Meet... Richard Evans, Senior Consultant

Richard Evans has spent the past 40 years helping companies become more effective in delivering quality and value to the production process, whilst focusing on customer success. Having a manufacturing engineering background, Richard teaches companies how to recognize waste, through applied Lean Tools and Techniques. His extended knowledge of various industries, such as Automotive, Aerospace, Railroad, Packaging and Fasteners, enable him to quickly focus in on opportunities for improvement. As an approved Lean Certification trainer for SME, Richard is able to coach teams to increase ‘value added’ content to a maximum.

Educated in the United Kingdom and serving a 5 year Mechanical Engineering Apprenticeship, Richard learnt his trade as a Methods Engineer at GKN, a fastener company, working with batch sizes up to 500,000 pieces. British Leyland, an automotive company, was his next stop, and as a Project Engineer, he dealt with high volume production; up to 12,000 parts per week. After immigrating to Canada in 1981, Richard joined Dowty Equipment of Canada, an aerospace company with a high mix/low volume environment, having production quantities of about 200 per year. Starting as a Methods Engineer, working up to Manager, Manufacturing Engineering in 1984, and Director in 1991, his responsibilities included the complete manufacturing techniques of critical aircraft landing gear components. From ‘84 through ‘97, he managed the selection and acquisition of over 10 million dollars worth of CNC machine tools, along with the implementation of 12 new product development programs into the business.

In 1997, as Director, Business Improvement, Richard was the Project Manager for a $3m, ten-phase, Site Development Program that consisted of the complete physical and cultural reorganization of the business. This accomplishment, coupled with a practical knowledge of Lean, lead to his next role of Director, Lean Enterprise Initiatives. He was responsible for site-wide Continuous Improvement Projects and sat on the Lean Enterprise Support group for Messier-Dowty International. This role perpetuated the establishment of an Enterprise-wide Lean Roadmap and a detailed Lean ‘Tool Box’. Richard established a ‘world class’ 5S Program that has been acclaimed in various industrial magazines.

He sits on the Canadian Board of Directors of AME (The Association for Manufacturing Excellence) and was the Program Chair for the 2007 Canadian Regional Conference in Edmonton. He is the Tour Chair for the 2008 AME National Conference, held in Toronto and is approved as a Lean Certification Trainer for SME, AME and The Shingo Prize.

Contact Richard at revans@hpsinc.ca