TWI Summit - Presenters

TWI Summit Presenters

These individuals will make up the core presentation team. As thought-leaders in the areas of Training, Lean, and TWI, they will unveil power found in the proven TWI methodology.

Richard Abercrombie, TWI Master Trainer

Richard has over 20 years of experience in manufacturing, most of it with the Boeing Company in Washington state. There, Richard became involved in Boeing’s Lean Manufacturing initiative as a member of the Boeing Supplier Support Center which assists key Boeing suppliers, both domestic and international, with starting a continuous improvement program based on the Toyota Production System. To fulfill this role, Richard received training in TPS from the Shingijutsu company both in Japan and at Boeing suppliers.

Since retiring from the Boeing Company in 2001, Richard has continued to consult independently. Recognizing that TWI is one of the fundamentals supporting the Toyota Production System, Richard became certified in TWI by the Central New York Technology Development Organization (TDO) TWI Institute. Since that time, he has delivered the TWI supervisor programs to his clients in manufacturing, aerospace, steel, food, banking, and health care industries.

Richard has maintained a close relationship with TDO and is collaborating with them as the TWI Institute program expands. Now a TWI Master Trainer, Richard conducts train-the-trainer sessions for the TWI Institute in an unbroken line of master trainers from the original WWII TWI Institute.

Christine Aultman

Christine Aultman is a training specialist for Basic American Foods. She has been involved with the implementation of TWI in the organization since August 2007. Her current challenge is to implement the TWI programs in all of the plants throughout the organization. This has required her to find implementation strategies that are universal and yet flexible enough to meet the unique needs of each plant.

Mark Bechteler

Pending.

Mike Braml

Mike has more than 30 years of manufacturing and service industry experience that includes Lean, Six Sigma, and TOC Implementations that provides a strong foundation for his work as a certified TWI Institute Instructor for JI, JR and JM since 2005. His manufacturing management and continuous improvement experience has enabled him to help diverse enterprises gain competitive advantage to position themselves for robust futures.

Recently Mike has taken TWI outside of manufacturing applying the lean concepts and TWI to service public institutions including public schools, county worker environments, medical centers, and service organizations with great success. Mike completed his TWI Master Trainer for JI in 2007 and JR in 2008 and is on track to become a JM Master Trainer to invest his passion for the program to continuous improvement efforts in numerous markets.

Mike has a double major in Biology and Scientific Land Management, and has earned an MBA from Kennedy Western University. He has been certified in Production and Inventory Management through APICS, and has is a senior member in the society of Industrial Engineers. Mike is a NIST MEP certified instructor for Lean 101, Value Stream Mapping, 5S, Setup Reduction, Plant Layout, Kaizen Events, Cell Design, Kanban Systems, and Standard Work. Mike has implemented lean throughout small and medium sized companies assisting hundreds of companies to make significant continuous improvement gains.

Scott Curtis

Scott Curtis is the Plant Manager at Albany International’s Homer, NY Monofilament plant. He has been with AI since 2005 and been a Champion in their Lean implementation and TWI Job Instruction process. Since starting their Lean implementation in 2006, Albany International’s Homer plant has seen a 400% increase in Operating Earnings. The most recent activities have focused on starting the TWI process in Homer through a cooperative effort between the TWI Institute and Albany International. His prior Lean Manufacturing experience includes functioning as the Operations Manager for Huhtamaki Consumer Packaging during their initial Lean journey. Scott has over 20 years of manufacturing leadership experience and has held various positions with Pactiv Corporation, Huhtamaki Consumer Packaging and Albany International including Process and Project Engineer, Maintenance and Production Manager, Operations Manager and Plant Manager. Scott is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology and received a Bachelor’s of Technology degree and the University Of Phoenix where he earned an MBA.

Randy Dewing

Pending.

Donald A. Dinero

Donald A. Dinero, PE, CPIM has more than thirty-five years of experience designing and implementing manufacturing methods and processes and is the principal of Round Pond Consulting Services. His BS degree in Mechanical Engineering is from the University of Rochester and his MBA and MS (Career and Human Resource Development) degrees are from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He received his Professional Engineering license (NYS) in 1983 and his Certification in Production and Inventory Control from APICS in 1986.

Mr. Dinero helps companies implement Lean principles and believes that the Lean movement is hindered by its omission of TWI training. TWI offers fundamental skills training which helps to stabilize an organization, preparing it to seriously begin its Lean journey. In order to assist in stabilizing an organization and thus assist in the acceptance of Lean, Mr. Dinero is concentrating his efforts on spreading the word of TWI. He delivers training in all three of the ‘J’ programs and will add sessions in Program Development in the near future. In keeping with the “multiplier effect” cited by the Training Within Industry Service, Mr. Dinero also offers Train The Trainer sessions for the three ‘J’ programs. This allows an organization’s employees to independently deliver the training.

