Below you will find biographies for the speakers of the Lean Summit 2012 in order of appearance.
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.
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.
Laurie West – Managing Director, Westco International Ltd
Westco International Ltd is a consultancy business specialising in turnaround programmes in the manufacturing industry with projects delivered in more than 25 countries throughout the world.
Previously, he was a Divisional Managing Director with the Weir Group, the largest engineering company in Scotland and now a FTSE 100 listed Company. He played a key role in the transformation of Weir on its “Journey to Excellence”. During his tenure his Division grew from £150m to over £400m and over a 10 year period the Weir share price has increased 10 fold. He is a fervent advocate of Lean business practices having undergone a “paradigm shift” during the late ‘80s and early ’90s when he began supplying Toyota and Nissan plants in the UK. He served on the CBI Manufacturing Council for 6 years, advising Government and opposition on issues central to U.K. manufacturing.
Prior to joining Weir, he spent 30 years in the automotive industry. As Regional Managing Director of Britax Automotive, he held responsibility for seven European plants with a combined turnover of $280m, supplying the leading global automotive companies. He was part of the senior management team responsible for divesting the Automotive Division to Scheffenaker, which in turn became part of the dominant global supplier of rear vision and lighting systems. During that period, he held responsibility for 18 facilities across 11 countries.
In his previous role as Managing Director of Britax Wingard, his Company achieved the award of “Best Engineering Company” and “UK Factory of the Year 1999” accredited by Management Today, Cranfield University and the DTI. He served as Chairman of the Toyota European Supplier Council for 3 years and studied at Toyota University in Japan.
His previous experience was gained with other leading Companies including; Ford Motor Company, Burmah Castrol, and BTR Ltd.
He is a Chartered Engineer and holds an MBA from Portsmouth University.
Mike Rother – Author of Toyota Kata and co-author of Learning to See,
Mike Rother is a researcher, engineer, teacher and author best known for the books Learning to See and Toyota Kata. He is an independent researcher and has also been guest researcher at the Technical University of Dortmund, the University of Michigan, the Fraunhofer Institute and the Industrial Technology Institute.
Mike began studying Toyota in 1989 and in recent years has focused specifically on the subject of Toyota style management. He gathers experience in this area by testing ideas with executives and managers who are interested in developing new patterns of thinking and acting in their organizations.
For more information about Mike Rother please see http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mrother/Homepage.html
David Furley – Assistant Director Clinical Improvement, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust
David completed his nurse training at Southend Hospital in 1985 and then gained a broad range of clinical experience in various acute care settings in the NHS. He became Head of Nursing at Pilgrim Healthcare Trust in 1999. In 2001 David was appointed Head of Clinical Effectiveness at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust with responsibility for clinical audit, clinical governance and clinical outcomes. In 2004 he was appointed Assistant Director Clinical Improvement and his responsibilities include leading service improvement across the organisation to deliver quality, safety and cost improvement. David manages The Clinical Improvement Unit and is currently leading the trusts Transformation programme to redesign elective and emergency pathways including the admission process, the flow to theatre and the discharge processes.
David has a Ba in Health Studies and a management MBA.
Paul Turner – Transformation Programme Manager, Lincoln County Hospital, United Lincolnshire Hospital s NHS Trust
Paul has worked for the NHS for four years following a career as a Lean/Six Sigma Master Black Belt in industry where he worked for a multi-national engineering company. His professional background is statistical problem solving and identifying and delivering customer value.
Within the NHS, Paul started improving turnaround times to meet customer defined quality for pathology samples and other diagnostics before turning to value stream improvements for whole urgent care.
Currently he leads the Trust’s Transformation Programme Management Office and adds technical and statistical advice to the Continuous Improvement team and operational managers. His particular focus is using catchball to deploy the Trust’s hoshin strategy.
Zoe Ford – Clinical Improvement Facilitator, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Zoe has worked in the NHS for 25 years. She began her career as a Medical Secretary in 1987. After gaining a BSc in Health Studies she then moved into the Clinical Governance Department where her role included involvement with clinical audit, clinical governance and clinical outcomes. In 2007 Zoe took up her current post as a Clinical Improvement Facilitator with a LEAN speciality. Zoe is involved in various improvement initiatives within ULHT, including visual hospital and plan for every patient. Currently Zoe is part of the transformation team and is lead facilitator at Grantham Hospital, where she has supported implementation of key parts of the organisation’s plan to deliver quality, safety and cost effective care.
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.
Dr Nick Rich – Associate Dean, Cardiff School of Management (Cardiff Metropolitan University)
Nick is the founder of CLEAR (Centre for Lean Enterprise Application and Research) and Associate Dean at Cardiff School of Management (Cardiff Metropolitan University). He was a founding member of the Lean Enterprise Research Centre (LERC) and worked with Professor Daniel Jones for some 12 years in a variety of research roles. Nick is a Shingo Prize examiner.
