Tom Bechtel, Senior Consultant

Tom Bechtel has over 30 years experience in manufacturing as both a practitioner and trainer/facilitator.   Since 1985, Tom has devoted 16 years to providing education, training, change support and process improvement facilitation for all aspects of a manufacturing enterprise including:  engineering, sales & order entry, scheduling, material & capacity planning, inventory control, shop floor operations, maintenance, warehousing, purchasing, traffic and distribution.

Tom has helped companies implement concepts, systems and techniques such as ERP/MRP II (Enterprise Resource Planning / Manufacturing Resource Planning), Lean Manufacturing (JIT, Kaizen, Workcells, Kanban, Set-Up Reduction, Poka-Yoke), TQM (Total Quality Management),  and DRP (Distribution Requirements Planning).        

Formerly with Kaval Wireless Technologies, Nortel, Mitel, GE Canada and General Electric, Tom has 14 years experience in manufacturing management and human resources.   From the Shop Floor to the Corporate Offices, he has held positions such as Materials Manager, Stores & Traffic Manager, Shop Operations Foreman, Corporate Engineering Development Program Manager, Facilities Planning & Design Specialist, Manufacturing Engineer, Business Module Leader and VP Operations.

Tom has been working with Just-In-Time (JIT) and Lean Manufacturing concepts and techniques since 1987 and has developed expertise for providing training and implementation support for: synchronous flow workcell design, layout and line balancing, the visual factory, 5S, mistake-proofing (poka-yoke), demand pull (kanban), supply chain management, set-up reduction and continuous improvement workshop facilitation (kaizen or kaizen-blitz).  He has delivered one & two day seminars and workshops on the 5S’s, Set-up Reduction and Visual Factory Management for the Saddle Island Institute throughout the United States.  

He has provided lean manufacturing training and/or kaizen workshop facilitation for Daimler Chrysler,  Deere & Co.,  Mars/M&M,  Siemens,  Charles Machine Works (Ditch Witch), CAMI Automotive, GE Power Management (Multilin), Willow Manufacturing, Mueller Industries, Sears Canada, Elkhart Industries, Kellogg’s, Detroit Edison, Kaiser Permanente (HMO), Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Samuel Son, SMTC, Meridian Medical Technologies and MOPAR.   

Since 1991, Tom has facilitated over 75 continuous improvement workshops (kaizen or kaizen-blitz) & process improvement projects for automotive, general manufacturing, health care and public utilities. Projects or workshops have included: assembly line re-balancing, workcell implementation, synchronous flow line design, kanban pull implementation, visual performance metrics, 5S, new product introduction (PPAP), equipment downtime reduction, new die tryouts & SOP’s, non-conformance improvement, body shop damage reduction, sickness & accidents premiums reduction, tool stores centralization, personnel services customer service improvement and ISO 9002 registration (in 90 days for a small screw machine company in Toronto).

Tom is a graduate engineer and is certified at the Fellow level (CFPIM) in APICS (American Production and Inventory Control Society). Tom has spoken at numerous APICS & CAPIC chapters and at six APICS international conferences.  He resides in Thornhill, Ontario.

Contact Tom at tbechtel@hpsinc.ca