7th Annual Conference

Elizabeth M Keim

Lean Six Sigma: Past, Present and the Future

Elizabeth (Liz) Keim is a managing partner at Integrated Quality Resources in Boulder, CO. She works with clients on business results improvement through the integration of methodologies such as Lean, Six Sigma and the Baldrige criteria.

Elizabeth has worked as a Master Black Belt, Executive, Champion, Black Belt and Green Belt-level trainer and mentor with clients in market segments that include finance (American Express, Ford Motor Credit and Leasing, CNH Capital), banking (Suncorp Metway-Australia), utilities (Dominion Energy, Yarra Valley Water-Australia), science and technology (DuPont), agriculture/construction equipment (CNH Global), telecommunications (Telstra the Australian telephone company), engineering services (Sverdrup Technology, Inc.), metals production (BHP Billiton), agriculture products (Monsanto) and healthcare (Veterans Administration hospital system).

Liz is a Past Chairman of the Board of the American Society for Quality (ASQ).  She is an ASQ Fellow and an ASQ Certified Quality Auditor, Certified Quality Manager and Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt.  She is an Academician and the Vice-President of Conferences with the International Academy for Quality.  Keim is the author of numerous articles on service quality, strategic quality planning and Lean Six Sigma implementation.

Prof George Cairns

Managing Quality, Ambiguity and Uncertainty: Scenario thinking on alternative futures

With George Wright and Dr Martyna Śliwa, he has proposed the approach termed ‘critical scenario method’ (CSM). It is an approach to exploring complex and uncertain issues and their possible and plausible future outcomes with specific reference to issues of broad social, environmental and economic sustainability.

George has presented at academic and professional conferences across the world, has published a wide range of journal articles, and is co-author of books on IB and on scenario method.

Christine Hawkins

Customer Experience Improvement – case study from HP on gathering customer requirements.

Christine began her career with a bachelor of Science in the mining and minerals industry working for Rio Tinto. 

Whilst working in management for WMC Christine started her Six Sigma and business improvement journey, when she took up the challenge to become an accredited Six Sigma Black Belt.

In 2002 Christine took a step into the completely different world of service industry as one of the first Master Black Belts at Telstra. Since Telstra, Christine has be sharing her service based industry experience with Qantas, BankWest and  Westpac.

Since 2007, Christine has had the fabulous opportunity to apply her business improvement skills to customer experience improvement for Hewlett Packard across all of Asia Pacific. She is currently head of Transformation for HP Asia Pacific, COO of Inida HP and Vice President of the Australasian Association of Six Sigma Practitioners.

Professor John P T Mo

Lean six sigma driven enterprise transformation model

Dr. John Mo is Professor of Manufacturing Engineering at RMIT University in charge of the Discipline of Manufacturing and Materials Engineering, since November, 2006.

Before joining RMIT, he was leading a large research team for 11 years in Manufacturing Systems at CSIRO, working on research in industrial automation, global information systems, lean manufacturing, logistics, risks analysis, critical infrastructure protection modelling, electricity market simulation, fault detection and production optimisation. John obtained his PhD from Loughborough University, UK in 1989 and is a Fellow of Engineers Australia

Lynn Grantham

Lean Six Sigma Deployment to Survive and Thrive

Lynn’s first career was in the hospitality industry where, as a restaurant manager, she learned the importance of focussing on customers’ needs and unconsciously applied process improvement principles to deliver efficient customer service.

Many years and three career moves later, she “fell into” becoming a Black Belt at Telstra and ignited a passion for fixing processes and driving organisational change. Now a certified Master Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma and a qualified teacher in adult education, Lynn currently heads the Process Governance and Quality team in ANZ’s Australia Operations.

Lynn has led the deployment of Lean and Six Sigma across ANZ’s Retail division and was a member of the deployment teams at Commonwealth Bank and Telstra. She has learned to resist the urge to apply Lean Six Sigma principles at home, and is now acutely aware that 5-S’ing her husband’s shed is not the path to marital happiness.

