Next year isn’t looking spectacular, if you base your outlook on economic forecasts, but it isn’t looking too bad either. According to economists at the International Monetary Fund—who portray 2014 as a year of “transitions and tensions”—the more developed economies can expect annual GDP growth from 1.0 to 3.1 percent.

Looking at the global picture, another consensus report concludes, “Worldwide, 2014 should be better than 2013 but not great.”

Of course, at the specific market and individual business level, growth and earnings prospects are more dynamic, and a lot more ambitious. “Across the board, I see our clients leveraging

their capabilities and business improvements to achieve a competitive advantage and drive growth. They’re not going to be victims of the current economy,” states Bill Remy, TBM President and COO.

Looking forward to next year, we asked some of TBM’s clients and partners to tell us their near-term challenges,

www.tbmcg.com

December 2013 | Issue 5

A TBM Consulting Group PublicationOpEx

Review

In a climate of economicuncertainty and caution,TBM clients and partnersreveal how they’recompeting on theirown terms in 2014.

Also in this issue:

2| leading Thoughts: Accomplish More in 2014

5| Management system: Building Trust to Enable Change

8| Growth: Start New Businesses, Disrupt New Markets

10| sG&A: Prepping for Rapid Growth

Bring It On: Winning Strategies for 2014

(continued on page 3)

Game On! Winning Strategies for 2014.

By David Drickhamer

Leading ThoughTs

For over two decades now TBM has been helping our clients accomplish more. They often get started after the leadership team has visited other client companies that have made dramatic progress, where they get a chance to talk to their peers about what they’ve accomplished and how they did it. After they begin to understand what’s possible, we help them see the gaps and opportunities, set priorities, develop a plan, and begin to execute the plan.

Over time, once the company is rolling in the right direction, the improvements and financial benefits—like compound interest—continue to build on one another. We’ve found that maintaining that operational advantage depends on leadership involvement, which is the only thing that can maintain employee interest and engagement over the long haul. That’s why, from the early days of our firm, we’ve emphasized education and cultural development in addition to following a well-planned process improvement roadmap.

Leadership’s challenge, as you think about accomplishing more next year, is to have the vision to set the bar high enough that it raises eyebrows, causes some anxiety and requires some genuine creativity. And then provide the inspiration and support to make it happen.

We look forward to working with you and your organization to accomplish more in 2014 and beyond. On behalf of all TBM employees, best wishes for a peaceful holiday season and prosperous New Year.

Bill Remy President & COO TBM Consulting Group, Inc. bremy@tbmcg.com

Accomplish More in 2014

Publisher Anand Sharma asharma@tbmcg.com

Executive Editor Angela Scenna ascenna@tbmcg.com

Associate Editors David Drickhamer Jon Katz

Contributors Jonathan ChongRichard HollandDavid PateBill RemyMarc Turpin

Art Direction and Design Crossbow Group crossbowgroup.com

Printing Carter Printing & Graphics, Inc. carterprintingnc.com

December 2013 | Issue 5

A Business Journal for Leaders Who Embrace Operational Excellence

2 | OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com

OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com | 3

(continued from page 1)

and to reveal a little bit about what they were doing to address those challenges and make 2014 a great year for their companies.

No Waiting Around

Single family housing starts are one of the key economic statistics that Lavon Winkler, the CEO of Milbank Mfg. Co., looks at when planning for the future. Headquartered

in Kansas City, Mo., the 86-year-old company supplies wholesale electrical distributors and home centers with electrical products (primarily meter sockets and enclosures). They also manufacture power generation equipment (standby generators, solar modules and wind turbines). The company’s core business tracks very closely with housing starts, which are still a long way from pre-recession levels.

“Our outlook for 2014 is relatively positive. We are forecasting nine percent growth in revenues. All of

that is organic. And we are looking at a comparable increase in earnings,” says Winkler. “That would appear to reflect a lot of optimism. The reality is we’re being pretty cautious.”

His concern is that many economists are anticipating a slowdown in mid-2014, driven by a slump in the construction industry. In response to such a scenario the company will continue to build on what they’ve been doing at a strategic level since before the 2008-2009 Recession, leveraging the cash generated by their core business to invest in growth initiatives.

