DLW PARTNERS - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• General Manager

Job Titles:

• Coach
• Member of the Executive Team
• Senior Executive

Job Titles:

• Coach
• Member of the Executive Team
• Senior Executive

Lininger is a native of Iowa and graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Industrial Engineering. Chuck lives in Florida with wife, Ginger and they have one son Mark, who is married with two children. Chuck's hobbies include golf, fly fishing, muscle cars and homebrewing beer.

Job Titles:

• Coach
• Member of the Executive Team
• Senior Executive

Job Titles:

• Leader
• Managing Partner
• President

David Westphal founded DLW Partners, LLC in early 2009, just as the most recent recession peaked. This period of recession was the most dramatic reduction in consumer spending, employment contraction and job loss since the Great Depression of 1929. In 2008 and 2009, the U.S. labor market lost 8.4 million jobs or 6.1% of all payroll employment. Wanting to make a positive difference in North America and disheartened by the trend of manufacturing offshoring (which compounded the recession problem), David began with a mission to transform organizations through lean. David was already well prepared for the job, having trained under some of the leading minds in operational excellence and lean, most notably Mr. Tom Harada of Toyota. He also honed his leadership skills on a tough playing field of North American automotive manufacturing. David developed an exceptional industry reputation for leading large-scale manufacturing operation restructuring and turnarounds. During his formative years, he was tasked with fixing some of the most troubled manufacturing operations within GM and Delphi: In 2006, David led the single largest North American improvement and restructuring effort in history for the then Delphi Automotive, Saginaw Division. With Tom's guidance and continued mentoring, David began the process of working with additional companies, helping them achieve transformational performance change for the better-a task he is still driven to do today.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Executive Team
• Senior Lean Implementation Leader

Dave started his lean career as a General Motors Supervisor for Saginaw Steering in Michigan. David held various leadership roles in production, quality, and logistics in his 37+ years with the organization. While Dave was working with General Motors, he received training at the New United Motors Venture (NUMMI) in Fremont California. David participated in two lean development projects (1) Supply chain project involving identifying local sourcing to reduce costs. (2) Manning vs. automation improvements and identifying optimum solutions using both. David also did a 2.5 year Lean Development assignment at Akebono Corporation in Elizabethtown Kentucky. At this joint venture, David worked with Toyota leadership on implementing lean principles on projects supporting Georgetown Assembly operations. Dave then worked for (3) years at Brose Corporation as the Lean Manufacturing manager for their Tuscaloosa Alabama Plant. Dave has been a Lean Implementation Leader with DLW-Partners for the last 5 years. David makes his home in both Florida and Michigan with his wife and enjoys golfing and boating.

Job Titles:

• Manufacturing Manager
• Member of the Executive Team
• Senior Lean Implementation Leader

Deb Liefer has over 40 years of manufacturing experience. Her career in manufacturing started in the automotive industry as a frontline Supervisor responsible for 50 employees working on various equipment and assembly processes. As a traditional "get er done"- "traditional manufacturing" leader, she accepted any challenge presented, worked hard, and excelled at leading teams through many automotive launches and changes. Deb never missed a chance to learn from mistakes and continued Leadership and team-building development through self-learning, classes, seminars, and school of hard knocks. She graduated from Grand Valley State University with a Bachelor's of Business Operations Management Degree while working full time. Lean was introduced in the late 1980s through intense training sessions with Japanese consultants our Leader at that time brought in for training. Deb volunteered for every opportunity to participate and took the knowledge to her teams where she had to learn new skills for team opposition to creating change. Realizing that in order to create and implement change, behaviors had to change and had to start with herself. She had to learn how to lead through knowledge to improvement and not the traditional way of leading and "walk the talk". One of Deb's strengths is the ability to gain trust and alliance from team members and associates. She is adept at recognizing ability of team members and developing them. Having been taught and experiencing success with team participation she was able to create significant improvements in productivity, quality, and morale. Eventually, Deb became the Manufacturing Manager and then the Lean Improvement Facilitator for 6 sites including Mexico and Spain. She was responsible for all improvement strategy that included all the Lean tools, Kaizen's, and yearly goals along with team member development and engagement. Another of Deb's strengths is change management. Because she is able to quickly assess culture, processes and can "see" the site realities time is not wasted and a plan can be presented and implemented quickly. After 20 years Deb became a successful full-time coach. Most of her work was from a network of peers, referrals, and associates that had experienced her strengths. Some of the industries included furniture, boat building, service bodies and mounting, pharmaceutical, medical devices, distribution, and medical facilities to mention a few.

Job Titles:

• Coach
• Member of the Executive Team
• Senior Executive

Job Titles:

• Coach
• Member of the Executive Team
• Senior Executive

Job Titles:

• Lean Implementation Leader / Welding Specialist

Job Titles:

• Senior Administrative Partner

Lori Westphal co-founded DLW Partners, LLC in 2009 with her husband, David. She is a natural-born problem solver and lean thinker, able to work efficiently in and out of the office. As a first-generation college student and one of two college graduates among her siblings, Lori values persistence, hard work, and optimism. Lori's corporate experience spans from the boardroom to the back office and she serves the vital role of keeping all things administrative running smoothly for the DLW Partners team and their clients. "Honesty and integrity are paramount. We value those attributes in our team and clients above all others." With more than a decade of experience in a Fortune 50 organization, as well as numerous other volunteer and civic groups, Lori is well equipped to handle client engagements and needs. Since founding DLW Partners LLC in 2009, David and Lori Westphal have organized an impressive, knowledgeable executive team including the members below.

Job Titles:

• Senior Partner

Ron Taylor wants to make a positive difference in North America manufacturing and is disheartened by the trend of manufacturing offshoring. He is an executive with +30 years experience inspiring clarity of an organization's customer value-driven purpose and hot spots; transformative change and innovation; a culture of continuous improvement; and breakthrough results. He has worked as an Interim Executive and Business Transformation, Operational Excellence and Leadership Development Consultant for numerous worldwide companies from 500 to +10,000 employees in manufacturing, distribution, service industries, and healthcare. Ron has spent the past 18 years learning and applying a "hands-on" "learn-by-doing" approach from CEO to frontline transformations to highly customized versions of the Toyota Production System. Transformations conducted with the purpose of harnessing benefits from freeing up hidden capacity, changing cost structure and enhancing customer value. Ron is especially strong at flow and system kaizen and at the cultural side of OpEx/Lean transformation. The first 14 years of Ron's career entailed steady progress through hourly, trades, maintenance supervisor, engineering manager, production manager, launch leader, and facility manager. In 12 of those 14 years, he implemented lean manufacturing transformation at Johnson Controls plants that received both recognition as a high performing Toyota Supplier, Chairman's Award and the Shingo Award.

Mr. Tomo (Tom) Harada, started working for Toyota in 1964 in the production engineering department. Tom had no graduate school, no technical degree, no specialization and no title. At this time in history, General Motors annual vehicle production was 100 times the volume of Toyota's annual production. Mr. Taichi Ohno set the first vision and target to be one of the "Big-3" for the Toyota team. In early 1965, Tom moved to the famed "Ohno Plant" known as Kamigo Powertrain. It was there that at this time that Mr. Taiichi Ohno, known today as the father of the modern Toyota Production System or TPS was the plant manager and Director of Toyota. It was here that Tom started on his journey of Genchi Genbutsu. Assigned to the engineering staff under Ohno's direction, Tom specialized in the areas of equipment performance and stability. From 1965-1975, the capability of the Kamigo plant increased rapidly, and the plant, and Ohno began to become famous for the production efficiency, quality and technology they were achieving. In 1970-75 Tom was made responsible for the various transmission production lines and from 1975 to 1980 Tom was charged to oversee the "Crown Engine" production line. In the mid-1980s, Tom was tasked to oversee an engine plant launch in Australia. In the latter 1980s, Tom was instrumental in the startup of Toyotas largest overseas engine facility in Georgetown Kentucky. Tom continued his work until 1992, when he started a company to provide specialized equipment and engineering for Toyota that was needed for ongoing global expansion. In his career with Toyota, "Kamigo Engine Tom" earned the highest respect of the leadership of Toyota and learned and worked under one of the most influential leaders in the history of modern manufacturing. Tom is one of the last living direct connections to Ohno, and his wealth and depth of knowledge in manufacturing is unprecedented. Tom was often regularly dispatched during the course of his career to overseas equipment manufacturing companies for the purpose of studying machine tools and methods It was from the American and Japanese machine tool makers that Tom learned a great deal about machining, and process capabilities. Tom used this knowledge to improve Toyota equipment uptime, scrap, and reliability metric performance. He was also instrumental in helping to improve Japanese equipment and manufacturing technologies such that they eventually exceeded western capabilities. In 1998, Dave, Tom, and John Shook first met, at Delphi Automotive, and have worked together now for more than 20 years. Indeed Ohno's Hoshin and goal was on target - as of today, Toyota is number 1 in vehicle production globally.

Job Titles:

• Advisor