Nadiah Ahmad

Nadiah Ahmad is a PhD candidate in Production Systems in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering at The Ohio State University. She is currently a Graduate Teaching Assistant for several undergraduate courses. She received her BSIE from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MSIE from The Ohio State University. Her research interests include Group Technology, Flexible Standard Work for High-Mix Low-Volume Manufacturing, Production Flow Analysis, Lean Manufacturing for Jobshops and Facility Layout Design.

Alwyn Aliwarga

Alwyn Aliwarga is currently a graduate student pursuing his MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering at The Ohio State University. He was the E-Council representative for both the OSU Chapter of IIE and Alpha Pi Mu. He has completed Lean Six Sigma Black Belt coursework and has received a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification from the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. For his LSS Certification project, he improved workflow processes at TCG Solutions. His MS Thesis is titled “Value Stream Mapping vs. Value Network Mapping – A Comparison of Visualization Methods for Design and Analysis of High-Mix Low-Volume Production Systems”. During his program of study at The Ohio State University, he interned at several companies, such as Jo-Ann Stores, Nationwide Insurance, eSolutech, Guardian Automotive, and Xunlight Corporation, where he undertook or assisted on a variety of Continuous Improvement projects. Also, he continued to strengthen his knowledge, work experience and problem-solving skills in Industrial Engineering by doing course projects at many companies, such as Hirschvogel Inc., OSU HR Payroll, PR Machine Works, and United McGill Air Silence. Currently, during the Summer 2011 quarter, he is interning at Horton Emergency Vehicles where he is using Value Network Mapping to design the fabrication shop layout and improve the material and information flow in this high-mix area of the company.

George Bishop

George is currently a Managing Director with West Monroe Partners where he leads their Workforce Optimization Practice. George graduated with a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering from l’École Polytechnique de Montréal. For over 25 years, he has been working with both management and unions in addressing issues concerning Work Measurement and Engineered Labor Standards. George is a recognized expert witness in the field of Engineered Labor Standards and also acts as an arbitrator and mediator to help parties resolve their differences around productivity expectations. George pioneered the development of Real-Time Discrete Engineered Labor Standards, a methodology and tool set that addresses the complexity associated with implementing accurate productivity measurement in highly variable environments, such as food distribution and delivery. George taught Work Measurement and Methods Engineering at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Industrial Engineering of l’École Polytechnique de Montréal and in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of l’Université de Sherbrooke. George has written about the the purpose and justification of Engineered Labor Standards in the Fifth Edn. of the Maynard Industrial Engineering Handbook.

Chris DeConti

Chris DeConti is the Director of Operations at Ulbrich Shaped Wire, a leading manufacturer of highly-engineered shaped and rolled profile wire with experience in producing thousands of unique shapes and sizes. Chris has over 25 years of experience in leading manufacturing teams in the North-East. Chris spent 17 years with Stanley Tools in New Britain, CT. It was there where his Lean journey began, learning from Shingijitsu consultants over a 3 year period in a high-volume, low-mix environment. In his current role at Ulbrich, Chris is working with his team to develop the culture and processes required to operate a Make-To-Rder business while making significant reductions in customer wait times, providing superior quality, and creating a learning environment where all employees are actively involved in the improvement of the business. His work centers on the integration of Information Technology, Visual Workplace, and other Lean tools to drive order velocity through the entire business.