“We have diversified within our primary product lines, taking existing products to other markets, new products to existing markets, and launched our new power gen business. Geographically, we’ve doubled our international business and expect that to continue for the next four to five years,” he adds. “Our strategy all along has been to go after something, rather than wait for it to happen.”

On the operational front, Winkler reports that Milbank will continue to make major improvements in their business processes. They are also making investments in cultural change, starting with leadership development, and training at every level, to drive the behavioral changes that will make daily improvement second nature at the company.

“The Toyota Way isn’t about the tools, techniques and methodology,” he says. “It’s what exists in the hearts and minds of the people.”

2014: When Operational Excellence Meets Sales Excellence

With a similar focus to Milbank’s aggressive, recession-beating strategy, WIKA Instrument LP will continue to take market share from competitors in order to achieve its growth objectives in a stagnant market, according to President Michael Gerster. Based in Lawrenceville, Ga., the U.S. subsidiary of a German firm manufactures and markets pressure and temperature measurement instruments.

In 2014 WIKA will continue to work on translating strategic intent into actionable tactics that are cascaded throughout the organization, Gerster reports by email. “Operational (lean) advances alone (lead-time, quality) will no longer be enough,” he writes. WIKA is leveraging CEB’s Challenger Sales approach, to “be (constructively) disruptive, teach customers something they didn’t know about their business, [and] create pull for our products rather than improve on our push techniques.”

Ken Koenemann, TBM Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, adds, “It’s more critical than ever to get marketing and operations aligned with sales processes. Effective messaging and synchronized promotional activities are critical for sales enablement. Improvement efforts should free up selling resources to focus more on listening to and anticipating customer needs, and not wasting time fighting fires or expediting orders.”

“ Our strategy all along has been to go after something, rather than wait for it to happen.“

— Lavon Winkler, CEO, Milbank Mfg.

“ Operational advances alone will no longer be enough.“

— Michael Gerster, President, WIKA Instrument

4 | OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com

PLANNING FOR 2014

Getting Synchronized for Growth

Sales challenges in an entirely different context are also top of mind for Alan Murray, CEO of NextFoods. Founded in 2006, the rapidly growing company headquartered in Boulder, Colo., makes the GoodBelly line of organic probiotic fruit drinks. Murray says they are anticipating sales growth in the 20-30 percent range next year.

“At the moment we have spikes in our consumer acquisition tied to our online marketing activities,” he explains. “We will win 50,000 to 100,000 new consumers over a year, but they’re coming in spikes. I’d like to bring them into the franchise on

a more consistent basis.”

Hand-in-hand with more consistent sales growth, NextFoods is developing its supply base to keep pace with its growth rate. The company has to make sure there is a sufficient supply of organic berries and other flavors that the company uses in its drinks, in addition to adequate production capacity. “We have a plant on the East Coast. Do we grow that one, or do we move to a West Coast production facility?” Those are some of the questions Murray says they will be grappling with next year as the company strives to synchronize sales, suppliers and operational activities.

Managing Skilled Labor Shortages and Healthcare Challenges

In addition to production capacity, people are the other key enabler of business growth. On the operational side, skilled labor is the number one issue for STERIS, according to Dave Johnson, Senior Vice President, Global Operations and Quality. STERIS is a $1.5 billion global leader in infection prevention, contamination control, and surgical and critical care technologies.

“We’re looking for capable and educated people who can handle the newest technology. That’s across the board at all of our U.S. facilities. For example, we have 20 openings we are struggling to fill right now for machinists who can run CNC machines, and do it confidently, and for skilled welders,” Johnson reports.

To address the challenge the company is partnering with local schools and other suppliers in the area, like global welding equipment supplier Lincoln Electric. In addition to computer skills and other technical competencies, Johnson says they are looking for people who understand lean manufacturing, or who are willing to embrace it. Offering job stability, and a very competitive compensation and benefits plan, STERIS is advertising everywhere, even on signs on the back of city buses.

Of course, cultural development, sales excellence, growth management, and addressing talent shortages are just a few of the challenges TBM clients will be addressing head on in 2014. They will be leveraging a wide range operational improvement practices to growth their businesses and achieve their financial objectives, no matter how lackluster the global economic outlook might be.

“ We have 20 openings we are struggling to fill right now for machinists who can run CNC machines“

— Dave Johnson, SVP, Global Operations and Quality, STERIS Corporation

“ We have a plant on the East Coast. Do we grow that one, or do we move to a West Coast production facility?“

— Alan Murray CEO, NextFoods

Ralph Phillips monitors real time digital feedback on a brake press at STERIS.

OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com | 5

Executive engagement, cultural transformation and changing management behavior are receiving a lot of attention in Operational Excellence circles these days. In part, this focus stems from anecdotal root-cause analysis of initiatives that have failed to achieve a measurable or sustainable impact on long-term performance and competitiveness. Lack of management engagement is the often-cited culprit.

Common wisdom has now reached a point where it’s seen as not worth devoting the time and effort of launching or reinvigorating a continuous improvement program if

In addition to productivity improvements and cost reductions, many of today’s operational leaders say they are trying to create a self-perpetuating, continuous improvement culture. What’s the fastest way to get there?

Building Trust

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

By Richard holland, Vice President and Managing director, TBM europe

Culture Change Starts With Leadership Engagement

the leadership team is not actively engaged. We’ve learned that when attempting any type of business transformation, changing management behavior comes first. As leadership expert John Kotter has stated repeatedly in his articles and books on leading successful change initiatives, while strategy, culture and systems are important, the central challenge is always changing behavior.*

This article explores these issues in the context of TBM’s ongoing work with a pharmaceutical manufacturer. Not only did this company achieve its breakthrough cost and productivity objectives within three years, the culture has undergone a true transformation. Today, as managers tell visitors, kaizen is “in the drinking water.”

Three years may seem like a short span of time for deep culture change, but in this case it started at the top. From day one we worked with the leadership team, translating their business strategy into annual goals and projects. Not only did their constant engagement in operational improvement efforts enable them to achieve their financial and cultural goals, it enabled them to achieve those goals faster. But the biggest enabler of their success was not engagement per se. It was commitment and trust.

Connect Strategy and Execution

Not too many years ago, a process improvement program would almost always begin on the factory floor, converting batch processes to work cells to improve flow and reduce work-in-process inventory. Or, in service operations, it might begin by creating value stream maps and redesigning process flows. That work still occurs, and it’s still essential, but such efforts are much more likely to succeed in the long term if the connections to the broader business objectives and strategy are clear to everyone.

6 | OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Like many entrepreneurial companies, our client had grown by taking advantage of market opportunities as they arose. As a consequence, the leadership team did not have a well-defined process for connecting the everyday activities of the business to their high-level strategic goals.

Our work began with strategy deployment, coaching executives in how to translate their long-term objectives—which included doubling productivity to support growth without increasing headcount—into annual goals for the site and for each value stream. This culminated in an all employee day-long workshop to explain the direction and challenges of the business. Together, we then helped them determine the projects that would realize those goals, defined the relevant KPIs and assigned project ownership.

This initial work helped everyone in the business understand and buy into the direction and importance of the targets, which were quite ambitious. Instead of people seeing the improvement work as something else in addition to their

OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com | 7

“day jobs” that they could work on when everything was under control, they realized that improvement was their day job.

Like many companies, in the early days they struggled to make these strategic projects a daily and weekly priority, so we helped create more immediate “100-day plans.” Company leaders now review these plans on a weekly and monthly basis to see if sufficient progress is being made, and intervene as necessary.

Laying the conceptual groundwork for a new management system, we then trained managers at all levels in the basics of lean and how to use the most applicable problem-solving tools. At the same time, work teams began to track and report current performance. This included visual boards displaying safety, quality, delivery, cost and productivity (SQDCP) metrics on an hourly and daily basis for each area.

The boards provide the structure for people to manage their part of the business, identify root causes of issues, and solve problems. They now serve as focal points for daily performance reviews on the shop floor, in the functional areas, at the value stream level, and for the entire site. Combining daily performance with strategic activity, the boards also show current progress toward 100-day plans and breakthrough objectives.

Each team meets in front of the boards every day to review performance. By 10:00 a.m. each morning, the site leadership team has a full overview of the site’s performance over the last 24 hours, and what’s been done to resolve any issues and what needs to be done today.

It’s easy to underestimate the impact of these brief, daily stand-up meetings. When managers and work teams stand together in front of performance boards, everyone that’s needed to resolve any cross-functional issues or remove obstacles is there. It doesn’t take days of back-and-forth phone calls and emails to find and implement solutions. Management’s ongoing presence helps make sure that redesigned processes remain in place and in control, and continue to operate at a higher level.

Communication Is the Foundation of Trust

Today, output at the site has grown 50 percent while total employment has essentially remained flat. In some areas, like

the quality control area, total headcount has declined by 25 percent as the business has grown. And those people have moved to other areas. Most recently, process improvements in administrative areas have freed up 60 people—over seven percent of the workforce—who will work on several major new products being readied for production at the facility.

Over the years, the specific business improvement and problem-solving efforts that contributed to such successes evolved from frequent kaizen events to more nuanced lean conversions and non-stop “just do it” projects. There’s no better way to demonstrate commitment and build trust than constant communication and collaborative problem solving.

As one manager said to me recently when reflecting on his current leadership role, the specific problem-solving approach is not so important as long as leaders are setting priorities and providing the tools that enable the organization to accomplish what needs to be done.

“It's about communication. But it fundamentally comes down to trust. I think that people need to be aware of where you're going. They need to be part of that journey. They need to buy into that journey. They need to trust,” he explained. “You need to just constantly communicate the results of where you're going, and people need to feel good about it.”

That brings us back to the beginning of our engagement with this client, and the leadership team’s work to create a vision of the future that employees would "buy into." Long-term success in any organization requires a vision that people want to see realized. Once leadership gets people on board—through communication and participating in problem-solving activities, and building trust—it’s amazing what they can accomplish.

There’s no better way to demonstrate commitment and build trust than constant communication and collaborative problem solving.

* Leading Change, John Kotter (1996), The Heart of Change, John Kotter and Dan S. Cohen (2002).

8 | OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com

GROWTH STRATEGY

What comes next for companies three, four or five years into a lean transformation? What’s next after the double-digit lead-time reductions and productivity improvements? After the productivity gains and cost savings have fallen to the bottom line and contributed to a sustainable margin advantage?

More of the above, of course. Companies that have been applying lean for decades continue to find ways to reduce inventory, improve productivity, reduce costs and deliver more value to customers. As described by TBM’s Lean Progression Model,* during these later years—when performance improvement is driven by principles and habit—revenue and income growth can surge forward as many of the longer-term investments begin to pay off. Building an operational advantage can also create new, high potential opportunities for growth.

For example, one of the most successful companies that TBM has worked with has been applying lean and Operational Excellence practices in every area of its business for decades. Still, when I visited their U.S. headquarters last year and had a chance to spend some time with the CEO, he said they had a lot more work to do.

At that time, they were in the midst of launching several initiatives clearly linked to their ongoing focus on providing additional value and service for both their distributor partners and end customers. Those initiatives took full advantage of

the flexibility of their production processes and inventory reductions—everything is now made to order—as well as the floor space that is still being released by their process improvement work. In addition to such efforts, the CEO explained how their pursuit of Operational Excellence had transformed not only how the business was run, but how they go to market.

About 10 years ago, his predecessor’s leadership team recognized the need to enter a new market segment—one offering a more promising long-term growth potential—with a lower cost, less premium product. It wasn’t a segment where they had previously competed on any scale. Representatives from engineering and manufacturing worked together to develop a derivative product appropriate for this market, and then they figured out how to make it at an acceptable cost and margin potential within the existing footprint of the company’s manufacturing operations. At the same time, the IT department built the necessary systems to support the new value stream.

As the designs came together, and as the production and IT processes were being readied, the company’s executives determined that they couldn’t take the new product to market through existing sales channels. Most of their distributors’ front-line sales associates instinctively felt that the new offerings would compete with and undermine existing sales, even if the end customers were completely different. To mitigate potential channel conflict, starting with a few carefully selected distributors, the company helped to build new, separate sales teams and set up the necessary support

Value Stream Innovation

How companies in mature industries can leverage their operational advantage to build new businesses, successfully enter and disrupt new markets, and grow faster than competitors.

By Jonathan Chong, TBM director of Business development

Go Big or Grow Slow

OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com | 9

infrastructure. The new sales teams required different skills, new training programs and marketing support, as well as a different compensation plan.