Stephen Grech

Engaging staff to be part of the process improvement solution

Stephen introduced Lean and Six Sigma to Victoria’s largest government departments. Stephen is now sought after by public and private sector businesses to train and develop internal Lean Thinking capability aimed at saving time, reducing non value adding activity and improving the quality of the goods and services.

Stephen has trained over 700 people in Lean Thinking business improvement methods and has implemented a number of Lean Thinking, Value Stream Mapping, 5S in the Office, 5S in the factory and Six Sigma organisational improvement projects in the public and private sectors. Stephen is widely known for his remarkable success in developing a NEW culture of continuous improvement through his engaging style of project facilitation.

As an experienced Lean practitioner, Stephen has worked for a number of Victorian State Government Departments, Local and Federal Government agencies, small, medium and large businesses. His breadth of experience has enabled him to fast track the implementation of influencing strategies to ensure change is embraced and sustained.

He has a Bachelor of Economics, Certification in Six Sigma, Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, Certificate of Mastering Export Marketing from the College of International Business, Level 3 accreditation in XeP3 Lean business improvement methodology and a Diploma in Logistics (Lean).

Stephen delivers process improvement training, executive Lean briefings, he is a business coach and a Lean and Six Sigma project leader.

Stephen is an experienced presenter at major national and international conferences on business process improvement, building a culture of continuous improvement and gaining staff and leadership engagement.

Dr Douglas Long

PPM / PPL + Lean Six Sigma : an oxymoron-a look at management, leadership, change, and the quality process

Douglas G Long was born in New Zealand but moved to Australia in 1976. His tertiary education was in New Zealand, Australia, England, and the USA, culminating with a PhD in Organisational Psychology.

For many years he taught in universities in Australia and the USA and he is currently with Australia’s Southern Cross University Graduate College of Management where he supervises candidates studying for their degree of DBA.

Along with this, he has been an active consultant specialising in leadership and change with public and private sector clients throughout Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia. In this role he has facilitated some major changes undergone by both small and very large Australian and South East Asian organisations. His involvement with the Quality Movement goes back to 1985 when he first facilitated TQM processes.

Robert Re

Leadership vs Management-The Debate Continues

Robert Re is a consultant specialising in personal and organisational development and has 30 years experience in HR Management and Consulting.

He has been associated with cultural change in manufacturing and other industry sectors since 1977; since 1987 he has with a number of colleagues, implemented change strategies in organisations in Australia and New Zealand.  Robert has worked with companies Including Tubemakers of Australia (Foundry Products Divison) Queensland and Victoria; Pacific Mirror Image (formerly Distronics Technology) Victoria and NSW’ Australian Paper, Amcor Fibre Packing Vic & NSW, Containers Packaging, Pacific Dunlop Vic & NSW, Carter Holt Harvey, Galvanising Industries, Boral Australia, Australian Industry Group, Johnson Tiles, Coca-Cola, Johnson and Johnson, Selkirk Brick, Pilkington Australia Limited (All states), SmithKline Beecham, Hagemayer Electrical Group, NZ Steel, BOC Gases, Emoleum Ltd, Reddin Consulting Group, ICI, Feltex Carpets.

He has conducted his eight-day Leadership at Work Development Program for over 1,000 managers throughout Australia and New Zealand.

 He has recently published his book Leadership at Work - Letting the Apes Go Free.

Ian Ritchie

Activity Based Working and its Links with Lean Six Sigma

Ian Ritchie designs and deploys leadership development and organizational improvement programs for commercial and government enterprises.  He is an accredited trainer, Activity Based Working analyst, and Lean Six Sigma coach.

Ian is a director of Process2Customer Consulting Group, working with organisations large and small to facilitate improvement in leadership competencies, team performance, process efficiency, and customer service.