In an effort to spread the word of TWI, Mr. Dinero wrote Training Within Industry: The Foundation of Lean, which won a Shingo prize for research in 2006.

Robert Dumke

Pending.

Patrick Graupp, Senior Master Trainer, TWI Institute

Patrick began his training career at the SANYO Electric Corporate Training Center in Japan after graduating with Highest Honors from Drexel University in 1980. There he learned to deliver TWI and other training to prepare employees for assignment outside of Japan. He in turn was also transferred to a compact disc fabrication plant in Indiana where he obtained manufacturing experience before returning to Japan to become Programs Master Trainer delivering TWI around the world for Sanyo. Patrick earned an MBA from Boston University during this time and later published a book on how to teach Japanese staff to implement Job Methods Training outside of Japan. He was then promoted to the head of Human Resources for SANYO North America Corp. in San Diego, CA where he settled.

Patrick took vacation time to deliver a pilot project for CNYTDO in 2001 to reintroduce TWI in the US, and again in 2002 to reintroduce the full TWI Program at ESCO Turbine Technologies-Syracuse. The results at ESCO encouraged Pat to leave SANYO in 2002 and work with CNYTDO to deliver and document how to deliver the TWI program in the US as he was taught in Japan. Pat also describes this process in his book The TWI Workbook: Essential Skills for Supervisors, a Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize Recipient for 2007. These standardized training manuals and materials are now used by the TWI Institute to train and certify trainers on how to deliver JR, JI and JM as was done by the TWI Service during WWII. Patrick also documented the format on how he was trained as a TWI Master Trainer (trainer of trainers) in Japan as he trained two new TWI Master Trainers for TWI Institute. TWI is now readily available nationally in English and in Spanish from the TWI Institute for companies to learn how Toyota trains new employees to strictly adhere to standardized operations and as a review of parts of the training system to enable quick learning to sustain TPS.

Alan Gross

Al has spent upwards of 28 years in industry, most applying the elements of lean thinking to large scale change challenges in (mostly) manufacturing, but also R&D, Sales and Education.

He spent 17 years at Kodak, culminating with the most significant kaizen event successfully pulled off there, taking 20 machines, arranged in a batch and queue mode, off the floor and reorienting them for single piece flow in three days. What ultimately made this successful was the people practices and behavior change necessary to change taking discipline problems to a self directed work team. (That took considerably longer)!

Al moved to lead Webster Plastics’ transformation to a multi-award winning organization with unprecedented profitability in the plastics industry.

Al is now almost four years into a similar experience at Currier Plastics Inc., as VP of Operations in a mid sized injection, blow molding and assembly company in Central New York.

Al graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelors of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University at Buffalo. He since dabbled in various graduate courses there, at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester. He also taught in the Masters of Manufacturing Leadership program at RIT.

Mike Gunnells

Mike Gunnells is an MVP Black Belt Consultant who began his career in the Collision Repair Industry over 30 years ago. Prior to joining PPG Automotive Refinish in 2003, Mr. Gunnells was the director of a successful dealership collision repair center. During his 30+ year career he has provided leadership and training to individuals and organizations within the collision repair and insurance industries.

Brian Heymans

Brian Heymans has over 30 years experience in manufacturing organizations at executive levels. Brian is President of CSI, Continuous Systems Improvement, a consulting firm focusing on change management and the installation of lean management practices. Prior to establishing CSI, he was formally the President of the Kaizen Institute of America, and the Director New Business Development for KI globally, responsible for building consulting companies, client relationships, consulting niches and business alliances globally.

His primary experience in the people development game came while he was Kimberly Clark's Director of Human Resources in South Africa thoughout the 1980's. Because of the acute skills shortage there he developed a comprehensive leadership and skills development strategy for the company that embraced technical skills training for every single manufacturing job, supervisory skills for every supervisor and plant manager, and many other development approaches. He first encountered TWI in 1973 while researching for skills training progams. He used strategies very similar to the TWI components for his company as well as while serving as Chairman of the South African paper industry's association (ASSOPULP) technical training liaison committee.

He has developed a wide range of technical and supervisory training programs, and has extensive experience building training management strategies to fit business needs.

