Cambridge, MA, Jan. 11, 2012 – The nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) today announced the appointment of Mark Reich, former general manager of the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC), as director of strategy and operations.
“I’m very excited to have a Lean Thinker of Mark’s caliber on the LEI team,” said CEO John Shook, himself a Toyota veteran and former TSSC general manager. “Mark has over 20 years of hands-on lean experience from the shop floor to the top floor that we’ll make available to the Lean Community. He’ll also help us to continuously improve our internal processes at LEI.”
“I look forward to working with John Shook, the LEI team, and to help organizations create more value and less waste,” said Reich, who spent nine years at TSSC, established by Toyota to share its lean production and management systems with North American companies.
“LEI has been a leader and innovator since Jim Womack founded it 15 years ago,” said Reich. “I’m looking forward to continuing that tradition, starting by talking with members of the Lean Community to learn how LEI can best support their lean transformations.”
Reich’s new responsibilities include:
- Supporting co-learning partnerships with organizations engaging in lean transformation.
- Conducting action research and documenting results.
- Providing planning and technical advice to support LEI’s mission and operations.
- Support development of new educational programs and learning materials.
During his two-year tenure as GM at TSSC, Reich expanded its capability and doubled the number of companies supported. Reich directly implemented the Toyota Production System (TPS) or managed its implementation in a variety of industries, including automotive, food, furniture, and healthcare, among others.
Reich transitioned TSSC from for-profit to nonprofit status and broadened the client base beyond manufacturing to hospitals, schools, low-income food distribution, and nationally prominent nonprofits. Learn more about Mark Reich
Join LEI’s community of Lean Thinkers at: https://www.lean.org/WhoWeAre/why_join.cfm to receive a weekly newsletter with lean management resources and news. You’ll get access to lean case studies, webinars, interviews with executives on lean leadership, and archives of essays by authors and thought leaders John Shook, LEI CEO, and Jim Womack, LEI founder.
The terms lean manufacturing, lean production, or lean management refer to a complete business system for organizing and managing product development, operations, suppliers, customer relations, and the overall enterprise that requires less capital, material, space, time, or human effort to produce products and services with fewer defects to precise customer desires, compared with traditional modern management..
Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc., was founded in 1997 by management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., as a nonprofit research, education, publishing, and conference company with a mission to advance lean thinking around the world. LEI supports other lean initiatives such as the Lean Education Academic Network, the Lean Global Network and the Healthcare Value Network. Visit LEI at https://www.lean.org for more information.
Media: Chet Marchwinski, cmarchwinski@lean.org, (617) 871-2930.