Kevin Ryan

Lean Six Sigma management and project selection framework

Kevin Ryan is a certified and experienced Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and a Program Manager of Operational Excellence in the energy utilities sector.  Kevin is a recognised Lean Six Sigma practitioner with experience in chemical manufacturing and services improvement. His career began in systems ecology and research, moving into business intelligence, strategy management, performance measurement, and continuous improvement. Kevin has a wealth of hands-on experience implementing, leading and managing continuous improvement in complex service businesses.

David Smith

Linking Lean Six Sigma with ISO and business excellence; is there value?

David Smith is a Business Improvement Professional with more than 30 years experience working with Australian and Global organisations.

He is a Six Sigma and Lean facilitator and coach whose experience is extremely broad and covers many different sectors including service, mining, aviation, construction, manufacturing and logistics both within Australia and internationally. David’s qualifications are in management and engineering; and he also has a strong background in management systems and business excellence.

Matt Curnow

Leadership and Cultural, the shadow leaders cast.

Matt Curnow - Managing Director, Changing Results.

Matt has a Master of Business and is accredited in Behavioural Profiling and Emotional Intelligence Tools. He has worked in Change Management and Continuous Improvement areas for the last 10 years.

His business philosophy focuses on the 3 Concepts and Values of Care, Consistency and Character and how effectively these values can mitigate risk in Project Governance and Assurance.

Matt has transferred his business improvement philosophy to Australia's largest mining organisations. Matt works with public and private sector businesses to train and develop internal capability aimed at creating a framework where risk is transparent and where honest conversations are seen as the norm.

Cultural Change is one of Matt’s passions. His presentation on how to create a transparent culture encompasses the ingredients needed by leaders and employees to create a culture where people care enough to bring you problems so you can manage risk; how to improve relationships and have effective communication; and how to diffuse conflict and create a constructive culture.

David Kelly

Organisational Program and Process Readiness

Dave heads the South East Asia office of Quality Associates International Inc. based in Melbourne, Australia.

He has worked in the quality and lean six sigma areas for over ten years.

From a formal background in education and mathematics he has developed and delivered programs across many industries including retail, automotive, finance, service and health.

He has particular input into program development with relation to curriculum structures, program scalability, customization and certification.

Michael McLean

The new ISO Standard for Six Sigma™ – ISO 13053-1:2011(E) ‘DMAIC’ Methodology and ISO 13053-2:2011(E) Tools and Techniques

FAICD; FAOQ; CMC (IMCA); Adv. Dip. Mgt; BBus; PEngC; JM. Managing Director MMC Pty Ltd (Est. 1988) www.mclean-mc.com.au

• Enterprise Connect TAS Management Consultancy NSW and VIC
• Swinburne University - Competitive Manufacturing, CI, Lean, Six Sigma delivery partner
• IMIA Senior Associate - Centre for Strategic Business Studies

Previously Regional Director Asia for WDScott, Axon Solutions, Bywater McLean; HR, Productivity, Quality and Industrial Engineering manager positions with Monroe (nee National Springs), Comalco Extruded & Rolled Products; AMC-Wrangler, STC/ITT Australia, New York and Belgium.

An international management consultant, keynote speaker and author. Is the ASEAN AusAID Auto Technical Specialist for Australia.

Co-author two CI PDSA books and co-developer of the AITD Gold Award 'Q-Skills for Six Sigma' with Micro Multimedia sold world wide.

e has presented at state, national and international conferences; conducted Competitive Manufacturing, Operational Excellence, Lean and Six Sigma Champions, MBB, BB and GB programs in American University Cairo, Etilsalat UAE, QTC Qatar; QCMC Malaysia, BHP, Boral, CSR, GMH, NRMA, RAAF, RAN, Shell & Westpac.

Published international academic peer reviewed papers on global supply chain and Japanese Manufacturing Practices in the IJQRM and ICMIT IEEE

Bobby Aitken

CI Capability Development

Bobby Aitken has been involved in Lean Six Sigma since early 2005.

Having worked throughout Europe and South East Asia across manufacturing, service, healthcare and utility industries he has a wide base of experience and application of the continuous improvement methodologies