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Patricia V. Bierley received her bachelor of science in psychology from Purdue University. She has over 20 years of consulting experience in the areas of knowledge engineering and expert systems development, training development and delivery, team facilitation, and program and product evaluation. Ms. Bierley co-developed one of the largest expert systems ever built for microcomputers (7,000 rules). She has conducted skills training sessions serving over 400 technicians and professionals and train-the-trainer courses to teach clients how to deliver their own skills development programs. She also has led over 40 “workout” problem-solving sessions tackling a wide variety of business improvements affecting both top- and bottom-line results. She has designed and conducted evaluation studies to determine the content, effectiveness, and cost efficiency of training products and programs. Recently, she co-developed and delivered the Kaizen Facilitator Training Course to assist in the development of new Kaizen leaders. Ms. Bierley is the co-author of the Working With Others Training Program. Currently, she is an independent organizational effectiveness consultant working with public, private, and non-profit enterprises to elevate personal and organizational performance. Her special interest is in developing and empowering performers to improve their well-being resulting in greater job satisfaction and improved business results.

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Chris Bujak is a managing partner of Continual Impact, a consulting group providing consulting and training in continuous improvement. Chris is a mechanical engineer with extensive postgraduate training and experience in the application of lean manufacturing and Six Sigma methodologies and tools. As global director of continuous improvement (CI) for Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Chris developed an integrated CI model that included Lean Enterprise, Six Sigma™, and other critical business improvement enabling elements. His global initiative yielded $13 million (2021 current U.S. dollars) in savings during its first year of implementation, $21.1 million in its second year, and over $68 million in its third year. His program was featured in a Business Excellence article in July 2007. His work with Continual Impact has reached some 200 organizations, with more than 4,000 people trained and engaged in continuous improvements efforts. His recent focus has been on public health organizations across the U.S. Chris is the co-author of Life Enabling Commerce: An Economic System for the Good of Humankind.

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Jim Byron has a masters degree in Organizational Psychology and an Advanced Graduate Certificate in Organization Design and Effectiveness. He joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory in 2020 following several decades of leading global organizational effectiveness functions in Fortune companies, including Pfizer, Air Products and Chemicals and Citi. In his current role, he heads the Organization Design and Change group charged with elevating organizational culture and performance. Jim’s work consistently produced bottom-line results with documented returns on investment in the tens of millions of dollars in benefits to his companies. Equally important, it generated dramatic improvements in employee engagement and satisfaction. He has authored or co-authored books, technical papers, and graduate text chapters on organizational improvement topics. He holds a graduate degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and an Advanced Graduate Certificate in Organization Design. Jim also provides pro-bono consultation and training solutions to community agencies and individuals around the United States in the areas of organization and leadership development.

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Joe Cirafesi has a BS in Genetics from Cornell University and an MBA in Finance, Accounting and Information Systems from the Pennsylvania State University. He has expertise in change management, work process re-design, business planning and strategy development, communications, human resources, finance, accounting, joint ventures and acquisitions. Joe has held a variety of key leadership positions, · Division Controller for a $500 MM business of a Fortune 200 chemical producer; · Business Manager and Process Owner for a $1 billion work process; · Lean Enterprise Manager · Regional Director of Continuous Improvement in Europe for a Fortune 200 company.

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Scott A. Harrison, Ed.D., M.B.A. is founder and president of The Harrison Group, LLC, a human resources consulting firm founded in 1994 specializing in organization-wide performance system design and the purposeful alignment and integration of systems that connect people (human resource planning, recruitment, selection, and onboarding), performance (evaluation and professional growth) and pay (strategic compensation strategy and policy development). He has extensive experience in designing, implementing, and supporting performance management and scorecard-based variable pay systems that tie business-level, group-level, and person-level achievement to incentive payouts. He has mated his systems with continuous improvement "workout" sessions that enable employees to advance business success thereby achieving greater person and team success. He has built human resource departments from scratch and audited the functionality of human resources systems from the perspective of supporting high performance organizations like Lean Enterprises. Scott received his Bachelors (B.S.) at University of Maryland, Masters in Business Administration (M.B.A.) at University of Southern Maine, and Doctorate in Educational Leadership (Ed.D.) at University of Maine. Scott is a Certified Compensation Professional (CCP), Professional in Human Resources (PHR), and Certified Performance Compensation Administrator (PCA). Scott has also been an instructor at the University of Southern Maine.

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Mark Reed is a senior CI consultant and Vital Enterprises associate. He has 34 years of experience in manufacturing and service areas including 26 years in management positions. During his career, Mark has implemented Statistical Process Control and other Quality management methods to continuously improve the operations he managed. He has implemented Lean since 1999 and has conducted Value Stream Analysis, Kaizen, and other Lean tool events in the U.S., the Middle East, and throughout Asia. He is a certified Tool Master in Value Stream Analysis, Kaizen, Workplace Organization and Visual Controls, Quick Change, Mistake Proofing and team facilitation skills. He led the implementation of Lean/Continuous Improvement(CI) for the Asian segment of Fortune 200 global business. It established Lean/CI within just 11 months in a business unit operating in 8 countries with over 1.3 billion dollars (USD) in revenues and 4,500 people. During that period, he engaged, energized and trained personnel to master plan the implementation of Lean/CI and implement 145 Lean improvement events. The savings in the first year (while he was still training personnel) were over $30 million (USD). This first year included six weeks during which the project was on hold due to SARS.

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Don Roll has been immersed full time in the CI environment for nearly a decade now. He is a CI Tool Master who has lead over 100 CI events in shop (both discrete and continuous manufacturing) and office settings and trained people in CI tools in Canada, Scotland, United Kingdom, Spain, and Hong Kong, as well as in the U.S. While specializing in implementation of Workplace Organization and Visual Control (WOVC), Don is also certified in Kaizen, Work Process Mapping, Quick Change, in addition to a large variety of root cause and foundational CI tools. What he enjoys the most about CI is the exchange of knowledge, the energy associated with people striving for excellence, and the measurable improvement such people can make.

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Joseph P. Vitalo is a lean manufacturing consultant and trainer with over ten years experience in planning and leading lean improvement events. Through these events, he has improved businesses in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the United Kingdom. He is the coauthor of the Kaizen Desk Reference Standard, and has trained and developed Kaizen leaders in automotive, pharmaceutical, electronics, machinery manufacturing, and process industries. Joseph is currently a lean consultant and trainer with Vital Enterprises.

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Raphael L. Vitalo received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has authored 40 professional articles, technical reports, and chapters in the areas of psychology, organizational consulting, work process improvement, information systems, and artificial intelligence. Dr. Vitalo worked in community mental health during the first half of his 50-year career as therapist and as Clinical Director of two mental health centers. In the first of those centers, he led his staff in improving the success of treatment outcomes by 31% (from 70% to 92%), reducing dropout from treatment by more than 50%, expanding the number of people served with the same level of staff by 20%, and producing a per unit cost of care that was 56% below the national average. In the second of those centers, again working with his staff, he produced similar gains in caregiving. In the second half of his career, Dr. Vitalo worked as a business consultant. He has designed, managed, and implemented more than 350 projects serving public and private companies in the areas of organizational effectiveness, performance management, workforce productivity, business process reengineering, risk management, applications of the Quality and Lean Enterprise models, knowledge engineering, information systems design and development, and expert systems design and development. He is currently the president of Vital Enterprises.

 

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