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Consulting

We Listen. We Deliver.

In business for 24 years, our firm is known as much for our get-it-done approach as we are for meeting the client where it is and establishing a purposeful pace that matches client need.

We have worked with leaders and improvement teams from every continent across the globe who all seek the same thing: better performance. We bring a degree of objectivity that internal teams often lack, and deep expertise surfacing the truth, solving problems of all types, and building internal capabilities. Our work is grounded in Lean management philosophy, but we focus on helping you develop sound business practices.

What differentiates us from other firms? No junior consultants, no one-size-fits-all approaches, and no misalignment around expectations. We are partners in your success and are deeply committed to helping you achieve your goals.

WHAT WE DO

Full Transformation

This multi-year journey creates high-performing operations, a culture of continuous improvement, and the management and problem-solving practices to accelerate growth.

Value Stream Transformation

This six to nine-month journey sharpens the performance of a single value stream, resulting in shorter lead times, higher quality, freed capacity, improved margins, and a better customer experience.

Targeted Improvement

If you’d like to improve a specific process or work area, or solve a specific problem, we facilitate the process from problem definition through execution and stabilization of the improvement.

Strategy Deployment

Too many organizations fail to realize significant results because they lack focus. We help you create and manage a prioritized plan for improvement that aligns leadership and keeps distraction at bay.

Organization Assessment

You’ve been on the journey to excellence for a while, but you’d like to deepen and accelerate results. This two-day assessment gives you the insights and recommendations you need to choose the best path forward.

Workforce Development

Many people underestimate the effort it takes to build leadership and improvement capabilities. We deliver workshops and project-based learning programs to deepen understanding and build skills.

Mindfulness Development

Mindfulness training enhances one’s ability to be focused, clear, creative and calm—even when under pressure. Leaders, individual contributors, and teams become more productive and resilient.

WHAT YOU GAIN

Faster Delivery

Quality is an expectation and markets increasingly set price, making speed today's key differentiator. One client reduced order-to-delivery lead time for complex design from 20 months to 8 months and improved on-time delivery of another product from 10% to 90%.

Freed Capacity

By reducing wasteful steps and the overall work effort required to deliver customer value, you free capacity to absorb additional growth and provide greater value to your customers. Clients have gained the equivalent of 40 FTEs in a single improvement effort.

Improved Quality

End-product quality is essential, but in-process information quality is equally crucial. It's typically very low, which places significant drag on an organization. Most clients experience at least a three-fold improvement in both information and end-product quality.

Reduced Expenses

Collectively, our clients have eliminated millions of dollars of unnecessary expense, including money tied up in excess inventory, overtime, unused licenses, unneeded space, expedited transportation, supplies with short expiration dates, and much more.

Increased Sales

While causal relationships are more difficult to define in sales, our clients have been able to capture 15-25% gains that they directly attribute to improvement efforts. Related results also include reduced customer churn, faster time to market, and higher conversions.

Improved Effectiveness

Improved effectiveness includes a wide range of issues, including RFQ conversions, fewer noncompliance fines, higher percentage of litigation wins, faster learning curves for new hires, and more. Most clients are able to see at least a 30% gain in targeted areas.

TESTIMONIALS

Karen has in-depth knowledge of Lean. And because she also has extensive experience working as a leader, teacher, and consultant to many companies and institutions, she is able to understand operations and business issues quickly and can discuss them at every level. She is able to present complex topics in simple and easily understood language. Above all she is a great problem solver.

Chote Sophonpanich, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Green Spot Co. Ltd. TKMG Inc.

Karen helped us to align on the biggest issues holding us back and supported the development of a new process to make solving these problems visible to the whole organization. This really accelerated our adoption of lean management and virtually eliminated the infighting that inhibited change. It can be a challenging process for some, but ultimately it helped us break through to a higher level of performance.

Chris Weiler, President/CEO, Weiler Abrasive Group TKMG Inc.

Karen is an innovative and energetic leader who is always looking for new and better ways to meet desired goals. She thinks beyond the norm and employs all methods necessary to get the job done. Creating efficient solutions to challenges is her long suit. Any organization would be well served to retain Karen as a performance improvement consultant.

Roger Greaves, Chairman, Health Net, Inc. TKMG Inc.