Thomas Jarapko
Lean Practice Leader
Thomas is the Lean Practice Leader and Professional Business Advisor at the Chicago Manufacturing Center (CMC), where he provides Lean Enterprise consulting services.
He is a speaker on Lean Enterprise topics at APICS, ASQ, Illinois CPA Society, NIST/MEP National Conference, National Plastics Expo 2006, International Manufacturing Technology Show 2006, and at the Association for Manufacturing Technology Forecasting & Global Marketing Conference 2006.
Thomas has 35 years experience in manufacturing and consulting across a wide range of industries such as automotive, food, household durables, cleaning products, furniture, semi-conductors, mining, and dental products. Prior to joining CMC, Thomas was Managing Associate for an international consulting company where he worked with clients across North America both as a manager and consultant in lean manufacturing. He has also worked as an Area Technical Manager for Clorox where he was responsible for managing plant engineering, maintenance, and quality for multiple plants with sales of $250 million. Additionally, he has worked as Manager of Pre-production Engineering for a division of Newell-Rubbermaid, and as a Senior Engineer for a division of Tenneco.
His experience includes consolidating an acquired plant which resulted in a 50.3% IRR, responsible for fixed asset management with a 49.2% ROA, and providing technical and management leadership to maintain the plant workforce headcount at current level while production volume increased 72.2%.
Thomas received his M.B.A. from Northern Illinois University and his B.S. from University of Wisconsin , Stout. Thomas also received Lean Certification from NIST/MEP along with certification as a Professional Business Advisor.
