About Us

Why We Are Global Optimization Experts & Lean Leadership Coaches

Known to many as the “Masters of Execution”, we specialize in sustainable transformational change. To truly value change, it requires at all levels commitment and involvement of leadership to actively engage in continually improving three specific areas: PEOPLE, PROCESSES & PERFORMANCE

Our “thinking people system” incorporates the following:

  • Strategic Direction: Clear purpose and rationale for optimization changes (strategic leadership)

  • Talent Development: Leveraging capability and capacity to lead and sustain the new practices (people engagement)

  • System Thinking: Developing an End to End perspective of the value chain and implementing systems not tools, for greater impact and long-term influence (process improvement)

  • Outcome Driven: Focus only on the few “wildly important” metrics that change impact your business as well as your customers (performance management)

With these powerful time-tested practices of Toyota, we are able to identify methods and approaches that help you to solve your business problems and develop a culture of continuous improvement.

We deliver results for our clients in many ways such as risk avoidance, cost reductions, value creation, revenue generation, equipment utilization and others that improve EBITDA Basis Points from 200 to 1200.

DJ Duarte’s 34 years as a Global Optimization Expert & Lean Leadership Coach has enabled him to influence the practical application, facilitation and implementation of business processes and systems that delivers real operational cost outcomes. 

His unique ability to develop lean leaders with the right mindsets & behaviors to support the sustainable changes is just one of his great strengths. His vast experience working in a variety of industries from manufacturing (automotive, construction, electronics & medical devices), service (resorts, casinos, telecom & retail stores), healthcare (out-patient care & documentation), aerospace (maintenance & servicing), logistics and back office/shared service environments (call centers, finance, HR, IT, & procurement).  

His expertise spans 7 continents, 40 different cultures, 17 different industries and several leading global consulting firms.  Through a combination of TPS, TPM, TQM and TPD (talent development) principles & practices, DJ enables companies to achieve unimaginable sustainable business results.

 

Our expansion with collaborations across the globe to include JV Partnerships has now reached more than 30 different organizations.  This ever expanding network of global TPS & Lean knowledge management experts & coaches,  affords us and our clients the unique opportunity to provide global engagements with the best possible support.

Furthermore, along with this growth, we are now best positioned to support both on-site and virtual lean transformation engagements.  Through our platform solutions, we can provide digital solutions for value chain optimization as well as virtual coaching that ensures our heartbeat support strategies while off-site links directly to a “virtual obeya”.   This provides our clients with a unique virtual experience that is both collaborative, innovative and informative ensuring your transformation activities and the decision making process are sustaining and impactful.  

As a solutions providers and leaders of lean principles and practices, Makoto Flow’s network of professionals influence at every opportunity from the C-Suite to the Mid-Level Management leaders and down to the shopfloor with team leads, enabling every aspect of a transformation to full be embedded in the DNA of your business. Our passion and insights are contagious and inspirational as we have a deep sense of humility, integrity of purpose and a calming leadership presence that not only drives changes but creates opportunities for long-term success.

With a thorough understanding and experience of applying lean thinking that generates “break-though” results no matter the industry nor the challenges, engaging our best practices of TPS affords our clients the opportunity to attain remarkable and sustainable business results.

Select Accomplishments:

  • “Lean strategy as a competitive advantage” in the telecommunications industry. A cradle to grave concept that utilized the Hoshin Kanri & laser focused improvement initiatives to achieve break-through market penetration. Main enablers were smooth flow of products & services, extra-ordinary customer care and streamlined logistics delivery that made this organization #1 in its market.

  • Impactful reductions of operational costs without a reduction in the workforce. A high-level approach to identifying and eliminating “pain points” that ate away at hard earned profits. Done in the off-shore construction industry as a preventive stop & fix initiative, we established strong standards in the way work is done, visualized the value of the process, eliminated all non-essential work to impact key performance metrics resulting in $250K daily operating vessel cost reductions.

  • “It’s 80% about people and 20% about the tools” if you are serious about a lean cultural transformation. Changing traditional behaviors from using tools to modeling lean behaviors requires an emotional component that is critical for success. Our model deploys 12 distinct lean leadership behaviors that support the attainment of easier ways of working, higher levels of quality and faster turnaround times.

  • Inform, Involve & Inspire for better sustainable results. Within the service industry, in 8 months we deployed a series of “kaizen events” through the development of Optimization facilitators. 16 events later, $40 mil in hard & soft savings, 1.2% EBITDA & 35% higher productivity.

Inspiring Our Clients

Influencing Hearts & Minds Globally & Virtually

Expanding Our Global Joint Venture  Partnerships