Gregory Fowler

Gregory P. Fowler is presently the Vice President of Operations at ETM Manufacturing Co., a job shop (Make-To-Order, low volumes, very high mix) specializing in precision sheet metal and machined parts for industrial, medical, food, electronic, solar energy, and niche industries. He holds a BS in Engineering from Roger Williams University and an MBA from the University of Rhode Island. Greg began implementing World Class Manufacturing (WCM) tools at The Foxboro Co. then went on to learn the entirety of the Danaher Business System (DBS) developed and implemented by the Shingijitsu group. The DBS has been the benchmark of many other companies’ successes. Prior to ETM Manufacturing, Greg had implemented change in companies in a variety of industries such as electronics, precious metals, food, medical, machining, metal-working, and electro-mechanical fabrication and assembly by implementing agile manufacturing tools. He is an ISO Certified Auditor and Six Sigma Master Black Belt. With over 25 years of experience in Engineering, Manufacturing, Materials, Quality, Customer Service, and Facilities Management, he has been a leader of change through the use and education of Policy Deployment, Visual Communications, Kaizen, 5S, SMED and other Lean tools. His focus at ETM is getting employees educated and get them to rally around change, by listening to their ideas, allowing them to implement those ideas, implementing dynamic and quick-change assembly cells to complement the quick-change fabrication cells and improving the supply chain to optimize cash flow. His personal goal for ETM is to re-create it into the most cost competitive, highest quality, shortest lead time supplier in the entire US.

Ben Hagler

Ben Hagler is the co-founder and Vice-President of Engineering & Operations at Hagler Systems since 1996. Hagler Systems is an Engineer-To-Order, heavy equipment packaging company providing pump equipment and dredging solutions for various mining (phosphate), oil & gas (Canadian oil sands) and nuclear markets. Ben graduated in 1988 from Georgia Tech as a Mechanical Engineer. He started his professional career as a Tooling Engineer with automotive castings supplier, Intermet-Archer, located in Lynchburg,VA. He joined GIW Engineering as a Design Engineer for slurry pumps in 1989 and was later transferred to KSB, Germany, to introduce GIW slurry pumps to European markets. Before co-founding Hagler Systems, while a European Regional Sales Manager for GIW, he was responsible for marketing GIW slurry pumps in Europe and representing dredge pumps to the Dutch and Belgian contractors. Ben's key focus is mechanical design, Finite Element Analysis (FEA), hydraulic systems, process engineering, product life cycle management and Lean Manufacturing. He has been pivotal in modernizing manufacturing at Hagler Systems by implementing computer-aided engineering tools to streamline manufacturing.

Shahrukh Irani

Dr. Shahrukh A. Irani is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial, Welding and Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering at Ohio State University. He is the Director of the Advanced Manufacturing Interest Group (AMIG), a consortium that seeks to incorporate industry experience across the Industrial Engineering curriculum through a variety of engagements with Ohio manufacturers. In 1995-96, he worked in industry on a Faculty Internship that was partially supported by the Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison (GOALI) program of the National Science Foundation. Dr. Irani is the Editor of the Handbook of Cellular Manufacturing Systems published in 1999 by John Wiley. In 1996, Dr. Irani was voted Young Engineer of the Year by the Minnesota Federation of Engineering Societies and the Minneapolis Chapter of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. He served as the Director of the Facilities Planning and Design (FAPAD) division of the Institute of Industrial Engineers for 1999-2001 and 2001-2003.

Colin Kerrigan

Colin P. Kerrigan is currently the Director of Operations and Lean Development for Horton Emergency Vehicles. Colin has spent the past 15 months deeply integrating Lean practices into the service vehicle industry at Horton in Grove City, Ohio. Prior to Colin’s joining the Horton Team, he spent 7 years with AW North Carolina in Durham, North Carolina who supply all Toyota transmissions for the Tundra, Tacoma, Camry, and Land Cruiser exports, as their Senior Operations Manager. While working extensively under TPS (Toyota Production System) best practices and developing new world class initiatives, Colin expanded the production operations to nearly 1 million square feet to accommodate transportation, logistics, manufacturing, and product testing/development. Colin has worked through traditional TPS methods for over a decade and incorporated American practices to successfully integrate Lean into large and small environments. He has also had the opportunity to work with Honda Motor Company through a supplier of critical components (NK Parts Industries) for 3 years and International Truck and Engine for 5 years. His hands on experience in the United States and Japan through direct applications and 10 years under a lifelong sensei have proven beneficial for deployment and integration. While his most recent work has helped to develop the bottom line of the organization at Horton Emergency Vehicles, the true value comes in really understanding how to apply which Lean principles to create a successful and disciplined organization.

