Tom Fitzgibbons

Tom Fitzgibbons has over 30 years of experience in automotive and other industries that includes 21 years learning the Toyota Production System (TPS) at Toyota in North America. He began his TPS experience at Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Georgetown, Kentucky training under several Japanese sensei’s and traveling to Japan for TPS training.

During his service with Toyota he worked closely with suppliers, engaging nearly 200 plant sites in a variety of short improvement activities and long-term company transformations. This included 100’s of kaizen workshops designed to improve supplier shop floor operations and train suppliers in the how to implement the principles of TPS. He worked to transform organizational thinking and systems at several key Toyota suppliers resulting in superior supplier performance. He also supported the Crisis Management activity, directly working on the shop floor or managing teams responsible for restoring production at supplier plants to insure smooth vehicle assembly plant operations.

Mr. Fitzgibbons has developed and taught courses on TPS used by Toyota’s supplier organization and internal training functions on topics that include Team Leader Development Boot Camp, Standardized Work, Preventive Maintenance, Quick Changeover and Job Instruction. His career included assignments with the Purchasing Technical Support, Supplier Commodity Engineering, Toyota Supplier Support Center and Operations Management Development Division.

Since leaving Toyota in 2011 Mr. Fitzgibbons founded Kaizen Hands, which has worked with companies ranging from oil service to pharmaceutical companies to implement Lean and create specialized kaizen devices that support the kaizen process. He is an experienced professional having shared TPS experience with and learning from hundreds of supplier team members, ranging from senior management to shop floor team members.