His main research interests are split between the design and implementation of high performance lean operations/ maintenance systems, and, Safer Clinical Systems (reliable lean systems that enhance patient safety) at Warwick Medical School. During his time with Daniel at the Cardiff Business School, Nick was involved with such projects as the Andersen World-wide Lean Enterprise Benchmarking Studies, Supply Chain Development Programmes, 3 Day Car Programme, Lean Processing Programme, Nuclear Industry Supply Chain Project, Learn2 industrial networks, and various other projects. These programmes have yielded many millions of pounds savings and Nick is far from the stereo-typical academic!
Nick was fortunate enough to hold one of the elite Toyota Motor Company Research Fellowships (Japan), he has led turnaround businesses, and has taken time out of his academic career to support businesses involved with the 2012 Olympic/Paralympic programme.
Nick holds a degree in Economics, Masters in Corporate Finance and a PhD in the emulation of lean manufacturing systems. He has written numerous books, articles, and has contributed to various Government Reports including the DTI Automotive Innovation and Growth Team, and the Metals Industry Competitiveness Report (MICE). He also sits on the board of several manufacturing businesses and institutions that promote Engineering.
Takashi Tanaka – Senior Business Consultant, Dassault Systems K.K
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 now works as Senior Business Consultant for Dassault Systems as a project leader, he has involved in various stages of manufacturing processes such as Concept Planning, R&D, Production engineering, Line production, Distribution, Sales & service. Current applications are Digital Oobeya (Big project room), Cost planning, Quality into process, etc.
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.
Brendan Hindle – Senior Vice President – Global Manufacturing Improvement , Rolls-Royce
Brendan started his career in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps before moving on to Toyota Motor Manufacturing in the UK. Brendan was personally coached by Japanese sensei’s, gaining deep insight into the Toyota Production System before being deployed into the supply chain to manage suppliers through Toyota’s new product launch process. He was then ultimately responsible for launching four new engine’s from the design phase into volume production.
He then spent 6 years at Ford Motor Company helping to design, deliver and embed Ford’s Lean Production System, winning the FPS implementation award in 2003 for its application in Dagenham’s engine plant.
Brendan joined BAE SYSTEMS in 2004 as Head of Production Systems Design. His role was to coordinate, guide and drive the overall lean transformation activity through a series of model line transformations , establishing value streams and lean workplace operations. This lean transformation was externally recognised in 2009 through the award of the Bronze Shingo Prize for operational excellence. Brendan then moved on to direct operations responsibility for the machining, treatments and maintenance function of BAE SYSTEMS. In this role Brendan was responsible for all major value streams within the organisation delivering complex machined products and maintenance services to both internal and external customers. Brendan’s primary job purpose was to transform the organisation into a value stream focused, lean facility.
In 2010, Brendan joined Rolls Royce PLC as Senior Vice President, Global Manufacturing Improvement . He is currently responsible for developing 148 manufacturing locations to achieve the highest standards of lean operational performance across all manufacturing processes.
Brendan holds an MBA in supply chain management from Cardiff University/LERC.
Michael Ballé – Co-Founder , Institut Lean France (www.lean.enst.fr)
Author of The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager
Dr. Michael Ballé is a best-selling author and executive lean coach. He assists CEOs in leading the lean transformation of their businesses and has fifteen years experience in lean research and practice. He is also associate researcher at Telecom Paristech where he is co-founder of the Projet Lean Entreprise, as well as co-founder of the French Lean Institute. He has co-authored two lean novels: The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager, for which he has been awarded the Shingo Prize in 2006 and 2011. He has a background in both Systems Thinking (he is the author of Managing With Systems Thinking, McGraw Hill) and cognitive sociology, having received a Ph.D. from La Sorbonne in Social Sciences and Knowledge Sciences. He writes the weekly Gemba Coach column for the Lean Enterprise Institute: http://www.lean.org/balle/
For more information about Michael Ballé please see www.michaelballe.fr.
Jane Lyon – Discharge Liaison Nurse, Grantham Hospital, United Lincolnshire Hospital s NHS Trust
Jane has worked for the NHS for 26years. She has worked predominantly at Grantham & District Hospital based initially in surgical care but then moved into medical and surgical care ward. She is the deputy sister on a mixed medicine / surgical ward where her role has been to improve the discharge process concentrating on delayed transfer of care. She has worked closely with Zoe Ford in the implementation of Plan for Every Patient and has recently been seconded to the role of Discharge Liaison Nurse for the Hospital.