the opportunity to experience different cultures and understand the behaviours of a global company requires too compete locally.

Since 2009 Steve has led the AkzoNobel Decorative supply chain’s Lean Transformation of its supply chains around the world encompassing 49 factories in 34 different countries. Steve is now working on extending the Lean Transformation beyond the supply chain to other functions in the Decorative business and is a key member of the AkzoNobel SC Academy which is working on programs to spread continuous improvement capabilities across all parts of the AkzoNobel business.

Ken Andrew – Head Lean Principles and Sustainability, Royal Bank of Scotland

Ken Andrew is the Head of Lean Principles and Sustainability in RBS Group Lean, having previously held the post of Head of Lean Academy in the same organisation.. An engineer by profession, he spent 20 years working in a world class Japanese semiconductor business in Manufacturing Engineering and latterly as Head of Information Systems, rigorously aligning resources to deliver excellent products to customer demand.

He has consulted with a number of blue chip organisations and built ground up lean businesses for himself and clients.

Terry O’Donoghue – Chief Operating Officer, Halfway Toyota

Terry retired from Toyota South Africa in 2010 after having been with them for 30 years.  At the time of his retirement he was Vice President of Customer Service, responsible for Parts Distribution and the Technical support to the dealer network in Southern Africa.

Over the years he held various positions in Vehicle Distribution, Exports, Production Planning and Production Control, Finance, Demand Planning, Product Planning, Marketing and IT. For 5 years he was Vice President Vehicle Supply Chain, an early attempt to bring the full vehicle planning value stream together from  Marketing and Demand Planning through Production Scheduling and Control, Inbound procurement and logistics to Vehicle Distribution and Allocation. This sought to apply TPS across the whole chain and work to the best system outcome rather than the functional area optimisation.  Working in a line role across both Marketing and Manufacturing operations was a very educational experience.

During 2011 Terry became increasingly involved in the Halfway Group and was appointed Chief Operating Officer in 2012. His particular focus and interest is the use of TPS in the retail end of the motor vehicle industry, and the role it can play in transforming the customer interface. 

Jim Womack – Founder and Senior Advisor, Lean Enterprise Institute

Management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., is the founder and senior advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc., a nonprofit training, publishing, conference, and management research company chartered in August 1997 to advance a set of ideas known as lean production and lean thinking, based initially on Toyota’s business system and now being extended to an entire lean management system.

The intellectual basis for the Cambridge, MA-based Institute is described in a series of books and articles co-authored by Womack and Daniel Jones over the past 20 years. The most widely known books are: The Machine That Changed the World(Macmillan/Rawson Associates, 1990), Lean Thinking (Simon & Schuster, 1996), Lean Solutions (Simon & Schuster, 2005), andSeeing The Whole Value Stream (Lean Enterprise Institute, 2011). Articles include: “From Lean Production to the Lean Enterprise” (Harvard Business Review, March-April, 1994), “Beyond Toyota: How to Root Out Waste and Pursue Perfection” (Harvard Business Review, September-October, 1996), “Lean Consumption” (Harvard Business Review, March-April, 2005).

Womack received a B.A. in political science from the University of Chicago in 1970, a master’s degree in transportation systems from Harvard in 1975, and a Ph.D. in political science from MIT in 1982 (for a dissertation on comparative industrial policy in the U.S., Germany, and Japan). During the period 1975-1991, he was a full-time research scientist at MIT directing a series of comparative studies of world manufacturing practices. As research director of MIT’s International Motor Vehicle Program, Womack led the research team that coined the term “lean production” to describe Toyota’s business system.

Womack served as the Institute’s chairman and CEO from 1997 until 2010 when he was succeeded by John Shook.