Below you will find biographies for the speakers of the Lean Summit 2010 in order of appearance.
Daniel Jones – Chairman, Lean Enterprise Academy Limited
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.
Takashi Tanaka – Senior Business Consultant, QV System
Takashi Tanaka helped develop the visual-based product development process at Toyota Motor Company at 1990’s while dramatically shortening their development time. This process is now the standard inside Toyota. Takashi went on to implement it in Europe and North America in over 35 installations including automotive, construction, electronics, fashion, chemical, and consumer product industries.
Takashi formed QV System in 2004 and is its Founder and Principle Consultant (QV-System.com). He currently works with clients in the US and Europe. His experience and deep ties within Toyota allow him to help his clients understand and apply the latest thinking and innovations.
Sharon Tanner – Senior Leader, Boeing Commercial Airplane
Sharon Tanner works in applied research and product development at NASA and The Boeing Company. At NASA, she worked Space Shuttle and Hubble telescope issues and led national collaborative efforts among academia, industry, and multiple NASA sites. At Boeing she leads the Fuselage Integrated Product Development Team for the 737-900, manages numerous high-leverage structural projects for Boeing airplanes, and served as senior leader for internal consultants, applying lean methods with executives and knowledge-workers. Sharon’s technical degrees include a BS in Mechanical Engineering and graduate work in Acoustics at Penn State University; she also has graduate work in education and undergraduate degrees in journalism and Spanish.
Luigi Marroni – CEO, Azienda Sanitaria Firenze
Luigi was born on August 11, 1957 in Castelnuovo Berardenga in Chianti Senese. After the high school he graduated with honors in mechanical engineering at the University La Sapienza in Rome. many years he has worked with CNH Global, a Fiat Group company, one of the world’s leading agricultural and construction machinery. In CNH Global he started in the technical area, and then take care of the management aspects, strategic marketing, organizational projects and the production of tractors. This experience led him to live a few years in London and work, traveling in Europe, the United States, Brazil, Turkey, reaching positions as responsible for the production of tractors under the direction of a group of plants distributed in countries within and outside Europe. He was a member of the board of Turk Tractor, New Holland India and chairman of the supervisory board of CNH Austria. For some years he taught Economics and Industrial Organization at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Siena, and taking courses at the School Sant’Anna of Pisa, of which the Board shall subsequently been a member for several years. In February 2004 he was appointed to head the Health of Florence. During the job he held in the Company Health, in different years, other positions in our health care system: coordinator of the Committee of Wide Area Center, Chairman of the Board of Directors dell’Estav Center, president of the Documentation Centre of the History of Health Care and Fiorentina. For one year, from August 2007, I was Commissioner of the Cancer Prevention Study Centre, becoming then the liquidator. In April and May of 2009, I was commissioner of the ASL of Arezzo.
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 since1996 and has been president of the Norwegian Toyota Dealers Association for the past 5 years.
John Darlington – , LERC
An accountant originally, John qualified as a “Lean and Six Sigma Expert” through the Renault Institute of Quality Management and as a “Jonah” through the Goldratt Institute. He worked for AlliedSignal for 13 years in the Turbocharger division. His roles varied from Financial Controller and IT Manager to Plant Manager of the European Aftermarket. He spent two years as Kaizen Director of the largest Forging Group in the UK, where his role involved him heavily in the systematic application of Lean Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management. John specialises in Costing and Capacity planning at Lean Enterprise Research Centre at Cardiff Business School, and he has been a guest speaker at American Production and Inventory Control Society, and South African Production and Inventory Control Society where he won the Toyota Prize for Best New Idea.
Dave Brunt – Chief Executive, Lean Enterprise Academy Limited
David Brunt is Chief Executive 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.
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.
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.
René Aernoudts – Chairman, Lean Management Instituut
Drs. René Aernoudts heads the Dutch Lean Management Instituut in Zeist, The Netherlands, which he founded in February 2004. The Dutch Intitute spreads Lean Thinking in all Dutch speaking countries.
Before founding the Lean Management Instituut René Aernoudts was one of the managing directors of a consulting firm for almost 8 years, specialising in Lean. After graduating at Erasmus University in Rotterdam he became a lecturer at two Business Schools. He then worked in Logistics at the Flower Acution before starting his consulting career.
René Aernoudts assisted over 120 companies in their Lean journey, both in manufacturing, process and service organisations, and together with his team at LMI he published books on Lean in Dutch and he runs Lean summits, workshops and projects for Dutch and international organisations all over the world. René is one of the four members of the Executive Committee of the Lean Global Network, European Regional leader and leads several international projects. He is the founder of http://www.planet-lean.com. Planet Lean is the official online publication of Lean Global Network, launched in February 2014 with the aim to share the knowledge on lean thinking and practice gained by LGN’s 17 institutes around the world, their partners and customers.
