Implementing & Sustaining Government Lean Initiatives to Increase Capacity and Service, while Reducing Costs
 

Harry Kenworthy, Principal & Manager, QPIC, LLC | Lean Experience: 33 Years

Elaine Kenworthy, Principal Consultant, QPIC, LLC | K-12 Education Experience: 31 Years

Elaine has a diversified level of experience in K-12 education for over 30 years. She has taught full time K-6 classrooms, worked with special education students through the 9th grade, including behavior modification groups, and students who were emotionally, academically or physically handicapped at various grade levels. Her approach and sensitivity to all types of student needs enabled students to excel to the best of their abilities. She was well respected by her peers and called upon many times to assist in other teaching situations. Elaine was clearly a proponent of the student as the customer of the education process and actively worked to engage parents in the journey to support the education of their children.

She was highly rated by all administrative personnel that she interfaced with.

During her career, Elaine also served in capacities as a tutor and substitute teacher, along with working with homebound students – from students with special needs to the gifted. These diversified experiences qualified Elaine to have a broad perspective of what it takes to excel as a teacher and to be able to address the needs of a broad student spectrum.

Elaine is able to complement QPIC’s efforts with Lean in the “back office” of a school system.

She also served on a PTO, as a PTSO secretary, on a Junior Woman’s Club, as a Girl Scout Leader, and as a CCD instructor in her church.

Education / Certifications
M.S., Education, Cortland State University (SUNY)
B.A., Education, Potsdam State University (SUNY)

Mary Jo Caldwell, Principal Consultant, QPIC, LLC | Lean Experience: 10 Years

Mary Jo (Jo) was the Director of the Minnesota Office of Continuous Improvement (MNCI) from 2021-2021, before joining QPIC as a Principal Consultant in June, 2021. MNCI is Minnesota state government’s enterprise-wide continuous improvement program that lends support to 24 cabinet-level state agencies improvement efforts. Using Lean and Six Sigma methodologies, Jo’s team worked with agencies to help them improve their processes by reducing waste while striving to achieve the highest levels of efficiency and performance possible through training, project facilitation, data collection, and client engagement.

She joined Minnesota state government in 2000 and initially served in the Department of Corrections and the Department of Administration. In 2012 Jo took a hiatus from Minnesota state government and went to Arizona state government to help launch an enterprise-wide continuous improvement initiative there before returning to Minnesota in 2021.

She has facilitated over 60 Kaizen events and 20 GE Workout projects. Jo is proficient in strategic planning, consensus building, policy development, and performance management. She was instrumental is making the MNCI website the pre-eminent Lean state government website in the US.

Jo is also on the Board of Directors of the Government Division for the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and the Executive Board for the Minnesota Performance Excellence Network.

Prior to her State service, Jo held positions in sales and marketing for State Farm Insurance and Sysco Corporation. She has extensive experience in the field of performance management in the public and non-profit sectors.

Education / Certifications
B.A., Public Administration, Hamline University
M.S., Public Administration, Hamline University
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.

Frank Gillern, Principal Consultant, QPIC, LLC | Lean Experience: 32 Years

He worked for Rogers Corporation, a Connecticut-based global manufacturer for 30 years in a variety of capacities, including Engineering Management, Operations Manager, Division Manager, VP Operations of Durel Corporation (JV between Rogers and 3M), VP and Division Manager of the ACMD division of Rogers and finally VP of Corporate Manufacturing leading the 6 Sigma efforts and manufacturing improvements across the corporation. The Rogers Six Sigma Black Belts and Master Black Belts reported to him.

These groups developed and provided training across Rogers Corporation. He was the Executive Champion of the Rogers Operations Council which brought together the manufacturing and operational leaders of the company with a goal of establishing best practices across the company in the areas of safety, quality and costs.

The customer base he has served during his career included Xerox, HP, IBM, Lexmark Kodak, Chrysler, GM and Ford. The divisions he worked at were awarded the highest supplier awards these companies bestowed. The nature of the business relationship required close technical partnerships for the unique applications of these customers.

