Andrew Dillon has over twenty years of successful experience in helping companies in North America, Europe and Asia to strengthen their management systems and to build profitability by applying the principles of Lean production.

Previous work as an instructor of Chinese and Japanese at Yale University led Mr. Dillon, in the early 1980s, to a chance encounter with Shigeo Shingo, the visionary consultant to the Toyota Motor Corporation who helped Taiichi Ohno elaborate the Toyota Production System. Mr. Dillon became Dr. Shingo’s principal interpreter and translator in the United States until the latter’s death in 1990, and it was at Shingo’s urging that Dillon began independent consulting activities. Mr. Dillon has collaborated with other leading figures in the field of lean production as well, and he brings the knowledge gained from his work with these pioneers to each client interaction. With expertise in the implementation of cell design, preproduction planning, TPM, kanban, value stream mapping, kaizen activities, total productive maintenance, and “Lean” leadership, Mr. Dillon continues to work closely with organizations in both manufacturing and service industries in all areas of Lean implementation.

Mr. Dillon has worked in a broad range of industries with clients that include Alcoa, Autoliv, Eisenwerk Brühl, Gencorp, General Motors, Multimatic Inc. and Thomson Electronics. In recent years, he has been active in supporting process improvement in footwear and electronics industries in China and, in addition, is one of the rare non-Japanese experts to have been invited to provide guidance on lean production in Japan.

In addition, an academic background (MPH) in public health gives Drew a particular interest in the application of lean principles in health care organizations.

In addition to his consulting activities, Mr. Dillon lectures widely on management improvement topics. He remains a close observer of the Toyota Group and, with Productivity Press, has recently published an English translation of S. Hino’s Inside the Mind of Toyota, a detailed account of Toyota’s overall Management System.

Mr. Dillon consults and lectures in English, French, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese.