Tom Barrett

Phone : 612-695-3459
Email: [email protected]

Summary

    • President and Co-Founder of Lean Partners
    • Ability to create a company vision and detailed plan for continuous improvement to exceed goals and create a culture of continuous improvement
    • 26 years of engineering and senior leadership experience with a diverse background in manufacturing and continuous improvement
    • Facilitated dozens of engineering process and 3P (Product and Process Preparation) kaizen events
    • Leadership coach to hundreds of leaders
    • Facilitated hundreds of kaizen events in all areas of companies
    • Speaker at several Lean/Continuous Improvement Conferences

Expertise

  • Leadership Development
  • Continuous Improvement
  • Communication
  • Creating CI Vision and Plan
  • Lean Six Sigma
  • Change Management
  • Project Management
  • MS Office – Advanced
  • Creative/Flexible Solutions
  • Value Engineering
  • Work Flow Analysis
  • Waste Elimination
  • Leadership Coaching
  • Training
  • Metrics and Data Analysis

Experience

President

2004 to Present

Lean Partners, Minneapolis, MN
  • Co-founded and grew Lean Partners into the premiere lean consulting firm in the Twin Cities
  • Partnered with over 100 companies to significantly improve their business performance through continuous improvement, leadership development, and strategic planning/execution
  • Create environments and systems at clients to generate 15%+ year over year productivity gains
  • Help clients generate capacity through process improvement and leadership development
Director of Continuous Improvement

1998 to 2004

Landscape Structures, Delano, MN
  • Developed and implemented Landscape Structures’ Lean Six Sigma program
  • Reduced lead-times from 38 days to 2 days for a complete playground
  • Reduced inventories by 65%
  • Generated overall efficiency improvement of 43% in 3 years
  • Reduced setup times on all manufacturing equipment to under 2 ½ minutes (from 2-12 hours previously)
  • Value Engineered 100+ products with an average cost reduction of 40%
  • Facilitated 3P (Product and Process Preparation) kaizens for development of new product lines and new processes, including custom design and build of over 20 machines
  • Awarded Manufacturer of the Year in 2003 from Manufacturer’s Alliance for progress on continuous improvement
Manufacturing Engineer/Production Manager

1996 to 1998

Oildyne, Plymouth, MN
  • Initiated continuous improvement program to drive improvements in customer service and productivity
  • Increased output on critical CNC machining centers by 70% to support growth and deliver cost savings
  • Improved on-time delivery from 58% to 97% in 12 months
  • Reduced defect rate by 53%
  • Improved equipment uptime from 72% to 98% through TPM program
Manufacturing Engineer

1994 to 1996

Graco, Inc., Rogers, MN
  • Created plant layout and orchestrated move to new facility
  • Responsible for supporting manufacturing of pumps
  • Reduced changeovers by 50% using SMED
Manufacturing Engineer I, II, III, Production Supervisor

1992 to 1994

Eaton Corporation, Eden Prairie, MN
  • Promoted from Manufacturing Engineer I to II to III in two years
  • Primary support engineer for hydraulic motor line
  • CNC programming, equipment design, and equipment specifications
  • Started continuous flow manufacturing program and was lead person for site
  • Supervised 72 people as 3rd Shift Supervisor
  • Improved on-time delivery from 60% to 99% and eliminated 3-year backlog

Education

M.S. Manufacturing Systems Engineering,

1999

University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN
B.S. Industrial Engineering and Management

1992

North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND