Ken Rolfes is a management advisor, past corporate officer, senior operations executive and Shingo award winning author recognized for contributing to lean as a business strategy for companies to differentiate themselves to their customers and drive profitable growth. He is President of KDR Associates, a Director of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) and leads the San Diego Business Improvement Consortium.
Ken has served as corporate officer and Senior VP Operations at medical device and industrial products manufacturers as well as an officer and VP Manufacturing of a startup in optical memory systems. He has extensive lean enterprise experience in general management, new product development, cost management systems, turnarounds, acquisitions and divestitures, and various financial transactions including IPO, private equity and venture capital financing.
Ken is co-author of the Shingo Award winning “Lean for the Long Term” published Ap
ril 2015, CRC Press. He holds a BS in Industrial Engineering and a MBA in Finance. He has presented and conducted workshops at various industry national conferences including AME and the Pacific Rim conference, acted as Contributing Editor for Modern Woodworking magazine for many years, and served as an instructor for University Lean Enterprise Programs.
“People and their managers are working so hard to be sure things are done right, that they hardly have time to decide if they are doing the right things.”
—Stephen R. Covey