For 5 years, he was on the Board of Directors of two joint ventures. One based in the US with a major Japanese company who was a primary supplier to the Hard Disc Drive Industry. The second was a Taiwan based flex circuit materials supplier to the portable communications industry.

Additionally he served as a liaison between Rogers and Inoac, MTP, a key supplier to Toyota, leading the technical team for the startup phase in Japan in 1983 and participating in furthering the relationships between the two companies at various levels over the course of his time at Rogers. Frank has direct training and knowledge with the Toyota Production System (TPS). This JV is entering its 30th year.

His Lean government consulting experience has spanned diversified Lean Government experiences (City of Springfield, MA; CT DMV; Denton, TX; St.Louis County and O’Fallon, MO; and the Sacramento City Unified School District [41,000 students], as examples).

Education / Certifications
M.B.A. Finance, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Roger Williams University
Vietnam war veteran

Dr. Ed Arnheiter, Associate Consultant, QPIC, LLC | Lean Experience: 21 Years

Dr. Ed Arnheiter is a Clinical Professor of Decision Sciences in the LeBow College of Business at Drexel University. He currently teaches business statistics, operations research, and operations management at Drexel University Sacramento.
In addition to his 15 years of teaching experience, Dr. Arnheiter worked as a Quality Manager for Titleist, a Senior Quality Engineer for Spalding, and a Quality Engineer with GE Aerospace. He has conducted training and consulted on a broad range of issues in international supply networks, business strategy, continuous improvement, and statistical analysis. This work spans a range of companies including; Covidien, Ensign Bickford, Otis Elevator Company, United Technologies Corporation, Saint-Gobain Industrial Ceramics, and Sennheiser. Most recently, he began teaching Lean Sigma Green Belt classes for Chevron Corporation.

Dr. Arnheiter has published and presented numerous papers and case studies on Lean production, Six-Sigma, process improvement, and quality management. Prior to joining Drexel University in September 2021, he served 12 years as a clinical professor in the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

Education / Certifications
Ph.D., Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst
M.S., Engineering Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Union College

Scotty Martin, Senior Management Consultant, reVision, Inc., QPIC Associate Consultant | Lean Experience: 15 years

Scotty is a Senior Government/Non-Profit Innovation Consultant with over 15 years of experience as a process improvement expert, over 6 of those years include public service as a City of Denver employee and was the chief architect of Denver’s Peak Academy that is a part of Mayor Hancock’s internationally recognized Peak Performance framework. Within 3 years, the Peak Academy trained over 4,000 colleagues who identified $24.5M of efficiencies and implemented $8.8 of those efficiencies. These efficiencies were obtained while the employee engagement index for 18 of 25 departments improved on average by about 6.5%.

In addition to creating & leading the Peak Academy, Scotty helped lead these projects or taken on these roles throughout his career:
• Business Intelligence, Analytics, & IT Service Management (Denver International Airport)
• Collaboratively developed City-wide, budget impacting performance management (Peak Performance City of Denver)
• Environmental Engineer (Private Sector)
• Architected & helped oversee an IT Governance framework (City of Denver)
• Data Center Manager (Private Sector)
• Call Center Implementation (City of Denver, 311)
• Helped establish the Development Services program to improve development (City of Denver)
• Software Trainer (Private Sector)
• Java Programmer (Private Sector)

Education / Certifications
B.S., Civil Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
B.S, Finance, University of Florida

Chris Lindstrom, QPIC Associate Consultant, Founder, Ceptara Corp. | Lean Experience: 25 Years

Chris is the Managing Partner for Ceptara Corp., a firm he founded in 2002. He has over 25 years of executive and consulting experience working with companies such as; NCR, AT&T, Lucent and Microsoft. He also has worked in and with small to medium sized companies such as Infospace, Motricity, Varolii, Cascade Coffee and several Boeing suppliers such as AMT Northwest (a Senior Company), Onamac, and TECT Aerospace.

