Monte Mitchell 

For over 20 years, Monte has lived Toyota’s Production System (TPS) and its relentless pursuit of True North. Today he finds a tremendous amount of satisfaction helping organization realize operational excellence. Monte started his career with Toyota at the NUMMI facility where he managed various departments including Production, Special and New Model projects, as well as the Toyota Production System group.

In 2003 Monte was selected from a pool of over 600 managers to join Toyota’s three-year Executive Development Program-Operations and Management Development Division (OMDD) where he continued to develop his TPS knowledge and capability.

At OMDD Monte was responsible for the implementation of Jishuken (Rapid Kaizen) in the North American Paint and Plastics facilities as well as the implementation of TPS at a number of supplier companies.

Monte’s extensive TPS expertise has been utilized in a myriad of industries. Monte has been recognized by the State of Washington, Department of Labor and Industries for the development of a hands-on, results-based Lean training program for four top leaders and two in-house Lean consultants. Monte also led the lean transformation of a $3B automotive interior supplier posting $56M in annual savings across 24 manufacturing facilities, he also reduced the lead time for loan modifications from 92 days to 15 days for a major national bank. His innovative strategies and problem-solving capability have been applied to greenfield sites, plant expansions, consolidations, product development and product launches. Monte has worked with companies all over the world.