Ricky Loar

Ricky Loar is the Operations Excellence Manager at Horton Emergency Vehicles. He has over 16 years of manufacturing experience and is a Certified Lean and Six Sigma Black Belt. In his current role, he is responsible for teaching, training and mentoring Horton’s employees in all aspects of Lean and Six Sigma. Ricky is also responsible for achieving exceptional performance in daily operations from the Lean perspective. Ricky’s accomplishments include the complete transformation and re-design of Horton’s processes for ambulance assembly from a Bay Build to an Assembly line process. Thru his efforts, his company was able to reduce 42,000 sq. ft. of floor space and relocate all of their secondary operations to their main facility. He is also a member of the ASV Lean Council (ASV owns Horton Emergency Vehicles). As a member of this council, his duties are to provide guidance, direction and resources to develop all employees in the creation of an ASV Lean Culture that drives daily Continuous Improvement to manufacture every ambulance at the lowest cost, highest quality and best after-sales service. Ricky is also a leading member of the RPA Assessment process used by the 11 sister companies under the ASV umbrella.

Michael Mackay

Mike MacKay is the President of MacKay Manufacturing in Spokane, WA. This high-mix low-volume job shop employs over 100 people making medical instruments, vacuum chambers for the semi-conductor industry, and miscellaneous parts for the electronics industry. In 2005, MacKay began to implement Lean technologies and continues to fine tune the program each day. By using Lean auditors and simple contests, MacKay Manufacturing has been able to keep the enthusiasm high while making incremental improvements in productivity, quality, and delivery every year.

Sudhendu Rai

Dr. Rai is a Xerox Fellow, Program Manager and a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt at the Xerox Research Center in Webster, N.Y. He received his PhD. from MIT in 1993, MS from Caltech in 1989, and BTech from IIT, Kanpur (India) in 1988 – all in Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Rai joined Xerox in 1995 as a Member of their Research & Technology staff. He was promoted to Principal Scientist in 2001 and Xerox Fellow in 2010. During 1996-97 he demonstrated the feasibility of virtual prototyping of xerographic components. He created, validated and implemented a new methodology for performing quantitative trade-offs in large-system design. Between 1997 and 1998 he developed and implemented a novel distributed control architecture for moving paper across multiple paper handling modules. He is the lead inventor of the LDP (Lean Document Production®) Solution that was selected as a finalist in the 2008 Franz Edelman competition sponsored by INFORMS. This work has also been selected as one of the three finalists for the Service Innovation Practice Award sponsored by SRII (Service Research and Innovation Institute). LDP also was won the first place at the IIE Lean Best Practices Award in 2011. Starting in 1998, Dr. Rai led a team that developed the algorithms, software toolkit to support the initial offering and a training curriculum to train Xerox Global Services consultants. He has personally led and implemented process improvement initiatives in dozens of small and large print shops spanning multiple industry segments. He holds 35 patents (with 40 additional pending) and has published more than 25 technical papers in conference proceedings and technical journals. He is a member of IIE, ASME, Sigma Xi and a senior member of IEEE. He is a recipient of the Xerox Excellence in Science and Technology Award and was selected as a finalist for the Rochester Engineer of the Year award in 2007.

Mike Schroyer

Mike is the Lean Coordinator at The Pipe Line Development Company (PLIDCO). In 2005, he came to work as an assistant to the Director of Safety and Training. Subsequently, Mike has trained and been certified in Six Sigma, become a Certified Occupational Safety Specialist (COSS) and received training on Lean from the Kaizen Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona. Mike has been instrumental in making much-needed improvements by working closely with PLIDCO’s employees to create work standards and audit systems to ensure that the company continues on their Lean journey.

