Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Conference Day 1

Andy Wagner, Conference chair LPPDE - Welcome

Andy Wagner opens the conference with his vision and suggests that Lean Product and Process Development, an incredibly thoughtful and proven approach, would drive a healthy future for any business. However, as many of us know - it’s not easy. It requires a connection to the organizational vision, executive and leadership commitment, effective change management, cultural change and a strong focus on process to truly enable it, let alone sustain it.

During the conference we will refer to and share these important insights, all the time with our theme “Machinery of Innovation” in the center.

Andy will also present the “Creating a Learning Experience” concept used during the conference with “learning session” to reflect and learn together in smaller groups. This is a start of a focused two-day learning journey.

We will listen practitioners from established companies, speakers with deep knowledge touching the latest findings from universities. As usual we will have a lot of time for knowledge exchange between participants and speakers during the conference.

Keynote: Ramy Mourad, Engineering Director at Boeing – Evolving Needs for the Future

Boeing’s history in aviation is well known. How will industry’s engineering and program leadership methods need to evolve as we look into the future. We will dig deeper in those areas.

Ramy Mourad brings 20 years of aircraft development and test experience across commercial, defense, rotorcraft, and eVTOL platforms. He spent the past nine years as an engineering director in functional and program leadership roles, leading engineering teams on 737 MAX, 787-10, New Midmarket Airplane, and 777-9 programs working with regulators to ensure certifiable outcomes. He recently led engineering, technology, and cultural integration for the acquisitions of Wisk and SkyGrid while shaping capabilities meaningful to Boeing. Ramy began his career as a flight test engineer in the Very Light Jet industry—a perspective he continues to apply today.

Today, Ramy serves as an 777-9 Engineering Director, focused on addressing the program’s largest technical and operational challenges on its final path to certification. He leads cross-functional engineering teams enabling flight test planning and execution, drives risk/opportunity management and readiness reviews, and coordinates on-site stakeholder and regulator engagement to keep the 777X on schedule and certifiable.

His prior role was Director of Engineering for Future Mobility, where he guided strategic and technical development of alternative energy and autonomous systems and led Advance Air Mobility engineering collaborations with Wisk Aero and SkyGrid to support development of a certified commercial autonomous electric aircraft. An aviation enthusiast and pilot, Ramy met his wife, Dalia, at Purdue University; they enjoy the Pacific Northwest with their three children.

Networking Break

Steven C Holt, Technical Fellow at Boeing – The Chief Engineer’s Role in Creating High Performance Teams and Successful Products: Learning from History

In “The Toyota Product Development System,” James Morgan and Jeffrey Liker describe the important role that the Chief Engineer plays in the product development at Toyota.  This presentation looks at four examples starting in the 1940s in which aerospace products were designed in times that today seen so short as to be almost unbelievable—including designing and building a jet fighter in 90 days.  This presentation shows how each was led by a Chief Engineer that closely matched Morgan and Liker’s observations and how this enabled breakthrough innovation and speed in development.

Steve Holt is a Socio-Technical Systems Engineer with a long fascination with product development looked at as a complex system. He began his career as a stress analyst and eventually ended up as a Systems Engineer. He was able to get an early exposure to many great thinkers, including: W.Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Eli Goldratt, and Allen Ward.  He makes frequent use of Dave Snowden’s Cynefin Framework and Col. John Boyd’s Maneuver Conflict Theory.

Monica Rossi, Assistant Professor at Politecnico di Milano – Set-based Thinking

Set-Based thinking is known since a long time, but is not applied in many organizations. We will go through the key elements in a set-based system and discuss how it is applied in real life. This includes demonstrating the challenges of meeting customer and design requirements, introducing the concepts of SBCE and its application to product design. We will also demonstrate the importance of common tools and Lean PD enablers used to execute SBCE process.

Monica Rossi is assistant Professor at Politecnico di Milano where she teaches different areas of innovation and product development. She is a energetic woman filled with knowledge and experience about running workshops with practitioners.