In effect, what they did was launch a completely new business, leveraging their brand awareness and equity, with little doubt—internally or with external customers—that they would be able to deliver as promised. From an enterprise value stream perspective, the company leveraged what they knew (how to make and deliver a quality product at a cost advantage) to enter a new market by making a calculated investment at the customer end of their enterprise value stream. That’s value stream innovation. As a fairly mature business, this lateral market move put them in the unfamiliar—but exhilarating—position of being a market disrupter.

As you might guess, this startup effort took several years to unfold, with many mistakes and learning opportunities. But corporate expectations for the new business in terms of sales and earnings were moderate in the early years. And their traditional, high-end business continued to be a source of healthy sales and earnings growth, which provided plenty of cover for both the manufacturing end and the sales end of the new value stream to experiment and learn.

Fortunately, by the time the Recession hit in 2008 and 2009, the new side of the business had gained traction and

momentum. The company’s ongoing focus on Operational Excellence—including short lead times, made-to-order capabilities and standardized sales and installation processes—was providing a clear advantage over entrenched competitors in the new space. As the Recession settled in, sales in the company’s primary market dropped off sharply. Fortunately, the new business provided some revenue stability and bounced back faster as consumer confidence returned. In fact, during this period, the company’s revenue mix flipped completely from roughly 75 percent in its traditional customer base and 25 percent in the new segment, to 25 percent traditional and 75 percent new.

I hope this story provides some inspiration as the calendar year comes to a close and your leadership team looks forward into 2014. Do you have any opportunities to leverage your operational advantage to build new value streams that serve new customers in new markets?

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and integration > Significant capital investment requirements

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investments or innovation> Minimizing cost to maintain margins

and profitability> Low short-term risk, high long-term risk

> Market disruption> Complementary business acquisition

and integration> �Investments in sales and service capabilities

with minimal capital investment> Low to moderate risk

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To learn more about value stream innovation contact Jonathan Chong (919.471.5535, jchong@tbmcg.com).

* Management Briefing | The Lean Progression Model: Maximize the Returns from Your Operational Improvement Efforts over the Long Term (www.tbmcg.com)

Value stream growth strategies

From an income statement perspective, the pursuit of Operational Excellence shouldn’t be limited to the cost-of-goods-sold line. Day-to-day selling, general and administration (SG&A) costs, offer many hidden opportunities for business process improvements that can reduce operating expenses and boost efficiency and net income.

In this article we explore several of these opportunities within the context of TBM’s work with the leadership teams of two companies facing two different market challenges. In the first case, the client was anticipating significant growth and wanted to protect margins by streamlining corporate finance processes and limiting increases in headcount. In the second, the company needed to respond to market consolidation by reducing fixed costs and improving customer responsiveness.

10 | OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com

How to Overcome Market Challenges by Driving Process Improvement Beyond the Factory Floor.

BuSINESS PROCESS

Prepping for Rapid Growth

Anticipating significant growth over a three-year period, the finance department at an up-and-coming European auto parts manufacturer started sending requisitions for additional people to handle the increased workload. After seeing how removing non-value-added activity—a.k.a., waste—in production areas radically improved productivity and reduced costs, company leaders felt the same approach could yield benefits in other areas of the business. They challenged their finance team to better leverage the resources they had before they would sign off on hiring any new people.

Three pilot projects in the finance department focused on: 1) the monthly financial close, 2) the monthly forecast, and

Paving the Way for Profitable Growth

finanCiaL CLose foReCasTing CosT esTiMaTing

Recommended moving forecast

responsibility from finance to sales

and manufacturing

Fig 1. Streamlining Finance Processes to Support Future Growth

From 10 to

4.5 days

From 12 to 7 days

50% ReDuCeD

ReDuCeD

ReDuCeD

Cycle time Monthly forecast Process variability

Customer RFQ response timePaper invoices

By david Pate, TBM Managing director, north america Business development, and Marc Turpin, TBM Client Manager

Reduce SG&A Costs

“When we started, many of the executives thought that any changes would reduce customer service quality,” recalls David Pate, Managing Director, North America Business Development for TBM. “And some of the employees felt the program was only about justifying job cuts, which was the reality of the situation in a shrinking market.”

Participating in the program, completing the training and becoming certified project facilitators, offered employees both new learning opportunities and a measure of job security. Looking back, the company’s improvement team leaders noted that limiting the scope of events improved results, and that measuring and presenting hard savings—verified by the accounting department—greatly enhanced the credibility of their efforts.

OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com | 11

3) cost estimations. To improve each of these processes, kaizen teams established relevant KPIs, eliminated unnecessary steps and handoffs, implemented standard work and redesigned the workflow. Immediate results (See Figure 1) included shorter cycle times, paperwork reductions, reallocation of work, and faster customer response times.

The objectives and tools used to improve administrative and production areas—eliminating all forms of waste, soliciting ideas from the people most familiar with the process, and emphasizing creativity before capital—are the same as in a factory. But making changes in administrative areas, according to TBM Client Manager, Marc Turpin, requires a more concerted effort to involve and engage people.

“In production areas, labor tends to be more interchangeable,” Turpin says. “Administrative functions exist to do specific types of work. Every improvement or change touches somebody’s job and can result in some activities being eliminated. Luckily, in a growth environment, it’s possible to both eliminate a substantial amount of effort and still find a place in other areas of the business for people who might be displaced.”

More Efficient Data Collection and Analysis

Market consolidation was slowly shrinking the customer base of a multi-billion dollar provider of market analysis and consulting services. At the same time, although the company had enjoyed a dominant market share for decades, new technology and easier global communications were making it possible for competitors to carve out lucrative pieces of its business by offering comparable intelligence at lower price points.

Despite such pressures, famously low turnover and entrenched networks contributed to an atmosphere of complacency and entitlement at the company. Following a private equity acquisition, the new executive team identified a number of opportunities to streamline data collection and administrative processes. To shrink its cost structure and build a more energized, change-oriented organization, TBM worked side by side with managers to implement a new management system—championed by the CEO and private equity owners—that blended key aspects of lean and Six Sigma methodologies.

Over the course of 18 months, the company completed over 200 events in data collection and production, customer support, human resources, finance and a number of other departments. The results (See Figure 2) included over $5 million in direct cost savings, reduced labor requirements, a 90 percent reduction in data collection speed, and faster new product introductions.

Fig 2. Streamlining Data Collection and Analysis

OveR $5 MILLION

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Effective Execution of a Business Process KaizenThis webinar presents best practices for business process kaizen and lessons learned during Harsco Corporation’s business process kaizen initiative.

Presenters: Gary Rascoe and Douglas Shuff, Director of Finance – Strategic Projects for Harsco Corporation.

WEBINAR

12 | OpEx Review | December 2013 | www.tbmcg.com

Join us onOurBlog

China • Brazil • France • Germany • India • Mexico • United Kingdom • United States

TBM, the TBM logo, LeanSigma® and Dploy are registered trademarks of TBM Consulting Group, Inc.

Challenges Met. Problems Solved. OpEx Must-Reads from 2013!

Top Leadership Stories from 2013

Accomplish MoreConsulting Group

Powering Up: Operational Excellence Supercharges Growth and MarginsAt Hubbell lean is a management methodology, not a project or

activity, according to Chairman Tim Powers. The approach has enabled the $3 billion manufacturer of electrical and electronic products to post record operating profits and its best product quality, in-stock rates, and on-time delivery performance ever.

Leadership Is a Contact SportFor Pactiv CEO John McGrath, leadership is about going where the action is, which in his case

means visiting at least one of the company’s 50-plus plants every week. His objectives, as he communicates in this article, are to support Pactiv’s non-stop efforts to improve productivity, and translate strategy into execution.

Lean as a Strategic Weapon for GrowthAfter uncovering their true competitive advantage, Milbank Manufacturing leveraged that

knowledge and their lean performance advantage to launch a new product line and take market share during the recession. In this article CEO Lavon Winkler shares what this supplier of electrical enclosures and generators is focusing on next.

Available in the Resource Center

at www.tbmcg.com

Staying Ahead of the Competition: The Real Reason to ReshoreWhen Dave Johnson, SVP of STERIS Corp, a $1.5 billion

manufacturer of medical products, decided to move production back to the U.S., he and his team took a different approach.  The company has increased flexibility, improved quality and reduced lead times by focusing on customer-centric criteria.

Growing from Strong Roots Despite the challenge of implementing lean practices in a service industry, Daniel van

Starrenburg, CEO of specialty tree-service company SavATree, saw an opportunity to gain an advantage and grow faster in a highly competitive market.

www.tbmcg.com