Mary Smith

Mary Smith joined The Pipe Line Development Company (PLIDCO) in 1999 after being a stay at home mom and raising four children. While cleaning and organizing the shop, she saw the need for safety training. That was then. Today, Mary is the Director of Safety and Training at PLIDCO. Through continuous improvement and training, PLIDCO has achieved over 700 days without a missed time accident. The company has worked closely with the Bureau of Workers Compensation to make ergonomic improvements. In 2006 Mary helped start the Lean programs at PLIDCO working with MAGNET. In 2011, thanks to her efforts, the company received over $20,000 in grant money to extend their CIP (Continuous Improvement Program).

Jack Somerville

Jack Somerville is the Manufacturing Engineering Manager for Emerson Network Power’s Liebert Division in Columbus, OH. During his five years at Emerson, Jack’s work has included leading a number of Lean projects in the sheet metal and assembly departments. Examples include installing a $2 million punch and bending cell, developing kitting processes for sheet metal parts, reducing set up time on press brakes, and reducing batch processing by designing mobile carts to replace skids for storing parts. The results of these projects have saved the Columbus facility over $1.75M per year. Current projects in the sheet metal department include implementing a real-time machine monitoring system to improve machine performance and developing a computerized scheduling system to level load (heijunka) a high-mix punch process that produces 200,000 parts per month in small lot quantities. Prior to joining Emerson, Jack was a manufacturing engineer at Ford Motor’s Sharonville Transmission Plant. He earned a Masters of Welding Engineering from The Ohio State University and has a Bachelor of Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Luis de la Torre

Luis de la Torre is a Productivity/Training Specialist who works for the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center (TMAC) at the University of Houston/College of Technology. He received an M.S. in Manufacturing from the University of Texas Pan-American. His MS thesis involved extensive research on the theme of high-mix low-volume (HMLV) production (Mass Customization). Luis has more than 15 years of professional experience in the fields of engineering/production spread over many different industries, from automotive parts to oilfield services to electronics manufacturing. As a Manufacturing Specialist, he has trained line operators, supervisors, staff and managers in manufacturing and service companies in several areas including Root Cause Analysis, Six Sigma, and Lean Manufacturing. He is also a professional Trainer and Coach. In addition, he leads Continuous Improvement and Quality Improvement implementation projects at client companies in various locations, ranging from Texas to Mexico, Central America and South America. Luis is co-author of two papers that have been published in renowned journals.

Adam Wiltsie

Adam Wiltsie is a University of Dayton graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Manufacturing Engineering. He has been employed at Vanamatic Co. since 2000. He started on the ground floor designing process layouts to manufacture precision-turned products. This led to new responsibilities on work-center flow, cell layout, automation, plant layout, software design, and most recently, operations management. This is the third speaking engagement at the JobshopLean Conference. In previous engagements, he spoke about the core Lean processes of 5S and Setup Reduction aka Common Sense Solutions (2007) and Automated Information Delivery Systems and Data Management (2008). Since 2003, Adam has also had speaking engagements at PMPA (Precision Machined Products Association) Technical Conferences where he has spoken on various Lean-oriented topics.

Chen Xie

Chen Xie is in the second year of her PhD program of study in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering at The Ohio State University. She got her Master’s degree in Logistics Engineering from the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. Her research interests include Lean, facility layout, supply chain optimization, Group Technology, Production Flow Analysis, TOC, MRP and Finite Capacity Scheduling in job shops. She has completed the Six Sigma Green Belt Certification program from the Fisher College of Business. During her programs of study, she has worked on a variety of projects at several companies – Ohio State University Foundation (transactional process improvement), Crane Plastics (defect rate reduction on a dedicated extrusion line), Hischvogel Inc. (facility layout), Procter and Gamble (facility location), Tween Brands (simulation of a shipping network), Whirlpool Corporation (real-time performance metrics reporting system), OSU Medical Center (process improvement and patient flow analysis). Currently, she is interning at Guardian Automotive where her project concerns the design of an optimal inter-departmental material flow logistics network. Simultaneously, she is also working at the SIFCO Forging Group to develop a real-time WIP tracking system by integrating Visual Scheduling Boards at each department and the company’s ERP system.