Speaker Bios

Pat Elwer is a Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation. He has been working in the field of Microprocessor Product Development at Intel for 18 years. He has only recently started his Lean journey, but has been working on Process Improvement in his organization for over 2 years. Pat has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Davis.

Cathal Flanagan is Director of Equipment Engineering for Kulicke & Soffa, a semiconductor manufacturing equipment company located in Fort Washington, PA.

Colin Gilchrist is the General Manager for Quality for Fisher & Paykel. Colin was instrumental in introducing lean product development into the design engineering group and for the last two years has championed this project in New Zealand and in international sites in Italy, Australia, Thailand, USA and Mexico.

Göran Gustafsson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Product and Production Development at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. He holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics and is experienced in industrial PD work. He is particularly interested in lean principles and methods, and his current undertaking includes responsibility for developing and coordinating a new Lean PD course at Chalmers School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Dr. Gustafsson is also Director of Studies of two PD Graduate Schools, one local (Chalmers) and one national (Swedish). The latter embraces more than 80 Ph.D. students from universities all over the country who share a common course program and participate in research projects with leading industrial companies<./p>

Lewis Kennebrew is Vice President of ProductSpace Solutions, Inc. Lewis has over 15 years of experience in Engineering, New Product Development, Management Consulting, Project/Program management, and Implementation with leading edge Enterprise Product Development, Supply Chain Management, and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) technologies. His passion is implementing product development theory in ways that are practical and pragmatic; typically enabled by solid technology.

After 8 years developing software at Texas Instruments, Brian joined i2 Technologies, where he became the Chief Architect of i2's Supply Chain Planner and Demand Fulfillment applications, applying Toyota lean manufacturing principles, Theory of Constraints, and advanced optimization techniques to the planning and scheduling of the larger supply chain, helping to establish a new market space (Supply Chain Management). Brian became the first i2 Fellow and holds a dozen patents on the inventions that were the basis for those software systems.

As i2 established itself as the leading software supplier of supply chain planning solutions, Brian began to look at the many other opportunities to deliver huge value to manufacturing organizations, leading him to the product development side of those companies. Not only were large amounts of money made or lost there, but also that was where much competitive differentiation was gained or lost. Brian started working with Michael Kennedy, and together they co-founded TCC, where Brian is leading the development of software tools to support Learning-First Product Development (lean development practices inspired by the Wright Brothers and Toyota).

Al Krema is Director of Product Development for Progeny Inc.. a dental equipment manufacturer based in Chicago, IL.

Ron is currently President of Teledyne Benthos. Teledyne Technologies acquired the NASDAQ traded Benthos, Inc. in January 2006. Teledyne Benthos has been engaged in studying and implementing "Learning First Product Development" since 2005.

In June of 2001, Ron joined Benthos, Inc., a publicly traded company, as President, CEO and Director .He was hired to lead the resurgence of this $25 million 40 year old technology company with 140 employees. Benthos designs, manufacturers and sells oceanographic and package inspection equipment. Success at Benthos was achieved by creating a lean culture that improved margins from 28% to 44% and helped grow sales to over $25 million, a 50% increase in three years. Pre-tax profit rose to $2.3 million, from a loss of $3.3 million in 2001.

Ron spent over 20 years at Philips Electronics. He joined the company in 1975 in their Consumer Electronics Division. He began his Philips career in marketing and was promoted to VP of Marketing in 1981. In 1991, he was promoted to Senior VP and General Manager of the $1 billion North American television business that employed over 5,000 people.

In 1995, Ron was promoted to President and CEO of Philips Automotive Electronics; with $200 million in sales and 1,800 employees. Although profitable, this company was inwardly focused and had quality issues with major customers. Ron led the development of a customer-first culture that improved quality ratings by 45% in 18 months and achieved the highest customer quality awards.

