Kiyoshi "Nate" Furuta

• July 2010 to present: Principal of N Furuta Lean Support Advisory. Provide consulting service to manufacturing companies mainly in the area of human resource asset management while being Advisor to Toyota Boshoku America, and Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc. from 2010 to 2014.
• May 2007 to June 2010: Chairman & CEO of Toyota Boshoku America, Inc. a [...] billion manufacturer of seat systems and interior parts for the automotive industry. Established headquarters for North & South American operations; restructured whole manufacturing operations by converting joint ventures with Lear and JCI into stand-alone wholly owned plants. Added new plants in Mississippi and Indiana.
• January 2005 to April 2007 Senior Vice President, Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America Inc. Responsible for Human Resources, Team Member Development Center, and Information Systems.
• August 2001 to December 2004: EVP Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing Europe. Responsible for Accounting & Finance, Corporate Planning, Human Resources, Production Control, Information System, and Production Engineering. Played instrumental role in turning around Toyota's European operations to achieve profitability for the first time.
• January 2000 to July 2001: Project General Manager, Toyota Motor Corporation. Designed a world class Plant Management System including the Toyota Plant Management Requirement, which has been adopted to evaluate every Toyota plant in the world.
• April 1996 to January 2000: VP Corporate Planning Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, Inc. Member of Start-up Team for newly formed North American Manufacturing Headquarters. Responsible for establishing overall management systems to integrate manufacturing subsidiaries effectively under one umbrella in North America.

Foreword by John Shook
Introduction
Chapter 1: No Problem, No Improvement - NUMMI
Chapter 2: Develop Problem Solvers - Georgetown
Chapter 3: Break Big Problems into Small Problems - Europe
Chapter 4: Endless Improvement - Georgetown Redux
Chapter 5: Your Lean Journey
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Appendices