CEO, Lean Enterprise Academy
David has been both applying and researching lean since 1990. He manages activities at the Lean Enterprise Academy and helps firms making a lean transformation. He has worked with Dan Jones since 1997. During that time he has been involved in both pioneering research into lean thinking and the practical implementation of lean practice. He has walked, mapped, taught and coached lean in over 500 value streams across almost every conceivable environment – from manufacturing to service sectors in businesses such as steel production, vehicle and component assembly, FMCG, retailing, banking and financial services. 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 led to him writing Creating Lean Dealers – the lean route to satisfied customers, productive employees and profitable retailers with John Kiff (2007.) He helps a growing number of dealers around the world successfully implement lean thinking and practice. David has an MBA from Cardiff Business School where he specilaised in lean and supply chain management. In 2011 he contributed cases to the updated Lean Enterprise Institute workbook Seeing the Whole Value Stream by Dan Jones and Jim Womack (2011.) He is co-author of the book Manufacturing Operations and Supply Chain Management – The Lean Approach with David Taylor (2001.)
