Testimonials
Cathal O'Reilly
Director, Quality Operations Strategy and Process Excellence at Johnson & Johnson
LinkedInAs former students of the MSc Lean Operations in Cardiff, I've also had the pleasure of working closely with Darren for nearly three years in Boston Scientific. During and since this time, I have come to know Darren as being one of the most passionate and transformational Lean thinkers in the network. He brought a whole new dimension to Lean whilst at Boston Scientific and has a proven track record of influencing and leading successful site-wide transformations. There are very few people who have a profound understanding and proven capability in the area of process excellence and Lean thinking, and no doubt, Darren is one of those few.
I had the opportunity to work with Darren while he was Division Lean Manager at Parker Hannifin. Darren has a way to make people understand Lean and the benefits of incorporating it and thinking Lean that everyone understands. Darren is also witty, calm and caring as a colleague while at the same time very focused and goal oriented. I would say among all the British colleagues I had the opportunity to work with, he was the one of those few that gave me a really good impression and teachings for life but then of course he is Welsh and not English.
Darren Walsh was my boss for 2 years while I worked as a Lean coordinator in Falkoping, Sweden from 2009-2011. In addition to being my boss, he was also my mentor.
Our task in Falkoping was to completely transform the manufacturing plant which involved, redesigning work cells, supermarkets, and all functions on the manufacturing floor. There was a lot of training involved such as value stream mapping and lean boot camps designed for manufacturing leaders and personnel in key business functions (customer service, supply chain, purchasing, etc.). During all trainings, Darren displayed his vast knowledge in the different lean tools such as value stream mapping, problem solving, inventory management, standard work etc.
Darren led this transformation, it went from a plant with so much resistance to change to a plant of operators taking the lead in shop floor reviews. The following were improvements made at the end of my tenure in Falkoping, Sweden.
Achievements:
- 53% Reduction in lead-time with the Lean transformation of an assembly line using Value Stream Map
- 50% Reduction in assembly line inventory with the application of the Lean Guidelines and Right sizing line-side stock
- 10 point increase in customer service on in a value stream, supported by the application of Day-by-Hour boards.
- Manufacturing leaders conducting Layered Audit Process of Tracking Centers ‘8 Lean Guidelines’, Layered Audits, Selection, timing and use of Lean tools.
Darren also led the task of creating lean champions/leaders in all functional departments and the shop floor to help with lean initiatives. He continued to be my mentor as I relocated back to the US into a lean managerial position. He gave me guidance on how to manage multiple plants with two completely different cultures.
I worked with and supported Darren in a HR capacity at Boston Scientific. His Lean knowledge and ability to share that knowledge was second to none, such that he planted the seed in my own head to study more and I later qualified with a Lean Black belt. His approach was always one of collaboration and sharing as a way of getting things done and as a way of ultimately delivering value to the customer
Darren is a highly successful culture change manager with excellent skills in embedding a Lean mind-set, management system and improvement tools as a working standard in both manufacturing and supporting functions. Working within a high pressure Design / Test / Manufacturing environment he was able to create persuasive business cases for improvements and changes and enabled his team to lead Rapid Improvement Events with very successful outcomes.
He is competent to deliver Lean coaching at all levels throughout an organisation and was able to gain agreement, commitment, cooperation and support for the Lean transformation which he led with success.
Altogether a pleasure to have worked with.
From my dealings with Darren, I found him to be very professional, very knowledgeable and very pleasant to work with. Darren is a calm individual with a very solid manner about him and that comes across in the way he operates and helps him to be more effective, particularly in a highly pressurized cross functional project environment. While I would have had basic Lean and six sigma tools going into a number of initiatives that Darren led, I found it easy to learn and improve my skills based on how Darren worked the projects and people within said projects. Darren used good logic, data and problem solving skills along with simple but effective cost/benefit analysis to break down barriers and opposition to the initiatives that I would have worked with him on. One example was delivering SDC improvement project and improving output by 50% from 22k to 36k units per week whilst freeing up 180 people.
I appreciated Darren’s knowledge and support at Boston Scientific. Darren’s guidance in Process Mapping enabled us to uncover discrepancies between the current and ideal, highlighting variant practices and allowing us to remediate inefficiencies. With opportunities in hand, we were able to carry out much improvement to a shared vision.
Some standout work which comes to mind would be the work Darren led on improving output in a growing Production by 50% from 22k to 36k units per week whilst freeing up over 100 people to support new products, and the introduction of a “Lean Champion” Training programme which continues to yield results today.
Darren empowered people beyond expectations, allowing us to solve long-standing problems, reduce costs and increase our service to the business.
I worked alongside Darren when he was Division Lean Manager at Parker Hannifin. He has an obvious passion for his subject. His approach is to develop people to strengthen processes following the lean guidelines rather than just applying tools. This leads to a deeper and more sustained improvement.
Darren Walsh was instrumental in organizing and providing the graduate engineers at Zodiac Aerospace appropriate training in Lean methods to reach Lean Green Belt status and help the company achieve its goal of having the next generation of engineers adequately equipped to ensure an efficient, effective and sustainable operations of the business.
Following on from the training, he mentored and encouraged us in ongoing utilization of the tools learned to provide continuous improvements to the business processes, ranging from design (mechanical & electrical), and certification through to operations. Our utilization of these tools resulted in the reduction & effective control of cost and non-conforming products.
His guidance and services will definitely be welcomed should I choose to go ahead and achieve the next level, as he always provides continuous support, like the true lean champion that he is.
Darren is an expert Lean Leader with excellent coaching and teaching skills. I worked with Darren on several Business Process Improvement initiatives in Boston Scientific. This was my first time applying Lean concepts in a business process and in a complicated environment.
I found Darren to be a fantastic resource and a great coach. Each time I approached Darren with a thorny issue, he was able to see through to the heart of the matter and provide solid, practical advice.
Also, Darren is a complete gentleman and a joy to work with. I would be delighted to have the opportunity to work with Darren again.
Senior management within organizations often believe they know how to affect real change in their organizations which really means they are happy with small incremental efficiency gains year after year!
Lean as Darren has proven is counter intuitive to many traditional management thought processes. It requires real change. It requires an understanding of effective Lean methodologies and a commitment to breakthrough change and sustained improvement.
His productivity gains that were achieved at Boston Scientific through lean processes are considered world class.
I would highly recommend Darren's expert guidance to achieve and sustain breakthrough productivity gains’.
Pleased to be working with businesswalesmentoring.org.uk | www.walesqualitycentre.org.uk | www.leanuk.org
Yn falch o fod yn gweithio gyda mentorabusnescymru.org.uk | www.walesqualitycentre.org.uk | www.leanuk.org