Monica has presented many times at LPPDE conferences as well as LEI gatherings. She has been involved in European Projects such as LeanPPD and LinkedDesign. She has published and presented more than 20 articles in several international journals, conferences, national magazines and book chapters.

Learning Session

Reflection, teach back of key takeaways, and summarize key learnings

Geoff Neiley, Rapiscan Systems – Key Decisions – The Critical Step to Innovation

Which are the key decisions needed to succeed with your product development? How do you define them and how do you master the art of maximizing innovation? Geoff will share his experience with some a real-life examples. Both of what works and what does not.

Geoff Neiley has been in the mechanical engineering field for 30 years. After graduating from the University of Maine, Orono, he learned much about the custom equipment business at NESLAB Instruments designing water chilling systems. Following this he spent 15 years working for BTU International where he designed and lead projects for conveyorized furnaces using in the electronics and solar industry. During this time, he earned his master’s in mechanical engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. It was at BTU where Geoff began to see the value of concurrent engineering. Geoff joined AS&E in 2011 where he led the mechanical team to introduce state-or-the-art x-ray products for the security market. Three years after joining AS&E (now Rapiscan Systems) in 2011, the leadership team introduced the concept of Lean Product Development. Geoff joined the leadership team reading many Lean PD books, inviting Lead PD practitioners to AS&E and attending LPPDE for several consecutive years. AS&E has roundly embraced the concurrent engineering aspects of Lean PD focusing greatly of Set-Base Innovation and cross-functional collaboration with our supply chain and manufacturing team. In 2022, Geoff took the role of Director of Continuous Product Improvement and Configuration Management. In his new role, he continues to leverage his learning from 8-years for practicing LPPD. Geoff has been a member of the board of Lean Product and Process Development Exchange since 2019. Today he is still learning and experimenting with lean processes and enjoys the pride felt in enabling a cross-functional team to achieve challenging, rewarding goals.

Networking Lunch – Open Space

TBD

TBD

Networking Break

Allan Coletta, Principal of Lean 3P Associates and Encouraging Leaders – Using 3P to Grow Your Business by Growing Your Leaders

The Lean 3P (Production, Preparation, Process) methodology can grow business and leaders in powerful and practical ways—especially when applied with the deeper mindset of Product, Process, and People. Allan will explain why and how during his presentation.

Allan Coletta is a Principal of Lean 3P Associates, where he helps organizations engage their teams to achieve operational excellence through breakthrough product designs and efficient operations. A seasoned Lean practitioner, he has guided the rapid turnaround of distressed plants and serves as an executive leadership coach, applying Stakeholder Centered Coaching as an associate with Encouraging Leaders LLC. In addition, he assesses applicants for the AME Excellence Award.

Previously, Allan was Senior Director of Engineering and Facilities for Siemens Healthineers’ Critical Reagent Manufacturing, building high performance teams, and leveraging the 3P process to design and build new operations. Under his leadership, the site embraced maintenance excellence, tiered management, standardized work, and other Lean solutions, while also introducing Industry 4.0 technologies such as robotics, cobots, vision systems, sensor technologies, and machine learning. Earlier in his career, Allan held technical, supply chain, and operational leadership roles in the chemical process industry, including Site Leader for ICI’s largest specialty chemicals plant in North America, where he implemented extensive Lean systems in a union environment.

In 2012, Allan authored The Lean 3P Advantage: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Production Preparation Process, which won a 2013 Shingo Prize. He has served on the Fiduciary Board of the Delaware MEP, is a member of the AME Champions and the AME PCL KRA team, and was formerly on the Delaware Chamber of Commerce Board of Manufacturing Managers. A Chemical Engineer by training, Allan continues to bring people‐centric leadership to manufacturing, driving continuous improvement and achieving lasting business excellence.

Learning Session

Reflection, teach back of key takeaways, and summarize key learnings

Session End

Networking Buffet

The knowledge exchange continues under relaxed conditions