In 1998, Philips sold its automotive business to VDO and Ron continued as President and CEO. He was appointed to the Board of VDO Control Systems in Germany. In 1999, he was promoted to President and CEO of all NA VDO operations, with sales of $400 million and 2,700 employees. Ron successfully merged all of the VDO companies into a unified team, provided the strategic leadership and customer focus that increased sales 20% annually.

Ron graduated from the University of Illinois with a BSEE and received a MBA, in finance, from Loyola University of Chicago. He also attended the University of Tennessee Executive Development Program and the Strategic Marketing Management Program of Harvard University.

Peter Palmér is a Senior Manager for Process Support within R&D Scania Heavy Trucks. Peter started his career at Scania in theQuality Department working with transmissions. He has held the position of Quality Manager in transmission production in Sweden as well as engineering & quality manager of transmissions and chassis in Argentina and production manager of gear boxes (Argentina). The last 5 years he has worked within R&D in Sweden with process improvement activities, process support and business development.

Ted Rivera is part of a core team of engineers within IBM's Software Group that has developed standard Lean / Agile education, as well as resources for leaders and project managers on software engineering teams. He has personally worked with dozens of IBM teams around the world, educating and coaching them make the transition to Lean / Agile. He has experience in development, test, documentation, user experience, and management; virtually every role associated with the development of commercial software.

Daniel R. Shoenhair, Director: Engineering Business Manager for PING Inc., began his career at PING 28 years ago. Starting in the marketing area, he later managed this department and spent some time as an independent sales representative for PING is South Florida.

In 1996, Mr. Shoenhair was named PING's Director of Materials leading the Production Planning, Purchasing, Incoming Inspection, Warehouse and Logistics functions of the company. Since 2001, Dan has spent time within Engineering working on PING's new product development processes as well as establishing the company's project management and PLM disciplines.

As an Engineering Director, Dan has been intimately involved in the company's stunning Lean PD improvements: product introductions increased from 3 to 16 per year, time to market drop from 24 to 9 months. Dan has additionally been a thought leader in bringing Toyota's and Michael Kennedy's knowledge capture theories to bear on the company's engineering discoveries.

Recently Mr. Shoenhair has been focused on PING's Lean Enterprise initiatives and has led teams leaning out numerous administrative processes, such as invention disclosures, patents, trademarks, credit/collections, account receivables, commissions, returns, sales reporting and engineering test data.

Håkan Swan holds a Ph.D. degree in Physics, and has worked with product development at Saab Automobile AB, before becoming a consultant. During more than 15 years of consulting in Lean product development, planning & strategy, he has worked with many international companies including all major automotive companies in Sweden. He is the founder and president of Ivolver AB, a management consultant firm focusing on lean Product Development implementations. Recently, Håkan has developed the Lean PD executive program at Chalmers Advanced Management Programs, a subsidiary Chalmers University of Technology. The first program was run during the fall of 2008 with him as the Program Director.

Mr Wylie has extensive experience in product lifecycle management (PLM) applications for discrete manufacturing. He has lectured at industry conferences on a variety of product development topics such as electro-mechanical system design, design for six sigma and lean product development. In his current position, Mr. Wylie is responsible for product planning and marketing of PTC’s solutions for product development processes supporting management, sales, marketing and engineering functions. Since joining PTC in 1993, Mr Wylie has held positions in product management for MCAD product portfolio and simulation products. Prior to PTC, Mr Wylie served for 7 years at Lutron Electronics and held roles in engineering and quality management. Mr Wylie earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Imperial College, London.

Benjamin Wolff is Assistant Professor of Music at Hofstra University in New York. He is a cellist and a member of the Hofstra String Quartet, ensemble in residence at Hofstra University. In addition to his work as a performing musician, Wolff is deeply committed to broadening the important connections between the worlds of the arts, the sciences, and business. In June and October of 2008 he spoke at Association for Manufacturing Excellence conferences in San Diego and Toronto, delivering a presentation called “The Paradox of Creativity.”