About:

Steve has 30 years of experience delivering successful, large-scale Lean transformations across a broad range of industries. His lean journey began in 1992 at Delta Kogyo under a great sensei, one of Mazda’s leanest suppliers. He then led Johnson Controls’ effort to adapt & deploy TPS with significant coaching from sensei at Toyota, then helped spread to 60+ plants. Won JCI’s first 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐨 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞 plant award, guiding 9 others. For the next 17 years, Steve increased responsibilities and results building lean consulting practices at ESG, Optiprise (Jeff Liker’s consulting firm), and Altarum Institute. At Altarum, Steve’s teams won two more Shingo Prizes at Robins AF base for depot maintenance successes, before pivoting exclusively to healthcare transformation. Scott & White and Baylor Health Care CEOs called Steve full-time to guide their people/process integration through a merger. As Sr VP for 10 years, his role was to grow a culture of CI from the ground-up that maximized engagement and results for 50,000 staff. Expert at deploying strategy (hoshin) to all levels, project/kaizen execution & sustainment, and Daily Management systems-building. Steve was a developer & principal instructor for 3 of UMich’s popular Lean Certificate programs. Steve’s book Stories From My Sensei won a 2011 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award. His book, The Power of Ideas to Transform Healthcare won a 2015 Shingo Award.