Originally from South Africa, he worked for Price Waterhouse, the De Beers Diamond Company and as Human Resources Director for the South African division of Kimberly-Clark, Brian designed and coordinated the company’s World-Class Manufacturing/TQM strategy that led to substantial increases in growth, profit and market share. South Africa honored this success by awarding the company the National Productivity Institute’s Gold Medal in 1991 (equivalent to the Baldridge Award.) He came to the USA early in 1991 to work for a Tier 2 automotive rubber and plastics supplier as their “Lean” Director. He joined the Kaizen Institute of America in 1994 as its Strategy Manager, eventually becoming its President.

His prime consulting focus is helping companies develop a strategy and process for the implementation of lean manufacturing practices, with a special emphasis on strategy, and the leadership and socio-technical interface.

Brian has successfully assisted large multinational manufacturing and service organizations in the implementation of world class manufacturing strategies and lean manufacturing. Companies he has consulted to include Ford, Rockwell Automation, Kraft Foods, APW, Actuant, and numerous companies in the automotive, electronics, printing, medical instruments and consumer products industries. He is a contributing author to the book “The Change Handbook”, is a frequent speaker at conferences, seminars and public workshops and has published several articles on leadership strategies for lean implementation.

He has worked extensively in Western Europe, Vietnam, China, Egypt, Australia, Japan, South Africa and throughout North America. Brian holds a master’s degree in Business Strategy/Management Development/Adult Learning Theory and a bachelor’s degree in finance and business law.

David Hicks

David Hicks is a Registered Professional Engineer with more than 20 years of experience in manufacturing, quality, training, engineering, plant management, and research & development. David has held positions in the automotive, tire, and metal fabrication industries.

David is a member of the outreach faculty of Auburn University, serving clients through the Auburn Technical Assistance Center. Since joining ATAC in 2005, David has served clients in across the nation, specializing in lean implementations focusing on leadership coaching, total productive maintenance, and visual systems. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation on the effect of leader-standard work in successful lean implementations. David may be reached at hicksdp@auburn.edu.

Bronze Certified Lean Manufacturing
Senior Member of the American Society for Quality
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Tennessee State University
M.S. in Engineering, University of Alabama Huntsville

Brent Ilott

Brent Ilott is a Process Supervisor for Aera Energy, LLC, an E&P company which is jointly owned by Exxon/Mobil and Shell. Brent has been with Aera for six years and has previously held positions in Production Engineering and Reservoir Engineering. Prior to working for Aera, Brent held various operations positions with Grad & Walker Energy Corporation and Real Resources Inc. Brent has earned an MBA from California State University Bakersfield, a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering from Montana Tech of the University of Montana and a Diploma in Petroleum Engineering from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

Bryan Lund

As Revision’s Director of Quality and Continuous Improvement, Bryan Lund leads all aspects of quality, including but not limited to corrective actions, ISO program management and continuous improvement initiatives across the business.

Bryan is very knowledgeable about manufacturing and assembly having spent nearly six years with Energizer Battery as a Global Lean Manufacturing consultant, leading plant management and shop floor teams in kaizen efforts and re-introducing the company to TWI Job Instruction training. As a workshop leader and problem solver, Bryan has helped yield world class results. Some recent examples while at Energizer include: 98% reduction of WIP inventory, 90% reduction in process defects, the elimination of safety hazards, 75% reductions in training time and up to four-fold increases in productivity. Recently, Bryan led the effort to establish the Energizer Global Small Kaizen (“Small k”) program resulting in over 90,000 operator-initiated ideas and improvements in the first year alone. The program is very similar to the TWI Job Methods improvement program where operators analyze problems and implement solutions. Prior to that position, he worked for more than seven years in design, manufacturing engineering and management with diverse companies in the New England region - designing and building products ranging from cryogenic coolers for the Hubble Telescope to high speed collating and printing equipment.

A long time practitioner of continuous improvement with over 13 years of industry experience, Bryan earned the bronze level international Lean Certification from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and is currently serving his fifth year on the Certification Oversight and Appeals committee. He holds an AAS in Mechanical Engineering and BSBA in Management. Bryan is also co-author of the recently released book, Job Instruction Participant's Manual and Implementation Guide and resides in St. Albans, VT with his wife Megan and four sons.

Jeff Maling

Jeff Maling is an Advisory Engineer at IBM’s Burlington, VT semiconductor manufacturing facility. He has been with IBM since 1987 and has held positions in Manufacturing, Equipment Engineering, Process Engineering, and most recently as a facilitator and instructor in IBM’s lean transformation program. He has also held positions in machinery design and custom automation development.