When he joined NCR in 1988, Chris was hired as a components engineer, where he was introduced to Process Management and Total Quality Management (TQM). Trained as an engineer, Chris became fascinated by the notion that TQM tools and methods could be applied to any type of problem, not just engineering problems. As Chris progressed in his career, he was given many opportunities to practice process development, root cause analysis, statistical process control, and many other quality tools. An early adopter of re-engineering, theory of constraints and Lean manufacturing principles and tools, Chris continued to build his quality skills and competencies. He officially earned an ASQ certification as a Six Sigma Black Belt in 2003 and has continued to apply and hone his Lean Six Sigma skills.

In 1996 at AT&T, Chris had the opportunity to support a re-engineering project that evaluated the Consumer Products division, a $2B business that was losing money. In five months, a new strategy was developed, several executives were replaced, and new processes and metrics were designed that set the stage for an 18 month turn-around. In 2000, while at AT&T Wireless, Chris led the improvement program that reduced the service activation costs by over 50%. In 2007, at Infospace, he re-engineered the Sarbanes-Oxley control system reducing overhead by 50%, and saved over $2M per year in SLA penalties through a number of Kaizen events focused on improving I/T Operations.

Ceptara’s professional services have moved from purely customized training to a customizable Lean Six Sigma curriculum and client coaching. Ceptara partnered with Everett Community College in 2010 to develop EvCC’s Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certificate program. Chris was the architect of the curriculum and one of the primary authors of Ceptara’s Lean Six Sigma courses. Chris has developed courses for Lean Six Sigma Green Belts and Black Belts, Lean workshops, Training within Industry (TWI) Job Instruction and Job Relations, and Personal Excellence courseware focused on developing individuals’ ability to become more effective and efficient.

Chris clearly understands what being a Lean leader is all about. His personal leadership style integrates a high level of respect for people and a keen understanding that the leader/manager/supervisor’s job is to help all associates develop problem solving skills, allowing them to identify issues and create solutions. Embracing the Lean leadership and cultural model, Chris coaches associates to understand, practice, and develop new skills, helping them develop new interpersonal habits. This focus and experience has been invaluable as his company coaches and develops leaders, managers and supervisors in client organizations.

Education / Certifications
M.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of South Carolina
B.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Nebraska
Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) - ASQ
Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Bill Phillips, Associate Consultant, QPIC, LLC | Lean Experience: 16 Years

Bill has more than 40 years’ experience in the government, non-profit, and philanthropic sectors, both as a leader and consultant. His most recent role was as Associate Commissioner for Outcome Management and System Information for the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS). OASAS is one of the largest in the nation; serving more than 250,000 people each year through more than 1500 programs at a cost of more than $1Billion. In addition to his recent experience at OASAS, he previously served for almost 15 years with the New York State Department of Social Services in staff and management roles. In between his two government leadership roles in state government, he also had 18 years of consulting experience included a wide range of projects with groups as varied as the Annie E. Casey and Kauffman Foundations, the United Nations, the City of New York, and many state and local governments.

He also is skilled in talent management and team effectiveness resulting in OASAS becoming the first state agency to apply as a "Best Places to Work" in the state and being certified in using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. He led OASAS to become the first New York State agency to apply Lean management principles. This experience directly contributed to the recommendation by New York Governor Cuomo’s SAGE Commission to implement Lean in all New York state agencies. After retiring from New York State, Bill, as a member of QPIC, also worked in 2021 directly with the New York State Department of Public Service (this did not violate any NYS Ethics laws).

He has designed and installed performance frameworks for non-profits and government organizations that allow decision makers to track progress toward meeting key organization goals. Bill has led internal development processes with line staff, management and policy makers aimed at improving strategy development, implementation and leadership.

Education / Certifications
M.A., Social Work Research and Management, New York State University at Albany
B.A., Sociology, New York State University at Albany