Biography

Mike is a facilitator, coach, speaker and author who provides leadership and front line support for companies on the Lean Journey. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, he has played a pivotal role in leading transformations in industries such as aerospace, auto, consumer goods, medical products, oil production and construction. The environments have been both white collar (professional and office) and blue collar (manufacturing and services). Prior to consulting, he played a key role in the transformation of a number of Schneider Electric’s facilities in the US and Mexico. Fluent in Spanish, Mike earned his MBA in International Business and a BS in Production and Operations Management. Mike coauthored two books recognized in the process improvement and lean fields as core references documents: “Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation.” and “The Kaizen Event Planner: Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service.”

Areas of Expertise

• Executive Coach and Consultant in Process Improvement
• Lean Leadership Coaching and Certification
• Value Stream Mapping; A3 Problem Solving; and Kaizen Event facilitation
• Six Sigma Black Belt
• CPIM certification through APICS

Key Accomplishments

• While at Chevron facilitated a 78% reduction in new well “put on production” lead time – from 70+ days to 15 days.
• Certified 200 Schlumberger employees in Lean and Six Sigma at locations throughout the US and Europe
• To date, has facilitated Lean Certification of over 800 working professionals.
• Co-founder of the Lean Enterprise Certificate Program at San Diego State University in 1999; he continues to teach in the program, as well at UCSD Extension, and serves as Lead Lean Instructor.
• Member of a maquiladora start-up team in Tijuana, Mexico, and helped grow the operation from 35 to 1000 employees over the first five years.

Professional Experience

• Osterling Consulting, Inc. – Owner
• Schneider Electric – Leadership positions in process improvement, manufacturing, materials and planning