James Franz
VP Global OperationsToyota Way AcademyJames K. Franz is a Shingo Prize-winning author, executive coach, and globally recognized operational excellence coach with nearly 40 years in industry (approaching his 40th anniversary this July). He brings deep operational experience, having spent 17 years hands-on ("in the trenches") at Toyota and Ford before 23 years leading consulting transformations.
Jim began his career at Toyota in Production Engineering—starting at NUMMI in California, training at Motomachi in Japan, and helping launch Toyota’s $250 million Kentucky paint facility. In 2000, he joined Ford Motor Company, leading a three-year assignment at Ford of Australia to drive global lean leadership across stamping, assembly, casting, and powertrain, while supporting Asia-Pacific suppliers. He later served as a global Lean Advisor for powertrain alignment.
Since 2003, Jim has consulted worldwide (50+ countries) across industries including automotive (Bosch, Benteler, Visteon), energy (Exxon Mobil, Rio Tinto), defense (U.S. Air Force), healthcare (Henry Ford Health System), and manufacturing (Caterpillar, Applied Materials). He co-founded the Toyota Way Academy with Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker in 2008.
His balanced, learn-by-doing approach integrates People, Process, and Tools & Technology—rooted in scientific thinking, rigorous problem-solving, Toyota Supplier Support principles, and Toyota Kata methods—to build sustainable excellence through cross-functional collaboration and workforce development. Jim coaches leaders step-by-step on mission-critical challenges.
A sought-after speaker and educator, he has guest-lectured globally (recently in Dubai) and taught in executive lean programs at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.
Jim holds a BS in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from General Motors Institute (Kettering University) and an MS in Engineering Management from the University of Michigan. He co-authored with Dr. Liker The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement (McGraw-Hill, 2011), which won the Shingo Prize for Operational Research in 2012 and is translated into over a dozen languages.
Operational Excellence: Simple, Hard, and Still Misunderstood
After more than four decades of Lean, Kaizen, and continuous improvement efforts, most organizations don’t suffer from a lack of tools—they suffer fro…After more than four decades of Lean, Kaizen, and continuous improvement efforts, most organizations don’t suffer from a lack of tools—they suffer from an excess of them. This session reframes operational excellence not as a deployment, transformatio…After more than four decades of Lean, Kaizen, and continuous improvement efforts, most organizations don’t suffer from a lack of tools—they suffer from an excess of them. This session reframes operational excellence not as a deployment, transformation, or consulting exercise, but as a leadership discipline that demands clarity of purpose, humility in practice, and sustained daily commitment. Drawing on the evolution of Lean thinking from its U.S.–Japan origins through the Toyota Production System, Toyota Kata, and modern problem‑solving systems, this session examines why common approaches fail, why they persist anyway, and what actually works when leaders stop optimizing activities and start developing people. Delivered by James Franz, co‑founder of the Toyota Way Academy and former Vice President of Global Operations at Toyota Way Consulting, this session is grounded in decades of real‑world application inside complex manufacturing and engineering environments. Trained directly by Toyota in both Japan and the United States, James has led enterprise‑wide transformations across automotive, aerospace, defense, industrial manufacturing, and service organizations. He brings a rare practitioner’s perspective on how operational excellence is sustained through leadership behaviors, standard work, daily problem solving, and people development—not through tool rollouts or short‑lived initiatives. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of why operational excellence is simultaneously simple in concept, difficult in execution, and still widely misunderstood—and what it truly takes to build learning organizations capable of sustained performance in today’s complex manufacturing environments.Show MoreClick the title to see all details