Fiona Roche – Head of Operational Excellence, Lloyds TSB
Awaitng Bio
Wolfgang Krips – Senior Vice President of Global Infrastructure Operations, SAP
Wolfgang Krips heads the SAP Global IT Infrastructure Services organization reporting to CIO Oliver Bussmann. As such he is responsible for provisioning global end operations of SAP’s infrastructure including business (ranging from end users equipment to datacenters), operations of business-, training-, demo- and development systems. Prior to this position, Wolfgang was appointed Managing Director of SAP Managed Services / SAP Hosting in early 2008. In this position, he was mainly in charge of the re-positioning of SAP Hosting on internal business and for the integration of the global organization into SAP AG and SAP Germany.
In 2007, as senior vice president for Partner Care & Enablement Services (PC&ES), Krips was responsible for providing enablement and certification services to channel partners and independent software vendors, as well as initiating new SAP PartnerEdge program tracks for tier partner solution software providers and systems integrators. Furthermore, PC&ES helped the first SAP Business ByDesign content and software partners to successfully integrate their solution into SAP product and operations environment. Prior to joining SAP in October 2002, Krips was an associate principal with McKinsey & Company, where he served clients in various industries with his expertise in software development and operations that was critical to their business success. Until 1996, Krips was head of a research and development department at Alcatel (now Alcatel-Lucent), a leading telecommunications and networking provider, and responsible for system design and architecture of one of that company’s most innovative transmission products.
Krips holds a doctorate in physics from Cologne University, in Germany, and studied economics at Germany’s Open University in Hagen.
John Ian Elliott – Johnson & Johnson, Director of World Wide Manufacturing
Ian’s role is within the Diabetes Franchise for Johnson and Johnson which provides Self Monitoring Blood Glucose equipment and test strips, as point of care solutions for Diabetics. The Franchise has revenue of $2.6bn for Johnson and Johnson and Ian has accountability for the Manufacturing facilities in Scotland, Puerto Rico, United States and Australia. Whilst an employee of Johnson and Johnson for twenty three years, he has previously worked in the Ortho Clinical Diagnostics Franchise providing semi automated Immunoassay tests systems to hospitals and reference laboratories. It was here he was a part of the LERC LEARN 2 progamme back in 2002 and has continued to be an advocate for Lean and its expansion in the Supply Chain.
Ian has been a part of the Leadership team of two Franchise Lean transformations which have delivered impressive business results. Ian graduated from University College, Cardiff with an Honors degree in Biochemistry, became Member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt and is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Lean Operations at University of Wales.
Ian currently lives with his wife and three children in Zug Switzerland.
Stephen Parry – Thought Leader in Lean Enterprise Architect. Author “Sense and Respond” , See Business Differently
Stephen Parry’s career in service centre operations spans over 15 years, during which time he has been responsible for building and operating large scale international call centres in various sectors; IT Services, Retail Direct-Marketing and Financial Services.
He has extensive experience in the areas of customer service strategy, proposition development, organisational development, business process alignment, technology introduction, change and turnaround management.
Most recent role was Head of European Strategy and Operational Development for Fujitsu. In 2001 he was awarded both the European Call Centre of the Year award for Innovation and Creativity, and the European Call Centre of the Year award for best people development program.
In 2002 he took Fujitsu to the finals of the UK National Business awards for Customer Focus and they became winners of the 2003 National Business Awards for the Best Customer Service Strategy.
Mark Palmer – Managing Director, OEE
Mark Palmer is Managing Director of operations improvement specialists – OEE and has 20 years experience of implementing operations excellence techniques in both the manufacturing and service sectors.
He is a fluent French speaker and international manager who has worked successfully in the UK, France & USA for Automotive, Financial Services & Management Consulting organisations
Recently, he has designed, set up and implementated of a series of “kaizen” events in a leading UK Retail Bank to demonstrate the power of operations excellence thinking and techniques – resulting in over 20% increase in productivity with commensurate uplift in quality.
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.
Antony Sheriff – Chief Executive, McLaren Motors
Antony Sheriff, graduated from Swarthmore College in the U.S. with a B.S. in Engineering and a B.A. in Economics. After working one year for Chrysler in product planning, Antony completed a M.S. in Management from M.I.T in 1988 while working for the International Motor Vehicle Programme at M.I.T.. Upon graduation, Antony joined McKinsey and Company as a strategic management consultant, working with a number of automotive and non-automotive clients in the U.S. and Europe. In 1995, Antony joined Fiat Auto in Italy and in 1997 was promoted to Executive Director of Product Development for all Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia cars and commercial vehicles. In 2002, Antony was promoted to Vice President Marketing for Fiat.
Antony joined McLaren Automotive in 2003 as Managing Director. Antony’s responsibilities encompass the design, development and manufacture and distribution of current and future road cars.