In 2004, Jeff worked with a group of colleagues from local companies to explore the benefits of TWI as part of IBM’s approach to improving standard work methods. The result has been a large-scale adoption of TWI as a problem solving tool that has been delivered to over 600 operators, technicians, engineers, and managers.

Jeff holds BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is a senior member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Green Mountain Chapter, and is active in school outreach and Engineer’s Week activities.

Mike Martyn

Michael Martyn is the Founder and Managing Principle of SISU Consulting Group, a firm specializing in increasing stakeholder value through the development of lean leaders at each level of the organization. By creating transparency in the organization, implementing standard work, and raising the level of shared accountability, SISU works with each of its clients to build a sustainable continuous improvement program and significantly improve bottom-line results through the development of its most valuable asset, its people.

Mr. Martyn has extensive experience over a broad spectrum of service based and manufacturing environments. He has held numerous senior-level executive positions and has been successfully turning around companies since the mid-1990s. Mr. Martyn’s turn around of the world’s largest manufacturer of dollhouse and log cabin craft kits resulted in a 624% improvement in gross profit margins, an 89% reduction in production lead times, and a 451% improvement in EBITDA. During his tenure as President, the company underwent extensive process revitalization, including the implementation of a visual production system and the creation of a shop-floor leadership development program.

In addition to his work as a turnaround specialist, Mr. Martyn regularly works with Senior Management and Boards of Directors to create alignment across people and processes and assist in a variety of services such as the creation of custom training materials and conducting on-site leadership development. Some of the companies Mr. Martyn has worked with include: The Boeing Company, Barcardi and Company, The Dannon Company, Raytheon, La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries, Maytag Laundry, Old Mutual Financial Network, Shriner’s Hospitals for Children, ESCO Engineered Products, Business Transitions, and Stewart & Stevenson.

Mr. Martyn received his undergraduate Bachelors of Arts in Economics and English at Reed College, and earned a Masters of Business Administration at Portland State University. Mr. Martyn is the Executive Director of the Northwest Shingo Prize, a non-profit established to promote lean enterprise awareness and recognize companies in Oregon and Washington that achieve world-class status. He also serves on the board of the Harmony Montessori School and the Western Region of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence as well as being an active member of the Association for Corporate Growth and the Entrepreneurs Organization.

Mike Micklewright

Mike Micklewright is a dynamic keynote speaker, Dr. Deming impersonator, author, business and quality consultant, and trainer based in the Chicago area.

Mike writes his own column for Quality Digest, an on-line magazine, in which he is known as the Whys Guy. He has recently written two books: Out of Another @#%^! Crisis and Lean ISO 9001, which either have or will soon be published Mike is also a Midwest Board Member of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) and a member of the US TAG to ISO/TC 176, the organization that writes the ISO 900o0 set of standards.

Mike specializes in Lean, ISO 9001, Leadership, Deming, and Root Cause Analysis. He is an ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Quality Auditor, Quality Engineer, Manager of Quality/Operational Excellence, and Supply Chain Analyst. He also holds an Engineering degree from the University of Illinois.

Laura Murray

Laura Murray is a Lean Transformation Coach at IBM’s Burlington, VT semiconductor manufacturing facility. She has been with IBM since 1992 and has held positions in Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Industrial Engineering, and most recently as a facilitator and coach for IBM’s lean transformation team. She has also held positions that drive productivity improvements using Range Management, Supply Chain Plan vs. Actual, and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (O.E.E.) applications and theories.

Since 1999, Laura has worked with a group of colleagues to drive improvements throughout the IBM Microelectronics Division at their Burlington Vermont, East Fishkill New York, and Bromont Canada manufacturing facilities. In 2006, Laura began to explore and populate the benefits of TWI to the manufacturing and manufacturing support organizations as part of IBM’s approach to improving standard work methods. The result has been a large-scale adoption of TWI as a problem solving tool that has been delivered to over 4000 production employees, supply chain professionals, staff, technicians, engineers, and managers.

Laura is a member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Green Mountain Chapter and holds SME Lean Bronze and Six Sigma Green Belt certifications. She is also a member of the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) Vermont Chapter.

Martha Purrier

Martha is a Registered Nurse with over 20 years experience in the hospital setting. She earned a Master’s Degree specializing in the clinical care of patients with cancer and in the training of nurses. During the past 10 years, she has worked at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle Washington as the Director of Inpatient Oncology and IV Services. Virginia Mason adopted Lean as a management methodology in 2001 and Martha was Certified in Rapid Process Improvement Workshops in 2006. During her work in IV Therapy, the Team won the Mary McClinton Patient Safety award for the application of Lean Methods which produced increased safety for patients receiving Central Lines. In 2008, Martha was appointed to the Kaizen Fellowship Program. She currently works as a Director in Virginia Mason’s Kaizen Promotion Office and is piloting the application of TWI to health care instruction. Martha has received training in JI and JR.

