Our Manufacturing roots run deep

Back in 1989, Lee achieved accreditation as a Quality Management Systems Auditor for BS5750 (the precursor to ISO 9000) in the UK and began assisting manufacturing clients in a government sponsored program to improve quality and performance. Gaining exposure to a wide variety of industries including food and non food group transportation, oceanic freight, printing, solvent recovery and food production, daily he would see examples of systems failures leading to waste and sub optimal performance. 

Moving to the USA in 1993, he was immersed in sporting goods manufacturing, running quality management systems for Burton Corporation. Starting with the Vermont manufacturing plant (and gaining ISO 9001 accreditation in 1997) the role quickly expanded to include global supply chains for hard and soft goods. Working in the USA, Europe and Asia to design and implement quality management systems. This experience was enhanced in 1998 when he carried on this work for the Vans Inc. supply chains in the USA, Taiwan, China and Europe.  

Returning to Vermont in 2000, Lee became a Professional Business Advisor with the Manufacturing Extension Partnership local branch VMEC, training and working in Toyota Production System methodologies from some of the pioneers of these movements in the USA, such as Lean Enterprise Institute faculty, Drew Locher, Kevin Duggan, Beau Keyte, Brian Maskell and becoming a course designer and instructor for the MEP University, specifically in their Change Management and Transformation Management course lines. On the ground during the 7 years at VMEC, Lee assisted over 100 companies in Vermont with Toyota Production System implementations, in vertical areas from wood products to integrated circuit production. 

Lee has worked with manufacturers on a request basis since 2007, although the majority of his focus has been in the healthcare field since that date.