Charlie Protzman

Bio: Charlie is an internationally renowned Lean Speaker, Implementer, Trainer and Author with over 35 years experience in Materials and Operations Management. He has consulted with manufactures, hospitals, government agencies and other service industries. In November of 1997, Charlie Protzman formed Business Improvement Group, LLC (B.I.G.). B.I.G. is located in Baltimore, Maryland and specializes in implementing lean thinking principles and the Lean Business Delivery System and BASICS problem solving model. He has currently published 9 books including the Shingo Prize Winning Leveraging Lean in Healthcare series and recently released One-Piece Flow vs. Batching and Lean Practitioners Field book with plans to have an additional 3 books, to published by the end of next year. Charlie has implemented hundreds of lean product line conversions, Kaizen events, administrative business system improvements (transactional lean) across the U.S and internationally.Charles has over 35 years experience in materials and operations management. He spent over 13 years with AlliedSignal, now Honeywell, where he was an Aerospace Strategic Operations Manager and the first AlliedSignal Lean Master. He has received numerous special recognitions and cost-reduction awards. He was also an external consultant for DBED’s Maryland Consortium while with AlliedSignal. He had input into the resulting World Class Criteria document and assisted in the first three initial DBED World Class Company Assessments. Charles has taught students in Lean Principles and Total Quality from all over the world. He has spent the last 30 years implementing successful Lean product line conversions, kaizen events, administrative business system improvements (transactional Lean) across the U.S. Charles was also an Assistant Program Manager during Desert Storm for the Patriot missile-to-missile fuse development and production program.