Dean Schroeder

Dr. Schroeder teaches in the areas of strategic management, management of technology, and high performance organizations. His primary research interests address the use of new technologies for competitive advantage, managing ideas and innovation, and transforming companies into high performance organizations. Before joining the faculty at Valparaiso University, Dr. Schroeder taught at the University of Massachusetts and at the University of Minnesota, and had visiting appointments at the St. Petersburg Technical University in Russia and at the Athens Laboratory of Business Administration in Greece.

Dr. Schroeder served on the Board of Examiners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the Board of Directors of the American Creativity Association. Dr. Schroeder is widely published and his 2004 book, Ideas Are Free: How the Idea Revolution is Liberating People and Transforming Organizations, which was co-authored with Alan Robinson, has received several awards, including being voted as Fast Company’s “Reader’s Choice” and being names as one of the “30 Best Business Books of 2004” by Executive Book Summaries.

Suzanne Smith

Pending.

Earl Storm

Pending.

Sam Wagner

As the Director of Advanced Manufacturing at Donnelly Custom Manufacturing Company in Alexandria, MN, Sam Wagner leads the production, quality, training and continuous improvement functions. In this role, he is responsible for the identification, assessment and implementation of advanced technologies and process improvements that continue to adapt and advance Donnelly’s short-run expertise. He has been closely involved with implementations of information technologies, Lean manufacturing techniques, quality systems and automation. He holds an MBA from San Diego State University and BS in Engineering Management from the University of North Dakota, and is a Certified Trainer in TWI’s Job Methods. Mr. Wagner’s experience includes executive, management and engineering positions in both high and low volume production of plastic and metal products in a variety of industries including defense and aerospace, agriculture, construction and transportation.

Mark Warren

Mark Warren has 30 years of experience working with Tier 1 and 2 suppliers to improve their manufacturing productivity and quality. Prior to establishing an independent consultancy, he spent 12 years at Robert Bosch Corporation in the corporate Quality Assurance and Warranty Department, where his responsibilities entailed extensive cooperative projects at various Bosch, supplier and customer facilities in Latin America, Europe, and Asia.

Developed "Triage" method for manufacturing – a sorting methodology when the problems to be addressed far outstrip the available resources.

Author of “Life Cycle of a Problem” – methodology to define that problems actually follow a sequence and method to deconstruct tools into elements for better application of tools for efficient solving of problems. This is a key to discovering why many solutions fail.
Author of “Vector Analysis for Business” – Concept that merges TPS, TOC and 6-Sigma into the customer metric of ‘Cost-Quality-Delivery”

Author of “A Practical Guide to Implementing Lean” – a distillation of lean principles in a recipe format to be used by the operator on the shop floor.

Robert J. Wrona, Director, TWI Institute

Bob began his manufacturing career at the Chevrolet Division of General Motors in Buffalo, NY while earning a BS from Canisius College. He broadened his manufacturing experience at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY while obtaining his MBA from Rochester Institute of Technology. Bob then joined a start up retail discount drug store chain in Syracuse, NY, where as VP of Organizational Development, he implemented training and “lean” just-in-time concepts for the company to grew from 12 stores to 140 stores with sales over $250 million. He returned to his manufacturing roots as an Organizational Development consultant in 1982 to implement TQM for small and mid-sized companies. This led to a study of the Japanese manufacturing techniques as they became known in the US and he contacted Professor Alan Robinson in 1998 after discovering TWI in his study of Kaizen who introduced him to Patrick who was employed by SANYO in San Diego. Their talk of reintroducing TWI in the US turned into a reality after Bob joined CNYTDO as a Lean Consultant in 2001 that provided a base for them to reintroduce TWI to companies in Syracuse, NY and now throughout the US.

After demonstrating that TWI enabled companies to achieve significant results with little investment in training by leveraging the knowledge and skills of their supervisor/team leader group, CNYTDO was soon responding to requests from companies throughout the US looking to do the same. The need for standardization to quickly spread the training was apparent with the first group of trainers that wanted to “personalize” or to “modernize” the methodology. After reviewing the archived materials from WWII with those used in Japan, Bob and Pat determined that to successfully deliver TWI they would have to recreate the materials for trainers to learn how to deliver TWI as the program was delivered during WWII and in Japan since 1945. Their work is documented in their book The TWI Workbook: Essential Skills for Supervisors that is a Shingo Prize winner.