Thursday, December 4, 2025 Virtual Conference

Peter Palmér, LPPDE and Juha Tammi, Lean Association of Finland - Welcome and Instructions

Peter and Juha represent the two organization who organize these virtual online events and will moderate the Virtual Summit.

Dantar Oosterwal, Sr. VP & Partner Lean Product Development practice lead at Argo-Efeso Consulting Group – Knowledge as the Foundation for Accelerating Innovation

Dantar will share his latest finding within the area of using knowledge as the foundation for accelerating innovation. There is a need for a new attitude when we are embarking on a quest to integrate AI into the process of creating reusable & visible knowledge.  Let´s examine Allen Ward´s old hypothesis that introducing computers into the development process will just speed up a bad system. But today we are seeing that replayed in the way that digital twins are being used and we have been looking to see how we can harness the power of AI to change the fundamental approach into something that mimics the LPD & knowledge creating ideals.

Dantar Oosterwal, Sr. Vice-president at Argo-Efeso consulting group, is highly regarded as a global thought-leader in Lean Innovation & Product Development systems as well as an advisor, speaker and award-winning author. He has a passion for learning and applying lean product development systems to impact improvements of business performance. Dantar has championed many large and global operational improvement initiatives as well as developed and led Lean Innovation transformations for organizations resulting in profound improvements to both top-line revenue and bottom-line efficiency.

He has been awarded the Shingo Prize for his work in Lean Innovation by the Shingo Institute, the Outstanding Corporate Innovator award from PDMA and several product patents. Dantar has served as the Global Vice President of Innovation at Sara Lee and Product Development & Product Planning Leader at Harley-Davidson Motor Company. His consulting experience spans a diversity of industries ranging from raw materials (mining and chemicals) to high-tech defense systems.

Eric Ethington, President at Lean Shift Consulting – The Power of Process: A Story of Innovative Lean Process Development

Lean Process Creation teaches the specific frames―the 6CON model―to look through to properly design any new process while optimizing the value-creating resources. If you have a process, this approach will help. The result is 30% to 50% improvement in first-time quality, customer lead time, capital efficiency, labor productivity, and floorspace that could add up to millions of dollars saved per year and increase both employee and customer satisfaction.

Eric Ethington has a deep knowledge of lean thinking and practice in product and process development, nurtured over 30 years of work experience. As LEI’s chief engineer, process and product development, he led the development of learning experiences that enhance design professionals’ lean development knowledge and capabilities while advancing the discipline’s body of knowledge. 

Before founding Lean Shift Consulting and becoming a coach and program manager at LEI in 2016, he gained leadership experience implementing lean in automotive, defense, aerospace, consumer products, and financial industries at four divisions of Delphi, Delphi’s corporate headquarters, and Textron. At Delphi’s headquarters, his team developed and operated a “lean boot camp” for its 650 executives. Later, Eric extended his industry know-how to include medical equipment, healthcare, software, and distribution when he founded Lean Shift Consulting. Guided by a lesson learned at his first job as an industrial engineer, he continues to explore the balance of technical knowledge and interpersonal skills required to achieve a continuous improvement culture. Eric is the co-author of The Power of Process: A Story of Innovative Lean Process Development (2022).

Durward Sobek, Vice Provost at Montana State University – Practicing Set-based Thinking

Set-based knowledge, or Set Based Concurrent Engineering or Set-Based Thinking, is not so commonly used as a basis for the product development process as one would think when you look at it´s great potential. Durward will present the basic concept as well as the latest research results from this interesting area and has summed up some of their findings. The presentation will focus on a systematic approach for the organizations to generate Set-Based Knowledge.

Durward K. Sobek II is a Professor at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT, and Program Coordinator of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering. He holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an A.B. degree in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth College.

Dr. Sobek has been researching lean product development and lean healthcare for nearly two decades, focusing on how organizations can increase their performance capacity through the application of lean principles. He is a co-founder of the Lean Product and Process Development Exchange, Inc., and has published numerous articles in publications such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. He is also co-author of three books: Lean Product and Process Development, 2nd edition, Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota's PDCA Management System and Visible Knowledge for Flawless Design.

Final reflections and remarks

End

By Juha Tammi & Peter Palmér

End